The Double-Five Day Festival

Written by Peter Li-Chang Kuo

The rain in June would not stop. In June 1966, Kaohsiung was battered by torrential rain and strong winds that tore off roofs made of sugarcane boards.

The boy in the photograph looks like nothing more than a kid — just 13 years old and 141 cm tall. Yet he had already endured storms and trials, overcome obstacles, earned NASA’s recognition, and fulfilled the “PTH” order — setting a paradigm for humanity as “Apollo 4 took flight.” After collecting the accounts receivable, he made a net profit of NT$90,000, allowing his family to celebrate the best New Year they had ever had. On February 9, 1967 — the first day of the Lunar New Year — he went to a photo studio near the stone statue to take this rare photograph.

The “5-jiao” (50 cents) coin beside his left hand is about the same size as today’s NT$50 coin, showing how social costs have inflated — currency value has depreciated by 100 times.

Fig 1: 13-year-old A-Chang and PTH Eyelets

In contrast, after the global financial crisis, President Obama invited him to the APEC CEO Summit to contribute the way of "Rebuilding the Global Economy.” This photo, taken by PwC Chairman Dennis, feels like it was taken in the blink of an eye. In reality, 42 years had passed. The young Ah-Chang had indeed, as foretold by Zhang Xian of Changhua, “You'll change the world!”— even filling the abyss left by the unprecedented financial crisis. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the world was still able to operate through “the contactless TES system” he introduced.

Fig 2: APEC CEO Summit 2009

The Double-Five Day Festival falls on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month — commonly known as the "Dragon Boat Festival." This year it falls on June 19 (Friday), forming a three-day holiday. Sixty years ago, in 1966, the festival was on June 23 (Thursday). Traditional Taiwanese opera often featured the popular story of Wu Zixu fleeing the State of Chu, his hair turning white overnight, and later assisting King Helü and his son Fuchai of Wu. These stories were captivating, and the “Dooble-Five Day Festival” was once said to commemorate Wu Zixu.

Wu Zixu (559–484 BC), a loyal minister across two generations, was ultimately forced to commit suicide by King Fuchai of Wu. After he took his own life with a sword, Fuchai had his body wrapped in a leather wine sack (chiyi ge) — like a rice dumpling — and cast into the river. After the State of Wu was destroyed by King Goujian of Yue, the people commemorated Wu Zixu each year on the fifth day of the fifth month by wrapping glutinous rice in bamboo leaves and throwing it into the river. Unfortunately, Wu Zixu left no widely transmitted poetry.

More than 200 years later, the poet Qu Yuan (342–278 BC) left behind enduring works such as “Li Sao.” In “The Fisherman,” he wrote: “When the waters of Canglang are clear, I may wash my tassels; when they are muddy, I may wash my feet.” Yet this patriotic poet ultimately drowned himself in the Miluo River. Later generations mistakenly associated eating rice dumplings during the Dragon Boat Festival with commemorating Qu Yuan.

In February 1966, my father, A-Kun, was arrested and imprisoned. To earn more money to take back to Tainan through A-Jin, I made a “water-injection pump” for Chen Yuanting, a duck vendor. Every day at 2 a.m., I helped him slaughter ducks and inject water into them, earning wages dozens of times higher than ordinary workers. In the afternoons, I worked hard at “Cheng Kuang Metal Works” at No. 16 Zhongxing Street, managing to earn NT$3,000–5,000 per month to send back home. (At that time, a civil servant’s monthly salary was about NT$500, and land near Shengdu Theater cost NT$200 per ping.)

Kaohsiung in 1966 had frequent storms. Before the Double Five Day Festival, there was a heavy downpour followed by strong winds that ripped off the sugarcane-board roof. I quickly grabbed prepared ropes, climbed up the beams, and tied the roof down. Just after fixing the east side, the west side was torn off again. Jumping down from the beam, my left hand was slashed open by a hooked nail from the wall — my little finger instantly split open.

Rain poured into the small factory. I had no choice but to climb back up and secure the west side. If the motor and machinery got soaked, it would break, and there would be no income—leaving me unable to support my family in Tainan. There was no time to hesitate. I climbed up and down repeatedly until all sides were secured. By then, my left little finger was nearly ruined.

