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Honey of the Century
Founder Chou Chin-Hua of the CTK Foundation
   
      Everyone has a beginning and also an end.
      Those having existed do not disappear because there is endless care in life.
      We appreciate people from each corner of the world to care for my son Chou Ta-Kuan and the Chou Ta-Kuan Cultural and Educational Foundation, particularly the initiative and promotion of “Global Love of Lives series public benefit activities” including the promotion of:

      Be nice to yourself----fervently love your life.
      Be nice to others----honor others’ lives.
      Be nice to the earth----safeguard the earth’s life.

      Our ideology and activities received firm responses from Dr. Gerlind Bode of the Germany Leukemia Association, CEO U.S.A, President of Reitaku University and others. We were also honored by the Ministry of Education as a life education model and books or videos about Chou Ta-Kuan including “I Still Have One Leg”,? “Ta-Kuan-- Voice from a Cancer Child” and “The Light of Life-- Chou Ta-Kuan” have become that students in different levels of schools must read. We hope this book, “Story of Ta-Kuan-- The Wish of a Little Star”, can dance with you along the life corridor of the true, the good and the beautiful, and swing to the waving future-- “Life is priceless. The earth is full of love.”
      Behold! Behold! Behold! Here came the Century Sweet Heart--the Little Prince!

      ----Kind and warm-hearted Ta-Kuan. When he was one year and three months old, to our surprise, he fed his four-month old brother Shang-Kuan who lied on the same bed with his own milk bottle when he heard brother Shang-Kuan’s loud cries.

      ----Curious and studious Ta-Kuan. When he was three years old, he often took brother Shang-Kuan less than two years old at that time to carry their little schoolbags after dinner and circled around the living room, yelling, “We are going to school! We are going to school!” A collection of more than ten thousand books in the study room were their toys. One after another, one after another. They took books out of the shelves and put them back again. They looked at the pictures and explained to each other no matter they really understood or not. It was so cute. Then Ta-Kuan started to learn “The Three Word Classic”, “The 300 Tang Poems”, “The Analects”, “The Mencius”, “The Great Learning”, “The Doctrine of the Mean”, “Lao Tzu”, “Chuang Tzu”, “Journey to the West”, “Romance of the Three Kingdoms” and others that had paved a solid humanistic foundation for him. When studying in elementary school, he succeeded in his first attempt to submit the article “An Unforgettable Festival” for publication. This had encouraged him and opened up a window for his writing in the future.
      ----Considerate Ta-Kuan. He always kept his desk neat and tidy. When the whole family moved out to maintain the Cingtan Creek, we followed his method, “Pick up whatever you litter”. We patrolled the area in turn. If a John Doe or Jane Doe was seen throwing the garbage, he or she would be advised to pick them up. The effect was amazing. The park was able to recover its original beauty. He also fed a Chinese bulbul on balcony and a stray dog Po-Po on the spot. It was a shocking moment to see Ta-Kuan stretching his tiny wrist into Po-Po’s mouth to remove from its teeth a stuck bone. But he was so relaxing and naive.

      ----Nature-loving Ta-Kuan. Be it the mountains and water along the Southern Cross-island Highway, the sunrise in Alishan, the sunset in Tamshui, the Kenting seashore, or the cable car in San Francisco, the overpass in Las Vegas, the Disneyland in Los Angeles, the Miami Airport, the watermelon in Belize, the golden sculpture in Costa Rico, the stone carvings in Guatemala, the beach in Mexico, the prairie in Honduras, the volcano in El Salvador, the Panama Canal, etc., all recorded in his secret diary.

      ----Anti-cancer poet Ta-Kuan. Life is truly impermanent. In 1996 after the whole family returned from a winter vacation to the America, Ta-Kuan fell ill. A young life of less than ten years old, Ta-Kuan was diagnosed by several hospitals with the malignant rhabdoid tumor. He went through two surgeries to eliminate cancel cells, twelve times of chemotherapy, 30 times of Cobalt-60 radiation therapy and finally the amputation surgery. He fought against the Cancer Devil for more than a year and unfortunately passed away on early morning of May 18, 1997 at 5:50 a.m.
      The most unforgettable thing was on February 17, 1997 when the last “treatment assessment meeting” was held for him in the National Taiwan University Hospital and he insisted to participate. This was the first time ever happened in this country. Doctors and nurses all applauded to welcome the participation of this little giant. He accepted the meeting result that there’s nothing doctors could do any more and he asked them right on the spot, “How long can I live?” Doctors were too amazed to answer while he quietly wrote down in his diary:“Doctor is the judge, sentencing to life imprisonment, but I am a patient not a criminal, I want to bravely walk out.”

      Ta-Kuan expressed his thoughts during illness through poems and prose with his strength in life, touching poems and pure heart. His works were collected in two books, “I Still Have One Leg” and “Ta-Kuan-- Voice from a Cancer Child” which gained huge popularity around the globe. Later there were Song Fang-Chih’s realistic life stories of “The Light of Life-- Chou Ta-Kuan” and “Story of Ta-Kuan-- The Wish of a Little Star” which were published as children’s edition with the most precise phonetic zhuyin system.
      About Ta-Kuan’s works and stories, as reported by the media both domestic and overseas, Chou Ta-Kuan was a very talented poet and a brave warrior to fight against the illness. He ever won the Presidential Office Award, Chung Hsing Literary Award, Youth Award, Children’s Literature Award, Filial Piety Award, etc. His touching poems and strong will not only inspired the diligence of the young but also warmed the heart of the youth. He had glorified human nature, interpreted the meaning of life, and his perseverance and poems of great love shall last in this world forever.

      Behold! Behold! Behold! There went the Century Sweet Heart--the Little Prince!
      Thus, Chou Ta-Kuan, from the joy of birth, named after “Ta Chi Hong Kuan”, to the fast flowing rhythm of life through spring, summer, autumn and winter, he had made a period for each life poem he wrote while in the blank after the period of life, there are more spaces left to be filled with the true, the good and the beautiful.

      We expect that each one of us will also grab a pen to write, to write more rainbows in life so that our life is no longer affected by the turmoil in the outside world and we start to affect the endless world surroundings with our peaceful inner life.