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Activity Theme: |
Interview the founder of Yu Jen—Father Han |
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Place: |
School History Room |
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Time : |
November 9th, 2007, Friday, 13:30pm~14:30pm |
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People: |
Lin,Shuang-Chu、Wang,Chia-Yu、Lin,Yi-Yun、Chan,Ya-Ting、 |
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Content: |
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How are you, Father Han? We are from the team attending this year International Schools CyberFair. Father Han, because you are one of the founders of Yu Jen Catholic Elementary School and you seldom came back to Yu Jen today, we would like to ask you some questions which can make us understand the story of the construction of our school. |
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Wang, Chia-Yu asked: |
Father Ma, What's your full name in Chinese and English? Could you sign for us? |
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Father Han answered: |
My last name is Han and first name is Te-Li. Han, Te-Li sounds like my English name Heydrickx which is Dutch. |
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Lin, Shuang-Chu asked: |
Do you think learning Chinese is difficult since you speak Chinese fluently? What other languages do you speak? |
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Father Han answered: |
Chinese is difficult. No matter which country you stay, learning foreign languages is not easy. I think that Chinese is much more difficult than other languages because there are many Chinese characters to remember and those characters are complex. It is not easy to pronounce Chinese sounds correctly, so it is hard for us to learn Chinese. If we have persistence in learning languages and study hard, we can learn it. I come from a small country—Belgium, which is smaller than Taiwan. People in our country speak three languages: people in the North speak Dutch, those in the South speak French, and those in the Central speak German. When we study in high school, we need to learn several languages, including Dutch, French, German, English, Latin, and Greek. We have been familiar with many languages since we studied in high school. I learned Chinese when I went to China and then I learned Italian, so I speak eight languages. |
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Lin, Yi-Yun asked: |
Why did you want to build a school? |
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Father Han answered: |
It was 1959 when I came to Taichung. I had stayed in Taiwan for 2 years and had learned Chinese. Then I worked at a church and served in the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) of Teacher Association on the Guang-Fu Road. Principal Shih, Li-Lan was in YMCA and I knew her there. I am very happy to get along with those students and work with them. This is my dream and I discussed the dream with my friends Rev. Toom Maes and Rev. Stuck Ivo and we wanted to build a Youth Center or an elementary school for children. At that time, there are Viator Catholic High School and Stella Matutina Girl's High School in Taichung but no Catholic elementary here, so we decided to build a elementary school. |
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Lin, Yi-Yun asked: |
Could you share the story of building our school with us? |
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Father Han answered: |
We started to buy a land. Taichung at that time was different from Taichung now. Before, there were few houses around here, the church opposite to our school was not built yet, and roads were not constructed as well. Moreover, Shuang-Shih Road was a lane and Hsing-Chin Road beside our school was a lane as well. I rode scooter to look for a good land and the price of land was cheaper than now. However, we did not have much money. One day I passed here and found a village behind the land. Because many of my friends lived in the village, I went to look for a land. The price was 250 dollars square feet or 1500 dollars square feet which was too expensive to buy. Then we found a land where our school is located. The land belonged to Fong-Yuan Bus Transportation Cooperation which sold the land for 600 dollars square feet. Then we started to prepare money for the land. However, our friends in Taiwan did not have enough money and our church did not have much money. Later, I started to write letters to friends in Belgium to ask their help. We wrote thousands of letters and signed on each letter and mailed to our family, neighbors, relatives, and friends. We told them that we wanted to build a school and if they can donate some money. Some friends were rich, so they denote more; some were not rich, but they also denoted some because they liked our job and wanted to support us. I told them, ‘Donate according to how much you have.’ |
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Chang, Kai-Hsiang asked: |
What do you have the impression of Taichung when you came here for the first time? Were you afraid or happy? |
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Father Han answered: |
I was not afraid when I came to Taiwan for the first time. Because I wanted to visit China since I was 6th grade, I was not afraid but very happy. When I arrived at Taiwan, I lived in HsinChu and had lived for 2 years. I think that HsinChu is a good place but there is always big wind blowing. Then I moved to Taichung. The weather in Taichung is great. It is not too hot and too humid, so very comfortable to live here. Therefore, I had lived in Taichung for 5 years. |
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Lin, Yi-Yun asked: |
Could you tell us the story of ‘the Elementary School built by Stamps’? |
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Father Han answered: |
