The Chain (Signed) Chien-Chi Chang

The Long Fa Tang Temple in southern Taiwan is both a sanctuary and a prison for 700 mental patients. The temple administers don’t use medications or treatments offered in other institutions. Instead, the Buddhist monks and nuns who oversee the patient population employ chains for "therapeutic" purposes.

A patient in stable condition is linked and locked to one who is considered less sound. Day in and day out, the more lucid one leads the two-person chain gang.

Patients typically arrive at the temple under duress. After exhausting conventional medical treatments, desperate family members see Long Fa Tang as the last resort for the incurable. Chien-Chi Chang’s work, shows the patients chained together and forced to work on a chicken farm, is brought together in this book of infinite humanity.

Signed by Chien-Chi Chang.