Just after we arrived at Dr. Xie's clinic, an old friend, the retired principal of the neighboring elementary school, came to chat with him. After they caught up, Dr. Xie casually added, "I delivered his baby."
Xie Chun-mei, the Small-town Doctor
- Date and Place of Birth: November 6, 1922 in Shi Wei Qiang, Gongguan Township, Miaoli（苗栗公館庄石圍牆）
- Education: Study at National Chia-Yi Commercial Vocational High School
- Experience: Vice Chairman of the Gongguan Township Representative Assembly in Miaoli County, and President of the Fuji Elementary School Parents’ Association
- Awards: Medical Model Award in 2008 and Medical Devotion Award in 2018
The nearly 100-year-old man who has been practicing medicine for over 70 years
During the interview, similar scenarios continued to play out. One indigenous patient said he had been coming to see Dr. Xie since he was born, and now he is 65 years old. On our way back, a taxi driver said, "Dr. Xie signed the death certificates for my grandparents." It seemed like everyone within a ten-mile radius had some connection to Dr. Xie.
Dr. Xie Chun-mei began practicing medicine in 1945, “when there was no electricity here.” It sounds like the Stone Age now. He received the Medical Model Award（醫療典範獎）in 2008 and the Medical Devotion Award（醫療貢獻獎）in 2018. On the clinic's wall, there are two photos of him and the presidents who presented him with those awards: Ma Ying-jeou（馬英九）and Tsai Ing-wen（蔡英文）. However, the most eye-catching item is a yellowed card with a photo of a bald man and the name "Dr. Xie Chun-mei" written on it. The signature reads "Chiang Kai-shek（蔣介石）" and the date is 1953.
Fuji Clinic（福基診所）is an elegant old building situated in a small village called Fuji Village in the mountainous area of Gongguan Township, Miaoli County（苗栗縣公館鄉）. "It was built 66 years ago," says Xie Chun-mei, who is still accustomed to speaking Hakka but also fluent in Mandarin. In 1953, after Xie Chun-mei had been practicing medicine for 8 years, the village finally got electricity and his brand-new clinic was completed with cabinets made of hinoki. This was the most glorious time of his life. The following year, he married his second wife, who was only 18 years old. In those days, it was not uncommon for wealthy people to have two wives.
Xie Chun-mei was born in Gongguan, Miaoli in 1922, under the Japanese rule. His father was a sharecropper, and the family lived in poverty. After graduating from elementary school, Xie apprenticed under a doctor to learn medicine, at a time when the medical profession still followed the apprenticeship system. At the age of 16, he saw the Imperial Japanese Army flight school recruiting. He secretly engraved his father's seal to apply for the exam. He almost passed but failed when he confessed the forgery. As it turned out, both Taiwanese who went into the flght school died shortly afterwards, one of them served in the legendary Kamikaze. Xie Chun-mei said that if he had passed the exam, he might have been required to fly a suicide plane. "I would have been dead a long time ago, and one life for one vessel, my body would have sunk into the sea with a warship."
Returning to hometown to serve after surviving the ordeal
At 17 years old, he went to take the National Chia-Yi Commercial Vocational School（嘉義商工）entrance exam. "I got the first place out of 600 applicants, with only 13 being accepted." However, he had to drop out a year later because his family could not afford the tuition. During his studies, he saw a young man riding a bicycle to deliver rice many times. "He had a good spirit, was very serious, and I never saw him slacking off, always working." Many years later, he saw a news report about how Wang Yung-Ching（王永慶）founded Formosa Plastics Corp. "The photo of Wang was exactly the same as that person, with the same appearance, so it definitely was him." Wang Yung-Ching did run a rice shop in Chiayi.
Xie Chun-mei finally accepted his fate and learned medicine. He followed several doctors and passed the "Taiwan Government-General Office B-level Physician Examination（台灣總督府乙種醫師試驗）" in 1944, then went to Mackay Memorial Hospital（馬偕醫院）in Taipei for an internship. That was during the intense World War II and the US Air Force bombed the current Zhongshan North Road（中山北路）a few months later. Xie Chun-mei was far away from the air-raid shelter and couldn't reach the shelter in time to take cover that day. "As it turned out, 23 people died in the shelter, and more than 170 people died at Mackay Memorial Hospital."
