No One Is More Convincing Than Me—Zeng Qi-xiong and Jiang Yong-xu

Zeng Qi-xiong was raised by his grandma. When he was 22, he was on his way to work at a construction site when he was involved in a traffic accident, suffering a cervical spine injury. Paralyzed from the neck down, his life was derailed in an instant. In order to raise money to treat him, his father, Zeng Ze-qing (曾澤清), sold the house they were living in and their ancestral home. Despite valiant attempts at rehabilitation, Qi-xiong made little progress. He and his father were so distressed at the lack of progress they wanted to take their own lives.

When their money was all gone, Ze-qing moved with his mother and son from Taipei, northern Taiwan, to a rental in Taichung, central Taiwan. That was in 2003, two years after the traffic accident. To help his son acquire a skill, Ze-qing arranged for Qi-xiong to begin learning computer-aided design (CAD). During that time, Ze-qing had to take care of not only his son but also his mother, who was succumbing to dementia. All of this was on top of having to be the breadwinner to support his family. He was burning the candle at both ends.

The family’s situation was eventually brought to Tzu Chi’s attention. Volunteers visited the family to determine how the foundation could help. Sun Yu-gui (孫玉貴), one of the volunteers, had never been assigned to care for a paralyzed person before. She vividly remembered the first time she saw Qi-xiong. He was almost completely immobilized from the neck down. Though he could still move his hands a little, they weren’t strong enough to grip anything. He had to rely on his father for his daily needs, including getting dressed and changing his diapers.

“He is still so young,” Sun thought. “Will he have to spend the rest of his life confined to a bed?” She knew of some spinal injury patients who, after physical therapy, were able to take care of themselves. She hoped she could help the young man rebuild his life. Ze-qing, however, didn’t take well to the volunteers’ intentions to help. He felt his family could get by on their own strength and so he turned down the foundation’s offer of financial aid. He told the volunteers his son had been learning CAD for some time, and that as long as he could find work, he’d have no problem supporting himself. Later, when the volunteers came to their house for a visit, he’d leave to avoid having to see or talk to them.

Sun and her fellow volunteers persisted though. They kept up their visits and continued to show their care for Qi-xiong. Their persistence eventually won the father over. A visit on a Chinese New Year’s Eve, an important time for family gatherings, moved Ze-qing so much that he stopped leaving his home to avoid them. He still refused to accept Tzu Chi’s financial assistance, but he had at least opened his heart to the volunteers’ care and support.

Sun’s son happened to work in the field of computer-aided design, so she asked him if he could give Qi-xiong any help. He gifted Qi-xiong some CAD tools and even promised to sub-contract work out to him. Qi-xiong worked hard and successfully obtained four professional licenses. Sadly, his hands were still too weak to manipulate the computer input devices required for CAD, so he eventually was forced to give up trying to make a living in this field.

Sun felt really bad for Qi-xiong, that a possible way out had turned out to be a dead end for him. She racked her brains trying to think of how else she could help him.

One time, she and her fellow volunteers went to visit the family again. They repeatedly knocked on the door but received no response, even though they seemed to hear some indistinct sounds made by Qi-xiong’s grandmother through the door. Anxious that something untoward might have happened, they felt they had no choice but to ask a locksmith to come and open the door for them. After they entered, they learned that Ze-qing had passed out after throwing up blood, but had eventually regained consciousness and left for the hospital on his own, leaving Qi-xiong and his grandma shut up inside. Now Sun became deeply worried about the family. She urged Qi-xiong to face up to the fact that his father wouldn’t be able to take care of him forever.

Ze-qing was diagnosed with a duodenal ulcer. He was also at the time suffering from a medical condition called facial nerve paralysis. Qi-xiong had a rude awakening. He decided that he really needed to pull himself together and work harder to become independent instead of continuing to be a burden on his father. He picked up the pace of his physical therapy, and eventually he was able to turn himself and get out of bed unassisted.

Taking a suggestion made by friends, he decided to give painting a try. Since his hands were powerless to wield a paintbrush, he practiced by holding a brush or palette knife in his mouth. Ruan Li-ying (阮麗英), a painting teacher, started by teaching him the basics. A lot of sweat and blood was involved in Qi-xiong’s artistic journey. Without the use of his arms, he had to use brushes with extra-long handles so that he would not have to lean his neck and upper body too far forward to reach the canvas. His father used a bamboo chopstick to make a brush longer, but when Qi-xiong bit on it and turned it to paint, it sometimes pricked his mouth, causing lesions.

Qi-xiong kept at it and didn’t give up, but despite his best efforts, he began to wonder whether all his work was worth it. He wondered if he even had a talent for painting. His works always looked dark and cheerless.

Sun thought of enlisting the help of a famous mouth painter named Xie Kun-shan (謝坤山). She hoped he could give Qi-xiong some encouragement and share a few pointers with him. At her invitation, Xie called on Qi-xiong, and followed up with two more visits. He shared his life story with Qi-xiong, taught him to distinguish between warm and cool colors, and suggested he hone his skills by drawing still lifes. Qi-xiong forged ahead, and his hard work paid off. Eight years after he began painting, he was admitted into the Association of Mouth and Foot Painting Artists of the World, and began receiving a regular subsidy for buying pigments.