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Home>Service> Awardees of Fervent Global Love of Lives Award> 19th Fervent Global Love of Lives Award 2016> Little Armless Painter-Yu-Shu Lin
Little Armless Painter-Yu-Shu Lin
[To paint life with feet instead of hands]
         There was a dear angel travelling around the world to learn the pains of mankind; whenever he found someone in need, he would surely give him a helping hand. However, the angle had only two hands while there were so many people in need, he had to borrow hands from another angel; he was so busy that he forgot to return the hands to that angle. Luckily the hands are still with the dear angel, who is working hard to do goods to people. What’s more, the angle who lent his hands has gained a pair of capable feet, on which he could not only walk and run, but also take care of himself. How wonderful the feet are.
— Mrs. Lin (Yu-Shu’s mother)
 
To learn from En-dian Yang, a painter who paints with his mouth and feet
        Yu-Shu Lin was born armless, but it didn’t stop her family from loving him. He was not only trained to use his feet instead of hands to take care of himself, he was also sent to school at the age of three so that he could get in touch with more friends instead of hiding from others. On holidays, his parents took him to activities or painting competitions, or even perform on stage so that he could fit in and display himself in front of others.
        Painting is another life of Yu-Shu. The credit goes to Mr. Guang-nan Fan and Mr.Le-sheng Tsa, who keeps guiding and encouraging Yu-Shu in painting. He keeps working hard to live up to others’ expectations, and dreams of becoming a painter like En-dian Yang, who paints with his mouth and feet and return his love to the society. He hopes to prove himself a “little armless painter” who paints the love of life with his feet. Among the 2459 nominees for the medal, Yu-Shu Lin has been award the 19th Global Fervent Love of Lives Medal by the Chou Ta-kuan Foundation.
Born with multiple disabilities and learnt to walk at the age of three
        Yu-Shu Lin has graduated from Penghu County Magong Elementary School and is going to study at Wen Guang Junior High School. Since he was born together with his sister, he was found armless and managed to survive thanks to rescues of the doctor; however, as new-born babies rely heavily on hands for their movement, he was diagnosed with severe development retardation when he was around five months old. Besides, he was also underdeveloped in lungs, and suffered wryneck and scoliosis. Luckily, he had a twin sister to serve as a contrast and stepped on the tough road of recovery.
        So Mrs. Lin, his mother took him to the hospital for rehabilitation, and studied rehabilitation from a therapist so that she could help him with the therapy when they didn’t go to the hospital. He had to train his muscle strength for at least one hour a day, mostly with the help of a treatment ball which was used for enhancing muscle strength. Mrs. Lin often said Yu-Shu was growing up on a ball. As he had no hands, he had to have greater power than other children so as to sit stably. With the ball therapy, he once gained two abdominal muscles when he was a child.
        Since he was young, Ting-you, his sister, was his best friend. Wherever his sister was, there he was. It’s just that Yu-Shu had to move his hips by two legs-to crawl slowly ahead. To help Yu-Shu learn how to walk, the family tied him to the standing frame to learn how to stand; he was tied to the standing frame, unable to move a little bit. There was no freedom, and such training usually lasted for an hour every time. Therefore, it was the most horrible therapy for him. Every time when he was tied to the standing frame, he often cried to sleep, and when he woke up he would cry again. Finally when he was around three, he learned to walk. In the memory of Mrs. Lin, Yu-Shu walked from the living room to the gate of the house through the garage for the first time by himself. It took him around 40 minutes, and he finished the whole process in tears. His twin sister needed only 1 minute to do so.
The angel didn’t borrow his feet
        As he was growing up, Yu-Shu began to ask why he didn’t have hands, and when would his hands grow. A priest answered his first question, telling him that an angel borrowed his hands but forgot to return them, so he didn’t have hands. Mrs. Lin wanted her son to understand that he had to train his feet to replace hands. Being educated in this way, he grew up with the perception in mind. Besides, Mrs. Lin wanted her son to be mentally healthy.
        When he was young, Yu-Shu was very shy. He hid from everyone and never played with children of his age. To help him curb the barrier, his parents sent him to kindergarten after he learnt how to walk. In the beginning, he was rejected by several kindergartens, which disappointed his family. Luckily, Mr. Kun-hsiung Su, former mayor of Magong City learnt about Yu-Shu’s rehabitation, and arranged him to go to Magong City Kindergarn. And he got a lot of care because of Mr. Kun-hsiung Su.
        What’ more, Ms. Mei-ying Huang, teacher of Yu-Shu at the kindergarten, also had a son with special situations. Because of this, Ms. Huang paid special attention to him, and shared with Mrs. Lin the life of Yu-Shu at school as well as her experience in nurturing kids with special situations. With these help, Yu-Shu began to open up to the outside world!