After surviving the ordeal, Xie Chun-mei began practicing medicine in the year following Japan's surrender. He hoped to become an ophthalmologist in a metropolitan hospital. " But my father said that our town didn't have a doctor and wanted me to stay and serve here." And that's how he became a small-town doctor and has been doing it ever since. He sees patients from early morning till late night every day and works all year round without taking a break. His clinic still maintains its elegant appearance and has never been renovated. He said that the first thing he does every day is to clean the clinic as his exercise. When we saw him sweeping, we finally understood why the old building could be kept so spotlessly clean. Xie's broom didn't miss any corners or dead angles, just like a dentist cleaning teeth with great care.
Trekking through mountains and Rivers: patients come first
It's tough being a doctor in a remote area, not to mention that in the aftermath of World War II, many families were struggling to make ends meet. "It was difficult for people to even put food on the table, let alone afford medical treatment. About one-third of patients paid in cash, the rest were on credit." Once, a patient who couldn't pay the medical bill until the Lunar New Year gave Xie Chun-mei a live chicken as payment. "I wouldn't say anything. Some people were afraid to call me for medical help because they couldn't afford it, but I always told them to just call me no matter what."
In those days, most people didn't even have motorcycles. Xie Chun-mei had to drive his Jeep or ride a heavy motorcycle to make house calls for patients' convenience. In front of his clinic is the Houlong River（後龍溪）, with layers of peaks across the river. There were no modern roads in the mountainous area, so Xie could only drive to the foot of the mountain and hike up to visit patients. "It took 2-3 hours to make a house call on foot along the trails." He once joked that his is still strong today because he used to climb mountains every day when he was young.
It was truly a journey of trekking through mountains and rivers. In the dry season of winter, Xie Chun-mei could wade across the river in his Jeep when the water level was low. But in the summer, the water was deep and there was no bridge, only a "transport cage（流籠）" that Xie Chunmei had to take to get to the other side of the river, a dangerous journey indeed. Once, he walked dozens of miles to visit patients, and since there were still patients waiting at the clinic and it would be a big detour to take the way he came, Xie simply swam across the river to avoid making patients wait too long.
Typically, doctors are seen as dominant in doctor-patient relationships, but Xie Chun-mei is different. He always tries not to keep his patients waiting too long. We accidentally found out that he was such a considerate doctor for his patients during one of the interviews. One day, we arrived at his clinic at noon, and saw him receive a phone call and leave to perform a post-mortem. He returned an hour later, seeing another patient right away. After the consultation, he said he was ready to take the interview, and when we asked if he had had lunch, he said he ate. However, the nurse whispered to us that he had only eaten three huntuns before rushing out. He was worried that he would keep us waiting too long. We had to convince him to let us film him having his lunch before he would sit down and finish it, which was already at 2:00 pm.
Xie Chun-mei worked tirelessly throughout the year with the same consideration for patients. Initially, he took a break during the Lunar New Year, but in his fourth year of practicing medicine, three parents brought their children to seek help on New Year's Eve and the first day of the new year. Diphtheria was rampant at that time, and the life-saving serum was in short supply. Xie Chunmei rushed out to find the serum. Seeing the children recover, the joy in his heart was indescribable, he said. From then on, he worked even on Lunar New Year's Day. He always says that doctors in remote areas have a responsibility to safeguard the health of local people.
A Wrestling Fan and Yellow “GENTLE*” Smoker
On the day of our interview, Zhou Yue-lan（周月蘭）, an elderly patient, came to see him, and the 72-year-old recounted, “Dr. Xie saved my life. I went to an OBS/GYN to give birth in my 30s, and I had a hemorrhage and almost died.” Dr. Xie performed an urgent surgery and saved her life. “Dr. Xie has saved a lot of people. Unlike some doctors who would refuse to go if patients lived too far away, Dr. Xie did not hesitate to go to rural areas when patients are seriously ill and needed his help. I always say that Dr. Xie should live until he is 100 years old to serve more people.”
Dr. Xie Chun-mei's clinic is not covered by National Health Insurance, and we were curious why. "I was already 73 years old when the policy was implemented, so I didn't participate. I planned to retire at 80, but I'm still working now ,” he explained. His father passed away at the age of 69 after having had a stroke ten years ago, and three of his aunts also suffered from strokes. This made him believe that he would not live a long life. He did have a mild stroke when he was 71, but he recovered well. "I have only been hospitalized for three days in my life, one day for the stroke and two days for a hernia operation."
As we urged him to have lunch, the nurse turned on the TV for him. To our surprise, it was a Japanese wrestling channel, and Xie Chun-mei watched it with enthusiasm while eating. He received a Japanese education when he was in elementary school and studied at Chia-yi Commercial Vocational School. After finishing his meal, he lit a cigarette."When there are no patients, Xie Chun-mei sits in this chair and smokes and watches wrestling. This is his most enjoyable moment," said the nurse.
