Railway fanatic Su Chao-hsu writes books, builds models and opens a museum, vigorously promoting railway culture

Interviewing railway fanatic Su Chao-hsu is no easy task; you have to overcome many of his taboos about "this can't be written, that's hard to say," and you also have to face some ideas or imaginings that transcend reality: "Because my paintings are timeless masterpieces, there's no way to insure or appraise them, so no museum dares to borrow them for exhibition" (so Van Gogh, Monet and Zhang Daqian are all inferior to you?), "You've probably never met anyone like me who studied science yet understands art and literature, right" (haha, going back a ways there's Chen Chih-fan, and more recently Chang Hsi-kuo), "Wait a moment, there are two ghosts behind you, let me talk to them for a bit" (Hello, ghosts, welcome to join the interview!); not to mention his annoying elite arrogance: "How strange, how can you not even know this" (isn't that exactly why a reporter interviews an expert?), "How many words does this question need for an answer? I can tell you precisely" (so the report is just a verbatim transcript, and the reporter is merely a typewriter?)

But by understanding the background of Su Chao-hsu's upbringing and knowing the obstacles on his life's path, it is not hard to sketch out the reasons he departs from ordinary sensibilities. A good self-image is often the outward sign of an inferiority complex; fortunately, after shaking off those annoying and glaring delusions, like brushing dust off a thatched hut, the temple he built with a lifetime of obsession stands towering before our eyes.

Continuing in this life the past-life bond with trains

A photo taken when he was 3 or 5 years old should be Su Chao-hsu's earliest memory of trains. In the photo he is gazing at a steam locomotive displayed in Chiayi Park, while beside him other children are playing covered in mud. He seems to carry memories of a past and present life, indifferent to ordinary playground equipment, yet instead fluttering over to the locomotive and chattering unfinished words. "I remember later I explained to those playing children how a train engine works." Of course he could not say professional terms like gears and cylinders, but he gestured and dissected the engine structure as if he had X-ray eyes that could see through the operating logic inside the steel body.

"I remember this very clearly. I didn't understand why I had that kind of knowledge at such a young age. Only when I grew up and gained experience did I realize it was the 'subconscious' guiding me," Su Chao-hsu said.

Memories of past and present lives also repeatedly appeared in his dreams. Also starting from age 3 or 5, Su Chao-hsu often had the same dream. In the dream he flew and flew back to the Japanese colonial era, to the side of the Alishan Railway then under construction, where the workers laying the railway treated him with great respect.

These mysterious, puzzling matters, hard to tell true from false, kept appearing in his life, not only deeply influencing Su Chao-hsu's self-identity but also giving him a sense of mission that "if not me, then who." During the interview, he repeatedly used "deeply hidden in the soul" and "it is the soul's guidance" to describe his relationship with trains and railways. He uses all kinds of energy to continue his past-life encounters with trains, and in this life burns himself to keep railway culture alive.

Guarding his own interest: a poor child cultivates himself by himself

Although he was the only son in the family, Su Chao-hsu was introverted and lacking in opinions, and with his four older sisters living aggressively, Su Chao-hsu's childhood was neither favored nor unrepressed. The only outlet for his emotions was riding a bicycle to chase trains. "I watched the train disappear into the distance, the rails vanishing at the end, and hoped that one day I could board a train and go far away." Su Chao-hsu said that in years when he had no voice, watching trains was the expression of his free will. Just standing beside the railway and smelling the oil on the sleepers could give him a feeling of spiritual liberation. He named the secret bases for train-watching, those viewing platforms amid field paths and fertile plains, "my own sky," and ranked them in order as first sky, second sky... a kind of calm vigil of "taking only one ladle to drink," which early on set the steadfast, unrelenting tone of this Chiayi native's life.

In the 1970s, Taiwan translated and published Japanese author Takejima Kigen's "Train and Railway Illustrated Guide" and "Steam Locomotive Illustrated Guide." These were the first train-specific books seen in the Chinese-speaking world, and all railway fans went crazy for them. Later department stores began selling train models, and railway fans felt they had found treasure. But Su Chao-hsu was a poor child, able only to drool in front of department store display windows, or watch children from wealthy families show off their illustrated guides.

Unwilling to accept such absence, in an era without photocopiers and when he could not afford a camera, the only way for Su Chao-hsu to possess the contents of those books was to borrow them from the library and then copy them word by word and trace them picture by picture. As for models, he made them himself from cardboard and popsicle sticks. Su Chao-hsu said emotionally that if his family had been wealthy back then, he might not be the person he is today. "The hand-copying, hand-drawing and hand-making I was forced into back then actually accumulated enormous creative energy in me." Later, publishing books, drawing, and opening a model museum - all of Su Chao-hsu's various artistic skills originated from those makeshift measures back then, a poor family's self-cultivation.

From "writing a biography for Taiwan's railways" to "establishing a world view of railways"

Through extensive reading, inch by inch of railway was woven into the map in Su Chao-hsu's brain. A train fan and railway fanatic trapped in Chiayi throughout his youth, once he left his hometown, immediately strode forward and used his own two feet to witness the map in his mind. Starting in his first year of university, Su Chao-hsu accumulated travel funds through part-time work. Four years of university, two years of master's study and two years of military service - he used eight years, with footsteps as the needle and his figure as the thread, to stitch and overlay himself, stitch by stitch, onto railways all over Taiwan, listening to the rumbling and clattering of trains and identifying the origins of each type of rolling stock, enormous gains accompanied by enormous satisfaction.

In 1993, Su Chao-hsu went abroad for the first time. He applied for a short-term overseas study trip from the "China Productivity Center" and went to Tokyo; he said that journey "opened his eyes wide." After that, he began to radiate his railway perspective across the whole world, going abroad almost every year to chase trains and railways, from Norway in the north to New Zealand in the south, and even reaching Everest Base Camp while surveying the Lhasa-Shigatse Railway (Lhasa to Shigatse). He walked, he took notes, he drew, he photographed; he climbed high and gazed far, alone approaching those huge creatures that cross mountains and ridges, circulate supply and demand, and carry separations and reunions, as well as those tracks that from construction to operation have spawned countless stories, grateful that his life was not left melancholy and barren because of these experiences.

Building a theory into books and constructing a museum to benefit more students

Hampered by empty pockets, Su Chao-hsu inevitably endured wind and dew while surveying railways and tasted many hardships; back home, alone under the lamp, he again diligently built theories into books. As if the remainder of his life were insufficient, or as if "pursuers were behind him," after publishing his first work "Nostalgic Journey on Taiwan's Railways" in 1998, he continuously delivered painstaking works at the astonishing rate of an average of two books per year. To this day, he has published 48 railway-specific books, making him the expert and scholar with the largest number of professional works in the traditional Chinese railway field in the world, and he has received multiple recommendations from "Good Books for Everyone to Read" as well as recognition from two Golden Tripod Awards.