first woman ... again

Taipei Times: Climbers ready for next challenge

reports on Chiang Hsiu-chen (江秀真) [and her two companions who] who having climbed Mt. Everest, became the "first Taiwanese woman to conquer the highest peaks on seven continents"

which i don't quite understand, since Chiang has already climbed Everest, which surely means she'd ALREADY done all seven

oh well, it gives me a chance to run the article i wrote 4 years ago to celebrate the tenth anniversary of her first ascent, for which she was celebrated as the "first Han Chinese woman up Everest"


"Actually," said Chiang in an interview for Taiwan Journal last month, "the 'first woman' thing is not such a big deal. Sure, women are slightly less strong than men, but we more than make up for that with endurance and ability to tolerate hardship. In fact, experience and training are major considerations.
"Also, I never had much trouble carrying heavy rucksacks because as a child I used to help my mother, who was a nanny, by carrying other children around on my back. And I used to cry for hours on end, which probably helped me develop good lung capacity," she joked.
"I was still young, and was not scared of climbing mountains," Chiang recalled of her days as a 24-year-old mountain climber. She was aware of the dangers, however, having filled out a will before leaving "to travel in China," as she told her parents so they would not worry. Her parents first heard the news of her successful climb when journalists turned up on their doorstep clamoring for an interview.
For many people, climbing the world's highest peak would be the climax of a lifetime; to Chiang, it felt somewhat anticlimactic, but it was certainly a major turning point in her life.
"What might have seemed like big issues before tend to seem less serious now, after experiencing the danger and difficulty of those days on the 'Sacred Mother Peak.'" To date, more than 170 people have died climbing Everest, and Chiang described how she forced herself not to look at, or think about, the many frozen corpses she passed during her ascent. "The climb put my life into perspective." Having given up her job of eight years as an accounting assistant in order to undertake the attempt on Everest, Chiang spent the months after her triumphant return traveling around Taiwan, meeting with sponsors and politicians--including an audience with President Lee Teng-hui at the Office of the President--and thinking about what to do with the rest of her life.
"I knew I wanted to live close to nature, preferably in the mountains. I wanted to work in ecological conservation, but my qualifications were insufficient," she admitted.
She had hoped her successful climb might help her leapfrog into a top university program but, in the end, she opted to study plant protection at the Chiayi Institute of Agriculture, now part of the National Chaiyi University. She also spent three months on a study tour in New Zealand, where her homestay family took her to meet Sir Edmund Hillary, who, along with Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, made the first recorded ascent of Everest in 1953.
"For nearly three years after graduating I worked as a horticulturalist and visitor guide at National Taiwan University's Highlands Experiment Farm at Meifeng in Nantou." She really wanted something even more outdoorsy, however, and in March this year became the first woman to pass the test for the position of mountain patrol officer at Yushan National Park, a job previously restricted to aboriginal males.
Her free time is spent volunteering at Fushan Conservation Area in Yilan County and at Taroko National Park in Hualien County.
Asked if she thinks Taiwan's environmental situation is improving and if she would consider using her fame to promote ecological issues, she laughed and said she had little time for politicians and Taiwan's media. Chiang also had disparaging things to say about today's Taiwanese youth, dubbed the "strawberry generation" because they bruise easily.
"No one has endurance and stamina nowadays. I was initially excited by Li Mei-liang's attempt, as it would disprove my doubts about young people's lack of drive and ambition. But then I found out that Li Mei-liang and I are actually the same age." Li is another female Taiwanese mountaineer who climbed more than 8,000 meters up Everest this past May.
Chiang hopes to meet Li after the latter returns from the Himalayas.
Chiang still climbs when she gets the chance. This November, for example, she is traveling to Tanzania to climb Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest peak at 5,895 meters. Asked whether she always climbs the highest mountain in each country she visits, Chiang dismissed such notions as unimportant.
Chiang did say that she would like to return to Everest, but this time to lead a team to clean up the mountain.