We wrote to several elementary schools in Belgium and asked those children who were at the same age of you to raise funds for us. After those children donated the money to our school, I mailed stamps to them in order to appreciate their help. Therefore, we asked our friends in Taiwan to collect stamps for us. Our friends in a student association brought their stamps to us and I collected those stamps. If the stamps from the student association were not enough, we would collect stamps by buying used stamps. We collected around ten thousands of stamps which we put into small bags to send to those who donated money to our school. The amount of the stamps we sent was according to the amount of the money they donated. After several years, we got enough funds we needed and raise around two millions NT dollars and then bought the land for building the school. The land includes the one of the church opposite here. |
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Chen, Yu-Jou asked: |
While raising funds for building the school, why do you want to thank those donators by sending them stamps? |
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Father Han answered: |
Although the price of the land was cheap at that time, we still did not have enough money. In order to collect enough money, we wrote over millions of letters to my hometown Belgium. I told students of elementary schools in Belgium, ‘If you donated us one hundred, we will send you stamps.’ Then many people donated money to us and bought the land. |
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Chen, Chu-En asked: |
Who else join the plan of building our school? |
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Father Han answered: |
Father Toom Maes and FatherStuck Ivo. |
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Chao, Yi-Ching asked: |
Do you like the new building? What is the difference between the new building and the old building? |
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Father Han answered: |
I like the new building because it is a beautiful building. The building of Yu Jen is different from those of other schools because it is designed by our principal, teachers, and directors and its shape is very special. I thought that the land was big enough, but now with the development of our school, the land seems too small. Although there are many buildings in our campus, the campus is still more beautiful than the old building. The big difference between the new building and the old building is that the style of the new building is artistic and beautiful. Inside the building, there is a small Holy Hall (Ching-Hsin Hall) which is located in the middle of the building. Holy hall is very important for a church because we pray in the place. Therefore, the design of the new building is great. |
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Lee, Shu-Mei asked: |
Do you live in Taichung or Belgium now? Do you like the environment here? |
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Father Han answered: |
I live in Belgium now. I like the environment very much and feel very happy because I can see the school becomes so beautiful. |
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Huang, Yu-Hsuan asked: |
Do you like Chinese food? What do you like most? What do you usually eat in Belgium? |
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Father Han answered: |
I like Chinese food very much. I usually eat rice and like noodles very much, especially beef noodle soup. I like other food as well. In Belgium, I usually have bread, ham, and coffee for breakfast; vegetables, meat, potato, and French fries for lunch. Dinner is similar to lunch. I use fork to eat in Belgium and will use chop sticks here. |
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Wang, Tzu-Wei asked: |
Thanks very much for Father's accepting our interview. Could you give us some encouragement? |
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Father Han answered: |
I am very happy that I come to Yu Jen Elementary. I have been here for many times and every time I can see principal. I feel so touched when I meet you. Students who studied here twenty and thirty years ago grew up already. Time flies. I cannot believe that I have been Taiwan for 50 years. The encouragement I want to give you is: everyone needs to make use of time because life is short. In addition, Sisters and parents take care of you very much and you have to be grateful to them. You have to learn to be grateful. In the society, if a person owns more much, he will be more selfish. A good man must learn to thank his/her family and friends. |
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Today Father came to Grade Six Class Trust and everyone provided many opinions. Later, Father Han started to tell stories and let everyone understand the story of him and the school. Father began to introduce himself. His home is located 65 kilometers of the capital. Belgium is a small country and smaller than Taiwan—namely, Taiwan has an area of 35,801 km2 and Belgium has an area of 30,528 km2. Belgium has three main geographical regions: north-west, central, and south-east. People in the north region speak Dutch and people in the south region speak French. So we speak many languages. We learned Dutch, French, and Latin in the first year of junior high school and speak Greek at home and learned German and English in the third year of junior high school. So I learned 6 languages in junior high school. Then I learned Italian and Chinese. At this time, everyone in the class started to discuss enthusiastically because we thought Father is amazing. We also asked if Father speak Taiwanese and he answered in Taiwanese, ‘Yes, I do.’ Father speaks 9 languages! Then Father kept telling his story. Learning language is very important. Every language is not easy to learn but if you keep learning hard and practicing, you will learn it. Don't afraid to make mistakes in speaking because you will get improvement after correcting mistakes. At this time Mr. Hsiao asked, ‘Father, here are some pictures, if you know these pictures, please explain to us.’ Father was shocked because those pictures are very old. Father started to tell another story. This is the land of the school. It's teacher's turn to ask question. Mr. Hsiao asked if they started to build the school right after buying the land. Father answered, ‘No. We planed for 4 years. We bought the land in 1960 and held broke ground ceremony. We started to construct the school in 1967.’ |
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Data arranged by Lin,Yi-Yun