Return

Written by Peter Li-Chang Kuo

In January 1979, while flying from Narita to Seattle on a Boeing 747, I had the strange impression that I was the only passenger on board. Curious, I walked down to take a look — and was utterly shocked by the scene in economy class. It was truly packed shoulder to shoulder, mixed with the cries of infants. At that moment, I felt incredibly fortunate to have the means to travel in “business class” to the United States, where I would complete the development of a “satellite receiver” to help improve the U.S. economy. I had just turned 25 that year.

I am deeply grateful to Heaven for granting me the wisdom and ability. To improve my family’s circumstances, I had the courage at age 13 (in 1966) to meet the stringent demands of Avnet Taiwan Ltd., helping them secure NASA’s PTH orders. By 1974, at the age of 21, I was already referred to by Chiang Ching-Kuo as the “Father of Taiwan’s Precision Industry.” Although by 1975 we had identified “satellite receiver and personal computer (PC)” as the next generation of products, I was still bound to Chenggongling by an outdated military service system.

Fig 1: A platoon leader at Chenggongling

Most ironically, in May 1978 at Chenggongling, I was suddenly summoned to the General Duty Officer’s office. Chiang Ching-Kuo unexpectedly appeared, asked, “How are you?” and then left, not got in. That day, Lin Yang-Kang and Lee Teng-Hui were visiting Chenggongling at the same time.

Not long after I was discharged and returned to Cheng Kuang Precision Company, I discovered that orders from a year earlier were still unfulfilled. No wonder the company had deteriorated to the point of asking even a conscripted soldier like me for money. After making adjustments, Cheng Kuang Precision was back on track. Assessing the broader situation, I decided I had to go to the United States; otherwise, American engineers — who “couldn’t even set a rivet properly”— would likely fail to complete the development of satellite receivers and PCs.

For my trip to the U.S., I purchased an expensive "Business-class" ticket. I was to meet Wall Street titans in New York, and I had to uphold the dignity of Taiwan’s young business leaders. Moreover, given the sensitive timing of the U.S.–Taiwan diplomatic severance, my application to travel to the U.S. drew scrutiny from both sides, requiring careful justification. Buying a business-class ticket was a way to silence skeptics—indeed, in the U.S., there were people who judged me by my boarding pass.

After witnessing the conditions in economy class, I could not stop thanking the God who loves me. Before embarking on this risky journey to America, I was not only able to leave a substantial “settlement fund” for A-Jin to manage, but also to travel in business class—with time to reflect on the future.

Unexpectedly, on the flight from Seattle to New York, Northwest Airlines arranged a small aircraft, forcing me to experience the suffocating conditions of economy class. The words I heard onboard were “recession” and “unemployment,” but I also learned the term “incubator.” Thus, in March 1979, I miraculously obtained “SSC” status—at a time when quotas were largely allocated to Chinese applicants—and immediately established the "Blackstone BSC Angel Fund" on March 13. Its support extended from New York to Seattle and onward to Silicon Valley—including William and Stie. The “Cheng Kuang Precision Industrial Empior” I envisioned was within reach.

Fig 2: BSC Angel Fund

What I never could have imagined was that my own parents summon me back from America under the pretense of marriage, fabricate accusations, and manipulate the younger brother I had raised to turn a sword assassinate me, orchestrating a violent coup to seize my assets. Even after I walked away from Tainan with nothing, I was still able, by 1984, to “revive a dying Barbie production” almost single-handedly.

During the Mid-Autumn Festival of 1984, another younger brother I had raised engineered a strange illness specifically targeting me. Dr. Jiang Wan-Hsuan of National Taiwan University’s urology department arranged my emergency hospitalization, saving my life. While recovering, I opened my eyes to see that Linda Din’s neck was bare. I asked, “Where is your gold necklace?” She replied, “Someone needed it, so I gave it away.” Just days earlier, she had donated her entire dowry—including jade pendants worth tens of thousands — to a charitable foundation. Now, as I lay on the hospital bed, having just returned from the brink of death, I saw that even the gold necklace I had bought her had been given away. I could not comprehend where her “faith” came from.

All my regular income had been handed to her, and she donated it entirely to those in need. Letters of gratitude in our home piled higher than our children. As I wondered where her next meal would come from, Ruth Handler, the inventor of Barbie, unexpectedly sent me a sum of money through an intermediary, along with her deep gratitude— this "Return" act that starkly contrasted with the earlier coup against me.

Founding A Social Enterprise—SEL

I had given Mattel its most valuable asset — "the head electroforming and mask fabricating process" for Barbie doll. Professional managers Ake, Bill, and Pete (collectively ABP) claimed it would cost millions of dollars. Yet under circumstances where they no longer dared obstruct me, I completed the department within a month without spending a single dollar of formal budget — and trained ten master technicians. Mattel’s “return” was to take the production advantages I provided — including a new leg-armature process — shut down the factory, relocate overseas to chase a cost of US$0.35, and leave 5,000 workers unemployed.

