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Home>Service> Awardees of Fervent Global Love of Lives Award> 19th Fervent Global Love of Lives Award 2016> ALS Pianist——Yi-Wen Peng
ALS Pianist——Yi-Wen Peng
[In hope‧In Love of Piano]
Tears are all I have
Even if I can move only my eyes, I will still cherish each day that is so precious.
Even if I can move only my eyes, I will live through everyday strong and brave.
Even if I can move only my eyes, I will enrish each day with joy.
No life is perfect, only gratitude endures.
—Yi-Wen Peng
A life of music‧a pianist that will not be frozen
        Yi-Wen Peng, a second girl born in a family of ordinary civil servants in Taiwan in 1960, came to learn music as a result of her father’s influence, who was keen about music. She got a piano as Christmas gift when she was ten, thus embarking on the road of music ever since. She used to study in Europe and then returned to Taiwan for teaching in schools at all levels and governmental institutions. As a teacher who encourages the young to play their music talents, she has a large number of students across the whole Taiwan.
        When she was struck by APL in 2006, she was quite negative for some time. However, she finally got out of complaints and distress, and wrote five dairies including “Silent Sky”, “Vast Sea”, “Smile at Life”, “I Can Only Move My Eyes”, “Vast Grassland” on her bed with the assistance of communicating tools in just three years. They are declarations that she would never “be trapped by distress, sadness and pain”, nor would she commit suicide. Instead, she chooses to accept the fact and fight the disease with confidence. Also she donated her beloved piano to the Praying Room of Xiaozhong Hospital, where the piano can be played forever. 
        Yi-Wen Peng also encourages her husband Da-cheng Hsu to replace him to engaging in the Taiwan Motor Neuron Disease Association, an institution helping other patients and their families to get out of troubles of their life and offering video recording services for various activities.
        The strong character of Yi-Wen Peng is just a reflection of the Hakkas people, who always persist to the last minute and never give up. With hope and love of piano in her heart, and the desire to pass it onto others, she is truly an APL pianist. Among the 2459 nominees for the medal, Yi-Wen Peng has been award the 19th Global Fervent Love of Lives Medal by the Chou Ta-kuan Foundation.
A Christmas gift from father inspired her to be a pianist
        When Yi-Wen Peng was 10, her father asked her what she wanted for Christmas gift, and she bravely said that she would like a piano. She thought her father would refuse her request, but he said yes though hesitated for a moment. The next day, he bought her a piano by instalment payment, paving way for her career as a pianist.
        As she was not from a rich family, her father sent her to a youth service agency to study piano as it charged the least. She was very lucky to meet her most important piano teacher- Hsiu-chen Chen, who guided her all the way of learning piano, and introduced many teachers to her so that she could grow up so quickly. She is still very grateful for her.
        Her father never left her on the way to learn piano. As he himself loved music, he would take notes along her and served as her translator when she was taking piano lessons, and urged her to keep practicing. When she was going to Vienna for further study, her father secretly learned German so that he could write letters to her in simple German.
In her brave adventure to Europe, she met the love of her life
        After graduating from Hwa Kang Arts School in 1982, Yi-Wen set off alone for Vienna in Austria, the capital of music and a sacred land she had been longing for. Though she went there with a big dream, she was filled with nostalgia in the early days. She cried a lot and freaked even the teacher taking care of her. Not knowing what to do, the teacher sent a telegraph to her father in Taiwan, asking him to persuade her in returning to Taiwan. Fortunately, her father kept encouraging her, and she finally got out of homesickness.  
        Yi-Wen was very busy in Vienna. As language was a barrier for her, she had to learn German at a local Goethe language school in the first semester while taking one piano class. In her spare time, she had to do some part-time jobs to earn the tuition. In the meantime, she met Da-cheng (her future husband) in a party for Taiwan students in Vienna. He was here to study interior design. They soon fell in love. Though Da-cheng was transferred to German to study architecture a year later, they kept in contact on the phone.
        Two years later, as the school no longer offered piano practices and it was pretty hard to find a part-time job in Vienna, she couldn’t afford the fee for renting a piano, and had to transfer to German Academy of Arts which offered more subsidies for overseas students. She kept promoting her piano techniques, and also had more time to spend with Da-cheng who was already in Germany. During her years of studying in Europe, her piano skill was improved a lot, paving way for her returning to Taiwan for teaching. More importantly, she found the love of her life in Europe-Da-cheng.
