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Home>Service> Awardees of Fervent Global Love of Lives Award> 12th Fervent Global Love of Lives Award 2009> Angel breaking through the Mountain - Cheng Mei-Chu
Breaking free of the cocoon of difficulties
      Cheng Mei-Chu, the pearl of Penghu , was diagnosed with Congenital Ichthyosiform Erythroderma, a rare disease. Although her external appearance was damaged, she takes on life's challenges with optimism. After graduating Makong Senior High School at 22, she began drawing and her entrepreneurship at the same time. She has been a professional artist for 17 years with 27 successful personal exhibitions. In addition, she graduated National Open University at the age of 43 and got accepted into Da Yeh University Graduate Institute of Plastic Art with her excellent test scores. She aspires to complete her Master's degree at 45 and Doctor's at 50. Finally, she desires to establish an art gallery with the name “White Bird” to give back the local folks at Penghu as well as provide an attraction for domestic tourists and tourists from abroad. She aspires to be like Gauguin, who gave back to Tahiti and the tourists from all over the world.
      Cheng Mei-Chu was born on Penghu , the island covered with blanket flowers on July 1, 1966. She did not wear a wig as a child. Upon first meeting her, people could not really see anything wrong with her appearance; she had a small head and her facial organs were all in the right places. However, with a closer look, people noticed that everything was not quite right – she had rough and wrinkly skin and an extra digit on her right hand. She simply looked different from others. For the fear of peers bullying her daughter for her looks, Mei-Chu did not let her go to school.
 
 
Physical obstacles prevented her from learning to draw and many difficulties in studying
      During her childhood, Mei-Chu's hearing and sight were weak and she could not speak clearly, which caused her many difficulties academically. Her eyes were ultra sensitive and could not stand strong wind and glaring sunlight. They were especially sensitive to season changes and during those times they became watery. People mistook that for emotional sensitivity and some thought she was a cry baby; the real reason was because she did not have eye lids to protect her eyes. Therefore, it was dangerous for her if someone were to cover her eyes from behind. The worse part for her was the 9-month North-East monsoon and 4-month glaring sunny days. As a child, she had to suffer daily and try to avoid the wind or the sun. But she kept moving and in term, took control of her destiny.
 
 
After attending school, Mr. Chen Ying-ming encourage her to draw and she received Award of Excellence in the National Children Drawing Competition and silver medal in the 10 th International Children's Drawing Competition of Japan
      Life looked bleak for her until she turned 10; she drew a water buffalo and impressed her aunt greatly. Her aunt exclaimed: “Genius! She's a talented child!” That's when Mei-Chu was sent to school. At school, what her mother worried did happen, but they did not affect Mei-Chu's optimistic outlook too much. At 4 th grade, a new teacher came. Mr. Chen Ying-ming gathered some students with talent in drawing and led them on field trips for drawing. Under his guidance, Mei-Chu received awards in Penghu and even received the Award of Excellence in the National Children Drawing Competition and silver medal in the 10 th International Children's Drawing Competition of Japan with her work titled “Zhong Zhi Chen Chen”.
 
 
As a star in junior high – academic excellence, exceptional painter and being the best runner in school
      After graduating from Yi Meng Elementary School, a country-style small school of 300, Mei-Chu went to Makong Junior High School , Mei-Chu, in a different school district. She surrounded by people curious about her appearance and began learning to decipher people's attitude, warm or cold, as well as academic and other kinds of competitions and so on. These were the new things that Mei-Chu had to learn. Fortunately, she was not rejected by her peers probably due to the fact that her talent, academic success as well as athletic prowess gained her some reputation. Without any hesitation, she answered questions, such as the reason for her facial appearance. Actually, the advantage of answering questions straight up is that the more people know about the answers, the less likely there will be any more people asking.
 
 
Her looks caused rejection and segregation
      The summer before her first year at junior high, Mei-Chu saw an ad of an art studio looking for students. With much joy, she told her family that she wanted to study drawing. The teacher was rather dumbfounded upon meeting Mei-Chu and got her a secluded space with dim lighting and told her to do some sketches alone. After the class, the teacher called and expressed that he was afraid that Mei-Chu could scare students away. Mei-Chu was abandoned.
 
 
The death of her sister, her biggest encourager for painting, severely impacted her will to draw
      During the first few months of junior high, Mei-Chu practiced and discovered that she could use calligraphy brush to paint portraits with high contrast and she could paint the facial features of the characters well with few simple strokes. Her older sister gave her a great deal of emotional support and helped her to fully immerse in drawing. As fate would have it, her older sister died in a car accident during her second year of junior high. After that, her family moved from Makong City back to the countryside. From that point on, Mei-Chu lost her desire for painting and almost lost her talent during the last year of junior high and most of her high school years.
 
 
A special mentor's encourage became the turning point
      After finishing the college entrance exams, Mei-Chu encountered a major change in life. She saw light in the darkness thanks to Wang Hsu-si, the father of one of her junior high school classmates. During the summer of 1990, Mei-Chu purchased some art books and played with paper sculpting for 2 months as well as colored pencil drawings. Next, she tried her hand at water coloring painting on full-sized papers and her skills became more and more refined with a sense of realism and strong spirit. At last, Mei-Chu found the confidence she lost and decided to pick up the painting brush once more. She called January of 1991 her beginning year of creativity in painting.
 
 
Opened drawing classes, lottery shop and comic book store, but decided to be a painter for life
      In 1999, she opened her own class for teaching adults painting. But the lack of freedom in time scheduling made her tired and she dissolved her class before starting her travels in Europe in July 2000. Her mother and brother sponsored her during her first year of painting career and she held her first personal water color exhibition the next year. Her works were bought by many and provided enough income for 2 years of basic living and buying materials for creative endeavors.
      However, life has its twists and turns. In January 2002, she started selling lottery tickets. During 2003 and 2004, her mother got ill and died and in order to make a living, she started her own business and opened White Bird Comic and Novels Bookstore. During that period, her amount of creations decreased until she stopped altogether. She started painting again in 2004 and held successful exhibitions in Penghu and Kaohsiung . In 2001, after her first personal exhibition was held at National Dr. Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall, she wanted to have concentrated efforts for exhibition in Taipei , but pressure in life interrupted her progress. Finally, in 2005, she was able to exhibit at the Memorial Hall again and realize her dream. She started again in her journey by extending her dreams from the past and she decided to face life with a more positive attitude.
 
 
Travels in Europe became the trigger point for realizing her dream
      Mei-Chu received a great deal of support from different circles. Although her English was terrible, with her determination for art, she went to tour Europe alone. She aspires to complete her Master's degree at 45 and Doctor's at 50. Finally, she desires to establish an art gallery with the name “White Bird” to give back the local folks at Penghu as well as provide an attraction for domestic tourists and tourists from abroad. She aspires to be like Gauguin, who gave back to Tahiti and the tourists from all over the world.