Yun-Tzu Chen / Senior of Department of Public Health
At dawn in the misty rain on 23rd October of year 2022, the Department of Public Health (DPH), National Taiwan University welcomes the 50th birthday. Like a portrayal of the past few decades, DPH danced through the rain with resilience, never defeated but nourished. It also strived to sow this land in return towards wholeness in health.
A subtle tone strange from a regular morning of the Public Health building, ringing familiar steps closing to this once daily visit. Breaking years of Covid-19 distancing, alumni and successors joining together celebrating the evergreen public health spirit in every warm touch, joyous laughter and cheerful greetings. Cherishing this cross-generation bond through the DPH, this pure happiness so evidently contagious that it overflows through every corner of the Public Health building on this very special day.
Celebrating 50 years of bitter sweet memories, from malaria prevention in the Japanese colonial period to two decades later during the millennials, striving through the SARS anarchy to surviving Covid-19 pandemic. It is our greatest honor to be part of the DPH, whose predecessors all over the world prevailed all difficulties living the spirit “Health for all”, practicing all walks of life for five decades and further on with the core value in us, Compassion, Integrity, Teamwork and Equality (CITE).
Just as the tree-rustling and leaf-lashing rain in the poem “Calming the Waves (Ding Feng Bo)” of SU Shi. We, people of the public health, never flight nor fear the rain, even though the rain is no gentle spring breeze, but sheer autumn gale. Or as “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference”. Together, we’ll carry on our predecessors’ torch and strive as it lights our way through this scarce and rough journey. Together, we sustain the spirit “Health for all” as a legacy that will never fade away.
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