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Home>Service> Awardees of Fervent Global Love of Lives Award> 17th Fervent Global Love of Lives Award 2014> Hsieh Feng Yuan—The Angel of Eye Cancer
[Fighting eye cancer and sharing through piano]

I find it rewarding to take part in charity activities in that all the efforts eliminate the pains that I have been suffering. To me, all the sufferings are blessing in disguise. It is because of the pains that I am able to provide inspiration for people around me with my personal experience.
—Hsieh Feng-Yuan
 
Overcoming obstacles
Hsieh Feng Yuan is currently a senior student in Taipei Jingmei Girls High School. Diagnosed with retinoblastoma, she started to fight cancer at an early age. Her right eye was removed when she was fourteen months old. Toward the time she was three years old, Hsieh was diagnosed with hearing loss. As a result, she started to receive rehabilitation treatment, such as vision therapy, auditory training, orientation and mobility, occupational therapy, and physical therapy on a weekly basis when she was thirty-nine months old. 
 
However, bad luck loves company. Hsieh was also diagnosed with atopic dermatitis, so she has constantly been suffering from laceration, blains, and peeling on her fingers, which kept her from direct contact with everything. All this resulted in her learning disability. Nevertheless, despite the fact that she had to go for rehabilitation sessions or visit hospitals on a daily basis before she turned seven, Hsieh has been brave and confident enough to face all the challenges in life.
 
Because of her positive attitude and of the fact that she has been willing to provide help for others through hair donation, piano performance, and volunteering, Hsieh was awarded the 2013 cancer-fighting scholarship of Chou Ta-Kuan foundation. 
 
Loving the world with limited vision
Hsieh was born on December 24, 1996. Her father found that there was something wrong with her vision when she was two months old. After a series of examination, Hsieh was diagnosed with retinoblastoma, also known as eye cancer. She was also the youngest to be diagnosed with such a disease in Taiwan at that time. 
 
After a long period of treatment, Hsieh was able to survive. However, her right eye became totally blind, and she can only see the world with her left eye, which is nearly blind. Unfortunately, it was later discovered that she was suffering from severe hearing loss. Therefore, she was doomed to encounter numerous challenges in her learning. 
 
With limited vision, it became extremely difficult for Hsieh to read or write. Also, hearing loss made her unable to comprehend speech synthesis, so she could not gain knowledge from audiobooks. To make matters worse, she could not even use braille to learn due to atopic dermatitis. Despite all this, Hsieh was able to conquer all the challenges and display her passion for life with full support of her parents. 
 
Learning with the help of assistive technology
In spite of the difficulties in learning, Hsieh and her family never gave up. Following the advice of her teacher, Hsieh used video magnifier to see the words on the blackboard clearly. Her teacher also wore FM transmitter in the neck when lecturing so that Hsieh could comprehend what the teacher said. With the help of the two devices, Hsieh was able to keep up with the learning pace of her classmates. 
 
However, PE classes were still a huge challenge for Hsieh. For example, she was often hit on the head by the badminton or unable to hit the badminton with the bat because of her limited vision. After practicing hard for a while, she is now able to serve. In addition, owing to the requirement of her teacher and the vital capacity needed for playing the flute, she started to jog on the playground for two laps twice a week. It was then that she started to develop the habit of jogging. In the beginning, she tended to stumble while jogging. After the training of orientation and mobility, however, Hsieh is now able to jog steadily and jog for more than 1,000 meters without stopping. 
 
Gaining confidence through music
When Hsieh was five, her mother noticed that music therapy might be of help to Hsieh’s condition, so she took Hsieh to give it a try. It turned out that Hsieh was deeply attracted to the sound of the piano. However, in the beginning, the mother did not think it would work because she worried that no teacher would bother to teach such a kid like Hsieh and that Hsieh might not be perseverant to learn music. However, it was Hsieh’s active attitude that her mother decided to let her learn to play the piano. During the course of learning, Hsieh made many friends and was able to gain confidence through playing music. Under the caring and systematic instruction of Ms. Liang, music has totally changed the life of Hsieh. 
 
At the beginning of learning music, Hsieh had trouble recognizing the musical notes correctly due to her impaired hearing. However, she was able to overcome all the challenges under the instructors’ care and teaching and because of her persistence. Hsieh has been taking part in the concerts held by her teacher’s music classroom and achieving great results in numerous music contests. She even had the chance of being taught by Kevin Kern, a world-renowned pianist with visual impairment. Gradually, Hsieh became increasingly confident and hoped that more and more people could listen to her music. 
 
Dedicated to charity and hoping to become a social worker
Of course, there were times when Hsieh complained about her situation and wanted to give up. However, thanks to the encouragement of her family and teachers, she realized how fortunate she had been to have received help from many so that she had been able to keep growing up and learning.
 
 As a result, Hsieh has always been thankful and she started to participate in charity activities at an early age. In addition to piano and flute performances, she took part in the shooting of two charity advertisements. The first one was the White Cane fund-raising ad in which Andy Lau, a well-known actor, also played a part. The second one was the fund-raising ad for the library for the visually impaired children in which Richie Jen, a famous Taiwanese singer, played a role. 
 
Hsieh also participated in a charity activity co-organized by Taipei Jingmei Girls High school and Chou Ta-Kuan foundation in which she cut her long hair and donated to other cancer patients. Hsieh encouraged all the disabled by saying that as long as they stay confident and never give up, all the challenges can be overcome. In the future, Hsieh plans to become a social worker so that she can pass the love and power she received from people around her down to others in need.