She returned to Taiwan to teach piano, and her students are spreading across the schools
        Yi-Wen has been teaching in Taiwan for over 20 years, including primary and secondary schools such as Taipei Municipal Dun-hua Elementary School, Taipei Municipal Guting Junior High School, New Taipei Municipal Jhanghe Junior High School, Taipei Municipal Zhong Zheng High School, National Wu-Ling Senior High School, Tainan Junior College of Home Economics, Tunghai University, Hualien Teachers College, Chinese Culture University, etc. She also teaches or played piano for institutions. Though most of the time it is just a part-time job, she insists to understand the inner world of students apart from being patient and teaching students individually. She likes to encourage and guide her students. Therefore, many students learning from her are quite successful in their careers, many of whom have received further education in Europe and America.
        She is also paying much attention to disadvantaged students. While teaching in Chinese Culture University, she used to tutor several students with sight disability. She found these students meticulous despite their disabilities in sight. Therefore, she asked them to take a recorder to the class and record what she played so that they could have a general idea about the song. She would record the song by right and left hand separately at speeds from slow, moderate to fast. The students were required to take the recordings home for further study. A week later, she would correct how they used their fingers, touched the keys and played the songs, their expressions as well as the style. Such a teaching method from easy to difficult step by step is well recognized by the students, and facilitates the relationship between her and the students. Many of them would reveal their secrets to her. She used to say she is very proud of her students, and even likes teaching more than playing piano on the stage.
Unexpected arrival of the disease made her life a mess
        In the autumn of 2006 when Yi-wen and her husband went to mainland China for travel, she already found that her limbs were a little out of control. And at the end of the year when she played piano for the Fo Guang Choir, she already couldn’t control her hands, and she couldn’t walk stably. It was till April 2007 when she failed to stand up in toilet during serving as a judge for Chinese Culture University’s college entrance examination did she realize the seriousness of the disease. By the end of that year, she could not speak clearly, nor could she teach in private class. In the end, she had to quit all her jobs.
        In order to treat the disease, she almost visited every traditional Chinese and western hospital in Taiwan between 2008 and 2009, and tried the folk therapies including traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture, massage, point press, feet massage. Despite all these efforts, her disease was not alleviated.
        She had a hard time receiving all these treatment, and her daily life was also in a mess. As she cannot move her hands and legs, she could not take care of herself at all. She needs the family and servants to assist her, and often fell on the ground as she couldn’t stand stably, thus hurting herself and worrying her family. All these dragged her into depression as she cannot accept who she had become.
        In April 2010, she was admitted to Taipei City Hospital Zhongxiao Branch as she was short of breath and malnourished, where she was injected with nutritional agents. Before long she was hospitalized, she had an accident in which some foreign staff got stuck between her bronchi and esophagus. Under such an emergency, the nurse forced open her month, breaking several of her teeth. She was sent to ICU for emergency treatment, which turned out to be a surgery in which she had tracheostomy and nasogastric tube. She had lived in hospital ever since then.
She writes stories with her eyes and passes on love with her piano
        She has already lived in hospital for around five years. Though the room of hospital is not as comfortable as her home, her families, teachers and friends as well as students come to visit her from time to time. Their encouragement warms her lot, helping her get out of depressions from this incurable disease. With the help of friends and communicating tools, she begins to write dairies with her eyes, which have amounted to five volumes, including “Silent Sky”, “Vast Sea”, “Smile at Life”, “I Can Only Move My Eyes”, “Vast Grassland”. She hopes these stories would inspire other readers as well as encourage other patients to defeat disease.
        During her hospitalization, there are sometimes social institutions or people visiting her and other patients in the Praying Room. Yi-wen, who used to like quietness, is always patient with their requests and interacts with the visitors on behalf of the patients, and assists all circles to understand the real situations of APL patients. In the meantime, she also encourages her husband Da-cheng to replace her to take part in Taiwan Motor Neuron Disease Association. By recording videos of various activities, she hopes she could share with more patients the love from her husband.
        On her sick bed, she remains a fan of music. Apart from listening to Classical Taiwan Station regularly, she also donated her beloved piano to the Taipei City Hospital Zhongxiao Branch so that the piano can be played regularly in the room of the hospital, giving the patients and families in the hospital a warm and comfortable afternoon. More importantly, she is still keen on the development of young pianists, and wishes them to have more opportunities to perform on the stage. In the end of 2014, Lang Lang, a renowned international pianist came to the Praying Room at the request of Peng-wei Yuan, also an APL patient, to perform with the piano donated by Yi-wen and encourage all the APL patients.
        Despite that APL is yet incurable, Yi-wen is getting out of depression and showing her boldness and courage toward life. Not only is she a model for people trapped in troubles, she is also thinking about to contribute to society by mobilizing more social forces to engage in campaigns and touch and encourage other lives. All these efforts have only one purpose, that is, life is invaluable and love is everywhere.