Restoring Moral Values in Taiwan
As modern pressures replace traditional values, Taiwan has been facing rising crime and divorce rates. About 146 couples divorce in Taiwan every day, and juvenile crime has increased by 250 percent in just a decade.
Miao-Hsiang Lin, a schoolteacher and ambassador of The Way to Happiness for Taiwan, is determined to rebuild her country’s moral fabric. “My purpose is to restore the true value of Chinese culture and to create a safe and peaceful society,” says Lin.
Born in a traditional Chinese family, she spent her childhood helping her parents run a Chinese medicine shop. She saw many people come to her parents for emotional help and decided that her purpose in life was to help others.
When she became a teacher, Lin noticed that many young people in Taiwan were being drawn into crime as rising divorce rates led to broken families. “In the school where I was teaching, there was a situation of abusive behavior among the students that I was not facing up to,” explains Lin. “I saw the consequences of a lack of moral values and I told myself that there must be a solution.” Around that time, a friend introduced her to The Way to Happiness. “I saw that, with the tools in hand, I would be able to bring order into my own life and to the lives of others around me.”
She first introduced the booklet to her class, encouraging students to discuss each precept and decide for themselves to adopt them as their moral guide. During one discussion, a student asked why he should follow the precepts when so many people in life do not. “Those who didn’t follow the precepts—were they happy?” Lin asked. The question made the student reflect and he soon decided to apply the precepts in his own life. This moment set the tone for the rest of the class. Other students responded with the same enthusiasm, and abusive behavior began to decline noticeably.
Encouraged, she expanded her efforts to National Chung Cheng University. Students chose precepts to teach others and then visited elementary schools to share them, organizing simple games that helped younger children understand and apply each precept. Soon she had educated more than 30,000 students using The Way to Happiness.
“My purpose is to restore the true value of Chinese culture and to create a safe and peaceful society.”
Next she reached out to parents to restore values within families. She delivered lectures to parent groups and introduced them to The Way to Happiness. “I helped the parents restore their families as a foundation for society,” says Lin. As a result, family conflicts among seminar participants declined by 85 percent.
“In Chinese tradition, the leaders of the household are the elders. The grandparents are the ones who pass on their knowledge to the next generation,” says Lin. “So educating them on The Way to Happiness was an important step in my campaign.” She held a seminar at an elders learning center and was soon invited across Taiwan to deliver more.
Through her efforts, more than 50,000 Taiwanese have been empowered using The Way to Happiness.
“In our culture, we say, ‘Cultivate oneself, regulate the family, govern the state and lead the world to peace,’” says Lin. “To me, The Way to Happiness is the best tool to achieve that goal.”
Watch Lin’s full story at Scientology.TV/MLin.
RESTORE MORAL VALUES
The Way to Happiness Foundation International works to reverse the moral decay of society by restoring trust and honesty through widespread distribution of the 21 precepts. Donations support production and distribution of The Way to Happiness booklet and curriculum material.
