Outcry from Losheng

Chang Chia-Chi

Visitor from Hong Kong

“Losheng is just like countryside. How can people live such a simple life in a big city?”

Happy life in Losheng?

The meaning of “Losheng” in Chinese is “happy life.” This was out of the Japanese colonial government’s intention to build up a self-sufficient sanatorium which isolated the leprosy patients from society. The disease was considered by the government as a national disgrace and an obstacle to its status as a civilized country in the1930s. Therefore, the most straightforward way to eliminate leprosy was to take an isolation policy.

Did the patients in Losheng actually live a happy life as the government stated?

Inside Losheng

Once Losheng was a small-scale society which offered everything that people might need in daily life. It had a market, a shop, a barbershop, leisure facilities, and religious facilities. The Losheng management used to empower the patients by offering them job opportunities such as cooking, gardening, and farming inside the sanatorium. They had a band which would perform on important occasions. They even had cremation service because their dead bodies were also rejected by society.


A stone in the compound says 'Losheng as home.'

Losheng used to accommodate child patients and had a school for their education. Years of companionship also meant that some patients fell in love. Before 1954, ligation was mandatory if they wanted to get married. For years, these people didn’t even have an ID card and lost their voting right. Besides, as the pain of leprosy was so unbearable, some tried to kill themselves for eternal rest. There was once a mental section to look after patients with psychological problems as well.

Outside Losheng

Many patients had never stepped out of Losheng for decades before some religious groups and students came in the 70s. In 1973, a service club from Fu-Jen Catholic University, located around fifteen minutes by car from Losheng, was established. The students not only visited the patients every Sunday but also took them out for an excursion, although they couldn’t find any transportation service willing to carry the patients at the beginning.

Even if leprosy is a contagious chronic disease, it is difficult to contract. Interaction between the Losheng residents and society is also becoming common. Nevertheless even today, the public still has some fear of them. A resident said she just met a taxi driver lately who warned her not to sit on the sofa in Losheng. A regular visitor to the compound admitted that even though her father is a doctor, she is always asked to take a shower right after coming back from Losheng.