The world of Tzu Chi March-April 2022 (Vol.140)

2022 • 04 30 pecial Feature families in the remote indigenous village are descendants from Chinese and seafaring indigenous people’s inter-marriages. Thus, they, too, celebrate CNY. Besides full car loads of goods, including rice, mandarin oranges, cooking oil, CNY cookies and Jing-Si gift packs, the volunteers also ordered five vegetarian dishes from a restaurant, for the care recipient families to enjoy. To mark the festive joy, a volunteer even dressed up as the God of Fortune to bring joy to them ahead of the CNY. People here have their houses above seawater, standing on stilts. During high tides, they have to wade through the water to get home. Chu Ah Wing is one among the five families that the volunteers visited. He is a fisherman with four children—three of whom are schooling while the youngest is an infant below one. As the northeast monsoon was raging, the catch in the sea was largely affected. Worse still, the engine of his fishing boat had broken down. So, he could only rely on shore crabbing for a living. Life had been pretty hard. He was thankful for the festive pack from Tzu Chi, which would allow his family to have a proper CNY celebration. The appealing vegetarian dishes that the volunteers brought were also delicious. Chu reckoned that vegetarian food is a healthy choice, whereas excessive consumption of seafood would burden the body. Hence, he would opt for a balanced diet with less meat. He wished for a safe, happy and better year ahead for his family. A volunteer dressed up as the God of Fortune to spread festive cheer to the indigenous villagers. [Photo by Tsze Hut Sea]