Losheng

After surrounding the residence of Su-Zhen-chang（蘇貞昌）, the Premier of Taiwan Executive Yuan, in March 8, about 2 hundred protesters march toward his residence in March 11 again. They performed the ‘kneel and obeisance’ action demonstrated by Korean Farmers in Hong Kong during the anti-WTO week in 2005. Although this is the second time the Losheng（樂生院, 樂生療養院, LoSheng Sanatorium, Leprosarium LoSheng, Happy Life Sanatorium） crowds using the action, apparently Politicians don’t buy it.

Author: Liu Kwang-Yin

In the beginning of the 20th century, a colonial era when Taiwan was still part of Japan, Losheng Leprosy Sanatorium was built by the regime to house leprosy patients, whose mystic disease was considered by most people to be highly contagious.

Few days ago, to fulfill the MRT (metro rapid transit大眾捷運) construction, the ‘Department of rapid transit system’ of Taipei Government declared that all residents of Lo-Sheng sanatorium (樂生 樂生院Happy Life Leprosy Sanitarium, also known as Losheng Leprosarium) should move out of their home before March/13/2007.

On chinese "ghost month" (lunar calendar of July), residents of the Lo-Sheng sanatorium (Happy Life Leprosy Sanitarium), a leprosarium built by the Japanese colonial government at 1930s, were burning paper money to the ghost, wishing the sanatorium could be preserved from the construction of metro station.

In the past, patients in the sanatorium were treated like life-time prisoners, and they could not leave the place even after their death. Thousands of the dead peaple were cremated and collected in the pagoda.