He learnt to take care of himself and grasp every opportunity
        In order to enable Yu-Shu to live independently like other kids, his family gave him a series of trainings. When he learnt to sit stably, a role-play game was introduced, in which he was trained to use spoon with his feet, and eat biscuits with feet. When he could do the things above, he was trained to eat by himself. He remembered the first time when he used the spoon with his feet to eat, he felt it so hard, and didn’t understand why Mom stopped feeding him. He cried for over half an hour during that dinner, and in the end, he had to finish the meal all by himself as he had no other options. So he learnt to use spoon with feet to eat before he learnt to walk. After that, he became keen in learning to wear clothes, socks and shoes with feet.
        Actually he was forced to take care of himself in many cases. In the first year of primary school, he could almost do these daily things by himself, including wearing trousers after peeing. But there was one thing he wouldn’t do- to clean his bottom with feet after pooping. Once in a mathematic class, Yu-Shu wanted to poop when the class began only five minutes ago. As they were still having a class, the teacher asked a classmate to help him. Yet the boy went away to play and didn’t return to the classroom, leaving him on the toilet crying for a whole class. It was only when the class was over and he heard familiar voices of his classmates did he asked for help. He cried to his mother when he went back home, feeling so hurt. And he said he would never go to school. His mother didn’t shed tears with him. Instead, when he was a little better, she told him that if he didn’t learn to clean his bottom with feet, it would happen again. Because of this, he was determined to learn to use feet to fetch tissue to clean his bottom!
He took part in the graduation trip to challenge himself
        In the spring semester, there was a warm discussion on graduation trip among the fifth-grade students. Yu-Shu also expected to take part. In the first semester of their sixth-grade year, the school investigated their willingness for the trip. Though teachers expressed their concern, Yu-Shu still told Mom that he would like to have a free graduation trip with classmates without company of parents.
        However, Yu-Shu had to overcome several problems if he wanted to take the trip alone, including taking shower and dressing himself, eating outside, packing his luggage, etc. The ability to take care of himself, reflected by the three problems, cannot be acquired within a short time. Luckily, he was trained like a normal kid since young, and could do basically these things with feet in his unique way. When he was at home, he could take shower, wash his head, dry his body, wear the clothes and trouser all with feet, and then asked his family to tide them up.
        As to eating, he already had applied in school a set of table and chair in line with his height, and the chair could be adjusted to his needs. The teachers worried that he would have troubles taking meals outside the school as the set of table and chair was not available. Luckily when he was eating at home, he used the same table and chair as his family. So it wouldn’t be a problem for him to eat outside.
        As to luggage, he first came up with a funny solution, this is, to clamp the pull rod of the suitcase with his chin and neck and advance it. In case of stairs, he could retract the pull rod and kick the suitcase down. Fortunately, the teachers had already divided the class into groups consisting of five students, and the group where Yu-Shu was in helped him a lot during the trip. With their help and support, Yu-Shu had a very pleasant experience in this trip, which he still enjoyed for a long time after returning home. 
        Back to the days when he was in the first grade of primary school, the president and director of teaching affairs had offered to apply a big keyboard for him in the computer class as well as an assistant for him. Considering that he must train himself both at home and in school, he didn’t accept the kind offer of school. Those trainings proved very helpful now.
        The graduation trip gave Yu-Shu and his classmates a chance to learn; a short trip away from home tested his ability to live alone as he had to do everything by himself. He also learnt to ask for help if there were things he couldn’t do; and his classmates, by living with Yu-Shu all day long, learnt more about his difficulties and were more willingly to help him.
I still have feet, and I can paint the love of colourful life
        Yu-Shu started to paint when his mother sent him to learn painting in order to train the flexibility of his fee. He was very talented in painting and got a lot of help from teachers. He first learnt from Mr Guang-nan Fan the painting skills, and in an award ceremony of painting competition, he met Mr. Le-sheng Tsai, President of Zhong Shan Elementary School. He asked if Yu-Shu was interested in ink painting because before the ceremony, Mr. Qian-fa Wang, a former magistrate, told Mr. Tsai that Yu-Shu was interested in painting, and hoped Mr. Tsai to guide Yu-Shu in his painting skills if possible. Because of this opportunity, Mr. Tsai became his teacher.
        As Yu-Shu started to learn painting as early as he was five, and Mr. Tsai found his feet very flexible, also because he was very interested in painting, including sketch, watercolor and ink paintings, and had made progress in these fields, he proposed to hold an art exhibition for Yu-Shu. Apart from encouraging him, he could also serve as a positive example to the society. His debut took place at the Penghu Culture Center Wenhsin Gallery, and Mr. Guang-fu Chen, the Magistrate, called for people from all circles to encourage Yu-Shu. And Ke-wen Chen, a reporter from China Daily, even commented his works as “He is enduring the pain of severe scoliosis, and each painting and each stroke is a struggle of nerves and cells within Yu-Shu. However, he never feels tired or painful, but works even harder.
        With the growth of Yu-Shu, his families deeply feel how grateful they are for everything they have. If people are not obsessed by what they have lost or what they don’t have, and work to make their disadvantage a feature and merit like Yu-Shu, learn to accept and appreciate their defects, cherish what they have and cultivate it into a specialty, and mobilize others with their stories and give a full play to their life and influence, they would light up others’ life while making themselves stronger and more enriched.