A difficult child
The Ministry of Education designated Hsieh an outstanding teacher in 2010 and recognized him with an Excellent Teacher Award in 2018.
In his book Summit, the avidly outdoorsy Hsieh quotes a well-known line from Leonard Cohen: “There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” Hsieh says he views being a teacher as a means of being true to his deepest personal experiences.
The domestic violence he suffered as a child spurred the development of his outdoor survival expertise. He speaks candidly about his childhood, telling us: “My father’s life didn’t go as he would have liked, and he took it out on me, thrashing me with his belt whenever he came home. I used to run away and hide for a few days on a tea plantation on Mt. Qionglin in Hsinchu.” He never suspected that this would lead to a specialization in outdoor adventures, and eventually to offering a university class that requires students to learn to survive on their own in the mountains for four days.
Speaking about his life’s turning points, Hsieh says, “Middle school was all about petty theft and truancy. High school was gangs and fights.” He says this without any particular inflection, as if he’s talking about a child he counseled rather than his own life.
His first attempt at stealing a motorcycle failed. The police caught him and assumed he was a habitual criminal.
Fortunately, his teacher, Wang Liangcai, had taken an interest in him and chose not to report the incident to the school. Instead, Wang encouraged him to study. The humiliation of being walked through the streets in handcuffs and the encouragement of his teacher drove him to become the top student in his school and win admission to NTNU’s Department of Physical Education.
Hsieh says that in those days he worked hard to succeed, seeking self-worth and self-affirmation. He went on to attend graduate school at Indiana University in the US, where his fiancée married someone else, his money ran out, and everything fell apart. Despondent, he turned to Christianity and eventually reclaimed his sense of his own worth.
“My self-worth no longer depended on working hard, or achieving good grades in school, or piling up successes, but was instead a recognition of my own inherent value.” Hsieh explains, “When I began working in wilderness therapy, I met a child who had been sexually assaulted 253 times. How could I express to her that she was a worthwhile human being? Having had many negative experiences that turned out positive, and having developed from that a strong belief in my own worth, I was able to tell her, ‘No matter who you are or what you’ve experienced, you too are worthwhile.’”
Hsieh Chi-mou, who also heads up the Chinese Rock Leadership Association, has long been active in helping Indians living in slums and impoverished children in Nepal and Thailand’s Golden Triangle. Here, Hsieh poses with residents of a poor Indian neighborhood. (courtesy of Hsieh Chi-mou)