At 2 a.m., I still had to operate the pump — pressing the pedals with my feet and pulling the handle with both hands to build pressure. Each pull brought sharp pain. Meanwhile, Chen Yuanting sat on a stool, holding a duck and inserting a needle under its skin, inflating it quickly. The injected ducks were then scalded in boiling water, causing the water beneath the skin to expand into steam, making the ducks plump and appealing. Hung at the stall, they resembled sleeping beauties. When sunlight streamed through holes in the market roof, shining on the ducks, they looked crystal clear and mouthwatering.

After closing at noon, I went to a pharmacy near the market to treat my wounds. Seeing my finger shriveled like dried squid, the shop owner’s wife stitched it while tearing and asked, “A-Chang, why are you working so desperately?” Today, seeing the heavy rain again, I suddenly recall her question—it is indeed a good one.

On the Double Five Day Festival, I helped Chen Yuanting achieve a record of selling 1,000 ducks in a single day. Every day, I collected the layer of oil from the boiling water, let it settle, and bottled the duck fat to sell for extra income. Excess bottles were bundled and sent back to Tainan as gifts, hoping my father would not be mistreated in prison.

A spoonful of duck fat over hot rice with a pinch of salt—an earthly delicacy. I would boast to customers, “This flavor belongs only in heaven; rarely can it be tasted on earth.” The duck fat sold quickly. Even the pharmacist recommended it to customers. Eating it myself, I gained 10 kilograms after arriving in Kaohsiung.

My body was always covered in wounds—cuts, burns, and beatings. The cuts and burns came from work, but the beatings came from a local bully who roamed at night attacking people.

Misfortune compounded misfortune. I was unlucky enough to be caught and beaten badly without reason. I wanted to fight back but lacked strength — the guy was more than twice my size.

I had to work to support my family; enduring beatings was not sustainable. One afternoon, while making a mold, I accidentally snapped a hacksaw blade. Holding the broken blade, I sharpened it into a knife—and defeated the bully.

From that, I learned: "Even the strongest enemy can be overcome."

However, what Ah-Chang longed for every day was still family reunion. Each time A-Jin came to Kaohsiung to take money, he would bring it up, only to be immediately scolded: “You kid, you don’t even know how heavy the world is. Do you think money isn’t money? We’ve invested so much here — if we move back to Tainan, won’t it all be lost?” Before coming to Kaohsiung, they had borrowed NT$30,000 from Uncle Fa in Xiecuoliao and handed it over to Chen Yuanting to manage.

Chen used the NT$30,000 to apply for three-phase electricity. But when A-Kun stepped into the windowless sugarcane-board factory, he said within minutes, “I can’t breathe!” and never entered again. The three-phase power was cut off by Taipower after just three months. Yet the small boy in the photo — smaller than the image itself — was somehow still able to start the motor and earn money to meet A-Jin’s demands.

After the Double-Five Day Festival, A-Chang took advantage of a market holiday to rush back to No. 45 Chong-An Street in Tainan. As soon as he entered, a strong stench of urine hit him. When the police came to arrest A-Kun, they had also broken his grandmother’s bound feet, leaving her unable to continue her paper-cutting work that supported the family. Some disgraceful juniors even claimed she was “bedridden” and that they were caring for her. But before she was crippled, A-Chang had never seen her ill — she was always well-groomed, as shown in Fig 3.

Fig 3: Grandmother Kuo Chen Shu-Chen (1896–1970)

Only fourth younger brother, bruised and swollen, lay by the bed, with a bowl of sour-smelling bean porridge beside him. The others were nowhere to be found. A-Chang wrote a letter: “Having come to Kaohsiung, living under others’ roofs, the whole family scattered in two places, longing in every inch, tears of blood in every drop; only reunion can restore us…” He sent it to A-Kun in Tainan Prison on Xinsheng Street, then to begin dismantling the sugarcane-board factory of Kaohsiung.

Looking back at his first days at the National Market, he remembered the bleak state of Chen Yuanting’s duck stall. The NT$30,000 that Chen had fraudulently taken could have bought 150 ping of land near Shengdu Theater — worth about NT$100 million today. What Chen never expected was that A-Kun’s imprisonment would bring him, overnight, the “water-injection pump” changed the situation. His duck business became the market’s standout success, with booming sales and rolling profits—built upon the suffering of A-Chang’s family.

At the Kuo-Min Market, A-Chang observed various small business models. He saw piles of bananas and realized that agriculture and petty trade could not scale into anything significant. Yet even his father Ah-Kun, a gifted craftsman, struggled to secure daily meals, often lamenting, “So unlucky--I always made junk.”

