Chen Chun Ju (Taiwan)


A Mother Under the Rainbow: Chen Chun-ju

 

All parents wish that their kids will behave in the way they want. But it can be very hard to those who are conceived as being “different” and bullied due to being “different”. Instead, they need support from their parents. A mother used to feel anxious when seeing her son “being different”. Yet, today, she becomes the one who strives to save those “different” kids.

 

She is Chen Chun-ju, the mother of the “Rose Boy” Yeh Yung-chih in Taiwan.

 

Sixteen years ago, Yeh Yung-chih, at the age of fifteen, lost his life in the school toilet. His death unfolded the fact that he had long been bullied for his effeminate personality. The court concluded that he collapsed and got his head hurt because of his own illness. Chen did not agree with that and started the seven-year journey of continuous lawsuits. In 2006, the court finally changed the original ruling. By standing in front of the general public, she motivated the society to be aware of gender equality and sexual diversity.

 

Chen lived in Pingtung County’s Gaoshu Township in Taiwan, as a farmer, with her husband and two sons. Yung-chih is her first child. As she can recall, he was not like normal boy at the beginning. He preferred cooking and sewing over playing football or model toys. But he was such a gentle and caring kid, helping his mother to deal with the household stuffs. Still, Chen was anxious about his “difference”. She took him to the doctor who proved that he was completely normal. She then decided to free him to do what he liked. However, Yung-chih’s “difference” led to his suffering after he went to the secondary school. He was bullied severely by the peer, threatening to take his panty off. And Chen knew it. She complained to the school and asked Yung-chih to be stronger and fight back. She regretted so bad for putting him under further loneliness as he was just not that kind of person. He had concealed his pain since then. Finally, the tragedy happened exactly at the time that Yung-chih went to toilet alone during class in order to avoid the bullies. He was found on the toilet floor with his head seriously injured. Yung-chih left on the next day.

 

The school cleaned the toilet immediately after the accident. No clue about Yung-chih’s death could be found. Chen received the ruling result two months later, stating that Yung-chih die out of brain trauma, and that the injury is caused by his sudden collapse as suffering heart attack. But she knew her son did not have any heart disease and the doctor in hospital also had different opinion. Believing that Yung-chih fell down due to the wet floor, Chen decided to appeal even though she possessed no legal knowledge. The appeals went from the local court to the High court. Being scorned by those “intellectual” on the court, she never gave up. After seven years, the Taiwan High Court’s Kaohsiung Branch re-made the ruling and sentenced three school officers including the principle in prison with the charge of “neglecting the degree of care required by their occupation”. The effort of Chen was not valueless. This case of Yung-chih had raised the public awareness of gender education and directly led to the enactment of the Gender Equality Education Act in Taiwan in 2004. The law aims at extending the gender education from the rigid female-male one to a more diverse one, teaching the student to respect people with different sexual orientation, sexual temperament as well as gender identity, and emphasizing the problems of school violence.

 

Throughout these years, Chen often shown faces in publicly to talk about her story. Despite the successful appeal, Chen still want to do more to make sure that the public understand the root of the tragedy, bullying and discrimination. In 2008, she represented the Humanistic Education Foundation, an organization seeking to reform education system of Taiwan, to raise fund for creating a safer environment for the kids to study and learn. In 2010, Chen shown up in Kaohsiung Gay Pride Parade. She was invited to speak to the people on the stage. She gave extraordinary speech to encourage the LGBT communities to be brave and to be themselves, and to urge the parents to walk away from ignorance and bias. Chen did not have chance to know about Yung-chih’s sexual orientation. But she sees all of those who are trapped by the traditional gender stereotypes as her children. Transforming the love towards her son into the power of moving on, she yelled on that day, “I couldn’t save my kid, so I have to save all the other kids like him.” In 2015, Chen appeared in the documentary directed by Hou Chi-jan and played by famous Taiwanese singer Jolin Tsai in her concert. Resting her sadness, we saw toughness both in her tone and eyes. She told the “different” kids, before the camera, that there is nothing wrong with them and she is more than willing to help, to protect and to save them. The film made great echo around the society.

 

Sixteenth springs has passed, Yung-chih had gone very far but he has not never been forgotten anyway. The rose lives in the mind of Chen Chun-ju, leading her and all the others to the rainbow.

 

Written by Cheng Sau Yin