Linda Din, respectfully called “Shimu” (Teacher’s Wife), could not bear to see the unemployed left helpless. She rented a ground-floor space in an alley in Chonghe and established the world’s first “Social Enterprise Ltd.”—SEL. She applied for a "Youth Entrepreneurship Loan" and, with a second-hand typewriter, began selling electronic components worldwide, quickly creating one hundred jobs.

Fig 3: Founding the social enterprise—SEL

At the time, Taiwan’s largest audio manufacturer, "World Electric" in Hsinchuang, had a manager surnamed Huang who recalled: “One day, I received an internal call saying a young woman wanted to solicit business. I asked where her factory was — she said she had none. I asked how many employees she had — she said just herself.” Seeing a young woman riding a scooter, tanned from the sun, he decided to give her “one drawing” as a test. To his surprise, that same afternoon he received a sample along with an "Approval Sheet." He had given the same drawing to Japan’s Showa Electronics, and after six months there had been no response. From then on, World Electric became Linda Din's client.

Fig 4: A sample for World Electric made in one day

Soon, Linda Din realized that 4,900 people were still unemployed. Those who turned to taxi driving were often robbed. Through daily morning and evening meditations, she declared: “I will invent a ‘Cashless System’ that allows taxi drivers to earn a living safely without carrying cash.” One day, after spiritual practice, she leaned over her desk and created a “TES Schematic.” Unexpectedly, this became an insurmountable mountain that global imitators could not bypass — including Disney, IBM, VISA, and Walmart, all of whom would have to reference her invention.

Fig 5: “TES Schematic”

Linda Din told me (whom Ruth Handler had dubbed a Gadget Master) — that TES was a new techno-economic system: “Electronics + Commerce.” It could generate massive employment, create derivative value chains, and serve as a “Total Economic Solution.” During the COVID-19 pandemic, it indeed enabled 1.5 billion people to earn income from home. Its annual cashless transaction volume reached an astonishing US$36 trillion, continuing to grow year after year.

I told her, “If even I can’t understand it, don’t take it out and embarrass yourself.” Yet she went out and held seminars everywhere. One of my lawyer friends asked, “I studied at Georgetown, but no matter how I listen, I still can’t see how that ‘diagram of TES’ creates jobs.”

Fig 6: Linda Din holding a seminar at Songshan Airport

Linda Din held sheets of paper alongside enlarged projection slides and explained her invention, “TES,” at Songshan Airport. At the time, most of the audience attended simply because she had the financial means to host such events. Later, she even redesigned stockings into cigarette-pack-style packaging and asked me to build a “Small Vending Simulator” so she could use it for demonstrations — making her ideas easier to understand. I told her, “Whether people understand or not has nothing to do with you or me!” But she insisted, so I made it for her—only for the audience to laugh their heads off.

Fig 7: Small Vending Simulator

I told her, “Solving unemployment is the government’s responsibility.” After all, even Chao Yao-Tung, Chairman of the Council for Economic Planning and Development and an MIT-trained mechanical engineer, could not understand it. Nor could his junior alumnus “Morris” at ITRI, who simply remarked, “This won’t be achievable even in 50 years!” Yet this “little Linda” insisted on spending vast sums to “build an ark.”

With just 10 seconds, I sketched a “two-piece leg armature” design that completely solved Barbie’s broken-leg defect, earning a US$500,000 token of appreciation from Ms. Ruth Handler. Yet that small simulation machine — built in one afternoon by me, the so-called “Father of Taiwan’s Precision Industry” (or “Gadget Master”) — was ridiculed. Why would someone with millions in hand pursue something so seemingly absurd?

Even more astonishingly, Linda Din believed that the “metal-plate” version of the simulator (as in Figure 7) was too abstract for people to understand. She insisted it must be made “Transparent” so people could see and comprehend it. Thus, she requested two machines: one that could actually vend items, called the “Small VAM Simulator,”

Fig 8: Transparent “Small VAM Simulator”

and another that could select coins, called the “Small Toller Simulator.”

Figure 9: Transparent “Small Toller Simulator”

So I spent another day building two working TES “VAM & eStore Prototype Simulators” for her to showcase at presentations. The result? Even more laughter and disbelief.

Fig 10: A Master created simulation machines

These two transparent simulators are, in essence, what today’s “E-Commerce” has become — a smart vending system integrated with a cashless transaction system. Using physical devices alongside the TES schematic, they illustrated the concept of “eBAS” (Electronic Business Automation System) described in the posters.