Still, using crude tools and equipment, Ah-Chang developed over 100 clients in the Kuo-Min Market—including even the World Dance Hall. He never made grand speeches: “Your door is broken — I’ll make you hinges that will never break,” he would say, completing transactions cleanly. The reputation of “Cheng Kuang Metal Works” spread from the market to Jianguo Road and Park Road.

In July 1966, A-Chang looked back once at the Kuo-Min Market, jumped onto a truck, and said, “Goodbye, Kaohsiung — I will be back!” Chen Yuanting, once a policeman, watched him leave and unexpectedly broke into tears. Years later, when A-Chang returned, he saw that A-Yuan, once a tall boss’s son, had become a “pump boy” (very small) — paying the price of operating the water-injection pump.

Back in Tainan, income vanished. At that time, the husband of his grandaunt’s daughter returned from Japan and opened the “Wanlong Electric Toy Factory” on Liren Road. This Japanese-educated PhD rode a bicycle to ask A-Chang, “Do you want a job?” The pay was NT$360 per month — while a child laborer typically earned only NT$30 — so he took it.

A-Chang woke at three or four every morning, maintaining his Kuo-Min Market work habits. By 8 a.m., he handed tasks to workers and left; at noon, he returned to check for problems, then went back to work after 1 p.m.

He also worked overtime, using the extra hours at night to sleep inside large wooden crates for electric toys — earning money while resting two or three hours, then returning home energized to continue working.

In his first month, he handed over the full NT$360 salary to Ah-Jin without keeping a cent. She suspected nothing. Meanwhile, he took his younger brother to Minzu Road and spent the extra NT$100 overtime pay on a hearty meal.

Soon after, A-Jin summoned him: “You said overtime pays nothing, is that right?” Forced, A-Chang replied, “Yes.” Like a magician, she suddenly produced a stick and beat him relentlessly, shouting, “I’ll beat you to death! You unfilial son! The family has no money, and you secretly spend it! Your father already found out…!”

Terrified, A-Chang knelt and handed over the remaining NT$80 he had. She took it and demanded, “Where’s the other NT$20?” He could only reply, “I’ll pay you back in a few days…”

Unfortunately, the toy factory closed after only three months. A-Chang could only stay home working. He finished household tasks quickly; thinking constantly about money, he spent his days cleaning and oiling the machines, praying they might somehow fulfill their true purpose.

A-Jin would scold again: “You useless! Wasting money — no wonder the family has none left!” Filled with guilt, A-Chang could only lower his head and grind molds in silence.

In November 1966, one day as A-Chang stepped outside, the toilet to the right of the door reeked of ammonia, while the kitchen to the left was empty. As he opened the wooden door to go seek orders, a towering American suddenly appeared, shouting, “Eyelet! Eyelet!”

The interpreter handed over a paper filled with lengthy, outdated inch-based specifications. A-Chang told them to stop wasting words and come back in two days for samples. Within two days he produced samples, though they went through more than a dozen revisions before passing inspection. The client also required an English “Approval Sheet.” Fortunately, two professors from National Cheng Kung University — Yao Jing-Bo and Ma Cheng-Jiu — helped him. He finally secured business with the American company Avnet Taiwan Ltd.

Throughout the process, A-Jin kept shouting: “Useless fool! Dreaming of doing business with Americans—you’ll lose everything — include your balls!” Yet when he repaid the debts in Yamuliao and handed her the remaining money, she grabbed it immediately.

When the Americans first came, they asked their interpreter about his situation, and A-Chang told them everything about his family. Remarkably, they did not pay a single cent in development fees. Later, he developed thousands of products for them — all taken as a matter of course, completely free. Ironically, today, because overheating issues in the RTX series remain unresolved, some of these decades-old products (Fig 4) have resurfaced.

Fig 4: Works by Kuo Li-Chang from the 1960s

At the age of nine, I was nearly beaten to death by A-Jin with an iron rod like a pair of chopsticks, collapsing in a pool of blood. In that instant, I understood why my family was poor — A-Kun would shout every day, “I’m going to be arrested and executed — what’s the point of making money?” Ah-Jin would say, “Such bad luck—I was supposed to marry into wealth, but I married the wrong man!” My poor grandmother had to support her grandchildren and son and daughter-in-law; the entire family depended solely on her paper-cutting. No matter how hard she worked, it was never enough to secure even basic sustenance.