Yes, he still smokes at 97, and he preferred the yellow GENTLE cigarettes（黃長壽）. We weren't aware of this during our first interview. Xie Chun-mei waited for three hours before finally asking for a cigarette, then opened a drawer full of cigarettes and started smoking. He was so relaxed that he seemed like a different person from the strict person he was during his clinic hours. He says that he had no bad habits in his life, not even drinking alcohol, but he couldn't quit smoking. “Other people give me all my cigarettes now. I used to smoke two packs a day, but now I only have one pack every two days,” he stressed, like a child afraid of being scolded by parents.
An old man left to bury the young
In recent years, one of his services has increased significantly – conducting post-mortems to confirm the cause of death. There are many elderly people in rural areas, and now there is an average of one to two requests every day. Xie always rushes over with just one phone call. "Nowadays, I perform most of the post-mortems in Miaoli, and every police station has my phone number. Health centers are a bit hesitant to do the job because they're afraid of controversies, which would get them in trouble if they were sued. If the prosecutor is asked to do it, the family has to wait." There was a family who had to wait until the corpse began to decompose before they asked Dr. Xie for help.
Over the years, Dr. Xie has seen many of his own relatives and friends passed away. His wife, Chen Cheng-mei（陳成妹）, died over 20 years ago, and his younger brother passed away last year. "A 97-year-old classmate died the day before yesterday." The downside of living a long life is always having to say goodbye.
The most difficult thing to endure is burying one's own children. Xie Chun-mei had two wives who gave birth to a total of 12 children. Unfortunately, his eldest daughter passed away at the age of 48 due to ovarian cancer. He cherishes a photo of her smiling, which he keeps on top of his chest of drawers. His eldest son died at the age of 66 from a brain stem hemorrhage, his second son died of liver cancer at the age of 71, and his youngest son died suddently at 50 due to medical negligence.
In his biography, The Village Doctor（《鄉醫鄉依》）, written by a friend, he sadly talks about his children's prematured deaths and unsuccessful careers. He reflects on himself and believes that he has not harmed anyone or done anything bad, but if he really owes anyone, it is likely his two wives. When he married his second wife at a young and impulsive age, he didn't give it much thought.
Several of Xie Chunmei's children went to Argentina to open a restaurant, but but they had to returned to Taiwan because of the despairing hyperinflation. One of his sons used to run a factory successfully, but when he went to set up a factory in China 20 years ago, he was unexpectedly charged a large amount of unexplained fees that he couldn't afford to pay. As a result, Xie's clinic and residence were foreclosed. Luckily, another son who is also a doctor raised money and bought them back.
Life or death, let it be
We cautiously brought up the topic of polygamy with Xie. He explained that his mother arranged his marriage to a village girl when he was only 20 years old. Later, at the age of 32, he married a second wife. The two wives lived together without ever arguing, so he didn't pay much attention to it. However, as he got older, he realized that both wives were enduring a lot and " I felt very sorry for the first wife, and the second wife never dared to complain about anything." Whether as compensation or not, Xie Chun-mei was always very generous towards his children when they needed funds to start a business. He also helped his second wife, Liu Liany-ing（劉蓮英）, run for and get re-elected as a county councilor for four terms.
We asked if all this was just bad feng shui, and he replied that he had indeed considered digging up his ancestral grave and relocating it elsewhere, "but my brother's children have all done well, becoming doctors and successful in their careers, so I dare not dig it up. I don't believe in feng shui." Xie Chun-mei is an honest man who fears that relocating the ancestral grave will affect the good fortune of his brother's children.
After his son passed away suddenly at the age of 50, his widow remarried, and his only son lived with Xie Chun-mei. He is now in junior high school and has become the greatest comfort to Xie. Two years ago, he even received the Presidential Education Award（總統教育獎）. Xie smiled as he talked about his grandson's diligence and maturity. He once gave his grandson NT$5,000 to buy books, but his grandson said NT$1,000 was already enough for him.
He mentioned that a doctor's license is valid for six years. The license he has now was obtained when he was 93 years old. "It's been more than four years befor I realized, so when I'm 100 years old（in age）, I'll be out of a job. Whether I can live to that age or not is uncertain, maybe I'll die first, who knows?” The old doctor did not shy away from topic of life and death, “Let's talk about it when the time comes." After the interview, he stood at the door waiting for a taxi with us, refusing to sit down and insisting on standing the whole time when our car left. Xie Chun-mei is still as thoughtful and considerate now as he was 74 years ago.
★鏡週刊關心您：抽菸有害身心健康。