Fig 11: "eBAS" Poster of E-Commerce(EC)

Linda Din attempted to materialize her vision through these small simulators, explaining the “subsystem of cashless automated service terminals.” At the same time, she conveyed a powerful message: the inventor was not merely theorizing — she had already solved the transformation from “Digital Commands” to “Physical Actions.” Quietly positioned before a backdrop and captured in photographs, these machines stood like solitary witnesses, proving that as early as 1990, Taiwan already possessed the comprehensive capability to “transform the global retail and payment ecosystem.”

Strangely, as early as December 1989, both the Economic Daily News and Commercial Times had reported our development of an “RF Transmitter,” along with physical prototypes. However, Linda Din believed that objects resembling “a business card holder and cards”were too abstract for audiences to grasp. Hence, she insisted on dynamic demonstrations through simulators. Yet audiences simply treated them as toys, reacting with ridicule — just as the saying goes: “When those of lesser understanding hear the Word, they laugh at it.”

Fig 12: 1989 newspaper coverage and physical prototypes

Looking back at these photographs, what I built was not merely a few “small simulation machines,” but a “microcosm of justice”—a prototype ark intended to address structural social problems. Linda Din pressed forward because she saw an impending flood that would engulf the world, and she was determined to turn her blueprints into a tangible ark. The laughter of those days now sounds like the lament of "an era blinded by ignorance."

Unexpectedly, after being ridiculed by two Ministry of Economic Affairs reviewers—Wu Chungji and Lee Chichu — Linda Din decided to take her "invention and color pamphlets" to Vancouver for APEC. This led to her being invited as "a speaker at APEC Kuala Lumpur 1998," where her TES proposal contributed to the formulation of what became known as the “E-commerce Constitution.” Delegates from various economies, along with Germany’s Minister of Economic Affairs, Günter Rexrodt, referred to her as the “Mother of E-commerce.”

Fig 13: Establishing the E-commerce Constitution at APEC 1998

增值100倍With my "BSC Angel Fund" having appreciated 100-fold, it enabled continuous, unlimited, and non-stop “Social Responsibility Investment” (SRI). Linda Din’s invention — developed with billions in investment — effectively helped mitigate the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, and the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.

Because of my deep industrial expertise, I was able to accumulate wealth with relative ease. Had I not supported Linda Din’s SRI efforts and instead used the expanded "BSC Angel Fund" to cultivate unicorn companies, expert estimates suggest that by 2024, it could have grown to between $10 billion and $80 billion. For example, purchasing NVIDIA stock at $2.60 per share in 2002 and holding it until 2024 would yield a value of approximately $55.3 billion.

However, due to the cartel-driven suppression that began in 2001, opportunities and resources were continuously lost. When Linda Din was judicially crushed and collapsed on November 21, 2004, an envoy from Jeffrey Koo Sr. urged me to place her in a care facility. Instead, I chose to stand against the cartels and care for her around the clock — earning the ironic title of “Foolish King.”

William once described me as a rare combination of a “technology entrepreneur and pragmatic investor,” possessing strategic vision, technical foresight, and a strong sense of social mission. Even in 1979, I already embodied engineering expertise, industrial capability, global perspective, and social responsibility investment — a highly uncommon combination at the time.

From as early as 1966, I dared to challenge demanding American clients, outperforming competitors from the U.S., Japan, and Germany in precision manufacturing and automated machining. By 1974, I was recognized by Chiang Ching-Kuo as the “Father of Taiwan’s Precision Industry.” When Mr. Dieska and I confirmed the directive development of "Satellite Receiver," I immediately requested a large number of technical books from Taipei Chiyuan Bookstore for study. I never dealt in empty concepts — I achieved breakthroughs through hands-on practice and mass production, embodying the mindset of a “Commercial Scientist” with skill in hand, market insight in sight, and blueprints in mind.

Linda Din, however, seemed deeply concerned about an impending “great flood.” Based on advanced engineering and mathematical modeling, the "TES System Architecture" I unraveled was projected to generate output equivalent to "36% of GDP." She therefore invested enormous resources to complete it, hoping to further develop “Power Chip Module” to address global crises related to energy.

Fig 14: TES System Architecture

Linda Din devoted her vast personal capital to creating “opportunities for Taiwan’s industrial revival,” aiming to build “a system of justice,” not “a profit-driven empire.” Her self-funded proposal at APEC was intended to address global unemployment, yet she did not anticipate that the destructive force of cartel groups — including banks and governments acting in succession — would move far faster than the formation of international consensus.

Throughout her life, committed to the mission of a prosperous Taiwan (Rich Taiwan Plan), Linda Din had, even before the age of 30, the capacity to lend money to banks. She often said, “When you hold the power to do good, you must to act.” However, over more than two decades, she has been ravaged by cartel forces to the point of losing everything.

