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Families offer Japanese
crisis victims homestays
Staff Writer, with CNA
More than 200 families in Taiwan have registered to provide a haven for Japanese
people who lost their homes in the powerful magnitude 9 earthquake and tsunami
that devastated the northeast of the country on March 11.
Several nonprofit organizations jointly launched a drive on March 22 to offer
homestay or long-term accommodation to Japanese earthquake victims to help ease
their grief. The request has drawn people from different walks of life and from
all over the country to offer help.
Hsieh Yu-yueh (ÁÂÑ{ªµ), who lives on the outlying island of Kinmen, applied to
offer her hospitality to Japanese students whose homes were destroyed by the
natural disaster.
Hsieh, who has hosted students from France despite language barriers, said she
would like to have Japanese students come and stay to help them ease their sense
of loss by showing them the culture and landscape of Kinmen.
Lin Hsueh-fen (ªL³·¤À), a -vegetable vendor in Suao, said she was encouraged by her
two sons to apply to offer her house as a homestay retreat for Japanese.
Lin said she and her sons cried when they saw reports of the disaster. She also
wanted to send her sons, aged 22 and 19, to Japan to help out with post-disaster
relief efforts, but the plan was aborted because of a lack of contacts.
She said her sons, both taekwando athletes, were not new to relief work. Her
elder son went to China in 2008 after a magnitude 8 earthquake struck Sichuan
Province, leaving more than 80,000 people dead or unaccounted for.
After Typhoon Morakot, her younger son traveled to Linbian, Pingtung County, to
help clean up classrooms that were flooded during the disaster.
Despite the program¡¦s good intentions, no Japanese guests had arrived in Taiwan
as of yesterday because of paperwork problems, said Huang Ming-ho (¶À©ú©M),
co-founder of the Health, Welfare and Environment Foundation, a Legislative Yuan
sub-group.
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