Through intense self-discipline, I had already developed the ability to compete globally before graduating from elementary school. After securing business with Avnet, all the electronics companies in Kaohsiung came to buy from me. I worked 20 hours a day and still made time to attend night school, starting from junior high. Meanwhile, A-Kun and A-Jin spent their days idling as before.

In 1969, I moved out of Chong-An Street, where A-Kun claimed he could not live. During the relocation, I registered him as the owner of Cheng Kuang Metal Works — but he was soon usurped. After I helped Mr. Chen Yong-Tian secure orders for "Portable Transistor Cassette Recorders," he built a factory of over 10,000 ping near the Yongkang Interchange. At the celebration banquet, he asked A-Kun, “Why don’t I have a son like A-Chang?”

From then on, there was no peace. A-Kun claimed I owed him, sought out Chen Yuanting and his associates to support him, and demanded to be chairman. In 1972, I built a 2,300-ping facility on Lane 380, Chong-Cheng South Road in Yongkang — "Baisheng Metal Industrial Co., Ltd." — for him to serve as chairman. Through this, I met Mr. Chang Li-Tang, chairman of Zhengyi Paperware Factory on the same lane.

A-Kun’s position at Baisheng was again taken over by Chen Yuanting’s group. So in 1974, I established "Cheng Kuang Precision Industrial Co., Ltd." at No. 61 Central Road for him to chair. During an inspection visit, Premier Chiang Ching-Kuo referred to me as the “Father of Taiwan’s Precision Industry.” Today, I found a land registry transcript showing the land price of Cheng Kuang Precision Company at "NT$99.8 per square meter." At that time, during major infrastructure development, construction bans were often imposed, so starting a business required almost no consideration of land cost.

Fig 5: NT$99.8 per square meter for Cheng Kuang

Premier Chiang hoped I would use advanced technology to conduct “People’s Diplomacy” for the country. Coincidentally, Chang Li-Tang was elected Mayor of Tainan and proposed establishing a sister-city relationship with San Jose. I helped make it happen. In 1975, Mayor Janet Hayse led a delegation to Tainan and visited Cheng Kuang Precision. I presented the "RS232-DB9" connector — now revived decades later due to unresolved AI overheating issues — to an IBM engineer in the delegation. In 1979, I went to Silicon Valley to strengthen direct ties with Taiwan, and on March 13, I founded the “Blackstone Angel Fund” in New York.

Not long after I called A-Kun to tell him I had completed my master’s coursework and was applying for a doctoral program, I received a call of "emotional coercion." To avoid being labeled "unfilial," I returned and, on February 21, 1980, married a woman I had never met before. On May 4, my parents as known as "Gu So" (the modern heart-blind couple), together with my younger brothers, launched a violent coup to seize assets.

Most bizarrely, A-Kun brought his niece to take me to the household registration office near Chenghuang Temple on Cheng-Kong Road to “withdraw my household registration.” I handed him a large sum of money, yet within six months he had turned it into nothing. Then he came back asking me to rescue them. On the eve of the Double-Five Day Festival in June 1982, they launched a second violent coup seizure of assets. This time my losses were severe, which eventually led to the long chain of events involving rescuing “He-man” and “Barbie,” and creating new industry to solve unemployment.

What is most perplexing is that I spent my entire life concealing the brutality of this “modern heart-blind elder couple.” Some say it is impossible for banks to wipe out one’s assets — but in the hands of A-Jin, who was unwilling to learn and ignorant of principle, the impossible became possible. Since 2004, they have cooperated with schemes set by cartels, and these have somehow remained effective to this day. Without what I can only call divine protection, I could never have stood at the APEC Leaders’ Meeting, as shown in Fig 2, to contribute the way of “Rebuilding the Global Economy.” Today, seeing the heavy rain again, I recall the pharmacy owner’s wife asking: “A-Chang, why are you working so hard?”

Peter Li-Chang Kuo, the author created Taiwan's Precision Industry in his early years. Peter was a representative of the APEC CEO Summit and an expert in the third sector. He advocated "anti-corruption (AC)/cashless/e-commerce (E-Com)/ICT/IPR/IIA-TES / Micro-Business (MB)…and etc." to win the international bills and regulations.