Dr. Red Nose’ Diary – “Let me see! You funny red noses!”

The boy shyly clutched the sleeve of the man beside him. If the man hadn’t been wearing a nurse’s uniform, I would have mistaken them for family.

When I first stepped into the pediatric ward area of Hualien Tzu Chi Hospital, I didn’t feel anything in particular.

There were murals on the corridor walls, creations made by the talented doctors together with their colleagues and the children. The whiteboard in the children’s lounge displayed song lyrics in Indigenous and Vietnamese languages, while a low cabinet nearby held a row of children’s books. The lighting was comfortable, and the tables and chairs were arranged casually. As the deputy head nurse introduced the environment to us, nurses moved back and forth around us.

How strange—not a special feeling at all. Normally, I should have felt… tense, oppressed, or restrained, or something like that, right?

During our opening performance in the middle of the corridor, hmm… I still didn’t feel that way.

The children and their parents sat on the little stools we had prepared, forming a semicircle. Meanwhile, the nurses and children who had been drawn over by the performance stood around the outside, craning their necks to watch. The scene would not have looked out of place at all if it had been people watching street performers by the roadside. It even reminded me of the happiness I felt watching outdoor movies in front of the temple as a child—lively, intimate, and focused.

After the opening performance ended, we said goodbye several times. Even though the performance was over, the children remained seated on the stools with no intention of leaving, their eyes seeming to say: “Let me see! You funny red noses!” Their eager gazes made us want to give them something more. It wasn’t until the head nurse began a speech urging everyone to leave and helped us escape that they finally departed reluctantly.

Next came our Dr. Red Nose’ ward rounds. The first child was a little boy from Vietnam. Although he had already seen us in the corridor, he was still somewhat nervous when three clowns appeared in his room. He tightly gripped the sleeve of the man beside him. If the man hadn’t been wearing a nurse’s uniform, I would almost have thought he was the boy’s family member.

Because he was shy, the boy directed all his reactions to the clowns at this nurse—both psychologically and physically… The nurse’s entire face was covered with clown stickers, and even his glasses were not spared. Thank you; my glasses breathed a sigh of relief.

On our way to the next ward, we ran into the chief physician, who was about to make his rounds, so it was only natural that we recruited him as our tour guide.

But being a tour guide for Dr. Red Nose is no easy job. Besides showing us the way, he also had to feed the little fox, introduce the little fox and the little girl as they picnicked together, join in the chain of announcing everyone’s names, and hold his breath while helping the clown secretly place a sticker on the little boy’s head. He was practically a super tour guide whose medical studies had gotten in the way.

The way the child looked at the tour guide suddenly made me understand why I hadn’t felt tense or uncomfortable when I first entered the ward. The atmosphere here was incredibly harmonious, almost like a little town. When a street performer came to town, everyone would come out to watch the excitement. The mayor and his helpers were everyone’s good friends, dropping in on people and helping parents look after the little villagers—these were all everyday occurrences, nothing strange at all.

On the way back to Taipei, I thought about how, just to watch our Dr. Red Nose perform, the boy had grabbed the nurse’s hand and dragged him all over the place, and when he was especially engrossed, they even conversed in Vietnamese.

When I got off the bus, I felt something special in my heart.

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