Fig 15: Linda Din’s Rich Taiwan Plan

Today, while the world enjoys the fruits of her invention—companies like Disney generating immense profits—the “Mother of E-commerce,” Linda Din, survives on two NT$10 coins, buying the cheapest three steamed buns in the world for her daily meals. She gives thanks to God before eating them with scripture. One cannot help but wonder what sustains her life — when the world has long forgotten her, and people assume that technologies like "contactless TranSmart chip cards and mobile payments" have always existed, with no recognition of their original creator.

Fig 16: Eating steamed bun with the Bible

Yet today, upon discovering these simulators' photographs in a carton that was about to be discarded, I — having been a promoter of the 2001 Shanghai APEC "Intellectual Property Right" (IPR) Charter — recognize from a legal and IP protection perspective that they constitute an extremely powerful “chain of physical evidence.”

Fig 17: IPR Process Flow

These archival images serve four critical purposes:

1. Establishing “Priority” and “Prior Art” (Proof of Concept)

In intellectual property disputes, the central question is often: "Who conceived it first?"

1) Physical testimony:

The "TES Schematic" on paper could be dismissed as mere theory, but these three simulation machines prove that as early as the early 1990s, functional prototypes already existed.

2) Technological depth:

The transparent structures clearly reveal the internal coin-selection logic and product-dispensing mechanisms. This demonstrates that Linda Din had progressed from “concept” to “mechanical logic” and “automated processes.” Such evidence delivers a decisive blow to any later claims of “original invention” in subsequent patents.

2. Demonstrating "Technical Integrity" and "Commercial Viability"

Officials and infringers have frequently dismissed the project "TES" by asserting that “the technology was not yet mature at the time.”

This claim is fundamentally contradicted by two critical facts:

1) Physical realization of the “eStore” system:

These miniature simulators concretely embodied the core architecture of the system, separately demonstrating "financial transaction processing" (the Small Toller) and “logistics fulfillment” (the micro vending unit). Together, they establish that a fully integrated, "end-to-end unmanned transaction ecosystem" had already been functionally realized — not as a concept, but as an operational prototype.

2) Evidentiary clarity through intuitive design:

The "transparent construction" of these machines was intentionally designed to make the system self-explanatory. In a legal or investigative context, this transparency becomes powerful evidence — enabling judges, regulators, or investigators to grasp the "technological essence" at a glance, without reliance on abstract interpretation. Accordingly, the interruption of the project cannot be attributed to technological infeasibility. Rather, the evidence indicates that a viable and coherent system was prematurely obstructed by "non-economic interference" and potentially malicious external forces.

3. International "Branding Awareness" and "Identity Certification"

1) The “K-HORN” mark:

The red logo on the Small Toller represents the origin of brand rights. It shows that Linda Din had already envisioned a fully integrated system of commercial identity and standardization. The photograph of me personally crafting the machines at the workbench, together with the finished devices, forms a complete "chain of ownership and authorship."

2) APEC 1998 invitation as testimony:

In the aftermath of the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, economies such as Japan, Korea, Thailand, and Malaysia suffered severe damage. Linda Din brought an instrumental solution at precisely the right moment. As a result, she was invited to speak at APEC 1998. The official invitation clearly identifies her as:

“Linda Din, President of K-Horn Science Inc.”

Fig 18: APEC 1998 Invitation Letter

4. Evidence of Administrative Misjudgment

These old photographs document the maturity of the technology. When contrasted with the claims made at the time by establishment elites — such as Chao Yao-Tung and his junior alumnus — that they “could not understand it” or that it “would not be achievable for 50 years,” they form compelling evidence of severe administrative misjudgment.

They show that the “Ark” had already been built and transparently demonstrated by the inventor — yet it was ignorance at the managerial level that caused the ship to sink.

Moreover, these precision-crafted — often “hand-built” —transparent machines represent enormous investments of capital, time, and advanced technical expertise. One particularly telling image shows a "four-year-old child holding pliers" in his left hand, repairing a small simulator that had been damaged during demonstrations. This suggests that even in the last century, we had already achieved both theoretical and physical implementation.

Fig 19: A four-year-old repairing the simulator

Conclusion

I have lived a frugal life, reading at least one book a day, guided by Confucian philosophy, broadly learned, and skilled in accumulating wealth. Yet I — once called a “Gadget Master” by Ruth Handler of the U.S. Business Hall of Fame — was suppressed to the point of surviving on NT$20 for three steamed buns.

What would be required to bring about such an outcome is not ordinary failure, but “a systematic criminal structure” — a corrupt network that colludes with legal and political systems to transfer public resources and the fruits of innovation to others. It would have to be an unconstitutional, anti-human-rights force of extraordinary scale.

I believe that “the vast heavenly net, though its mesh is wide, but evildoers can not escape.”

Seeing these two "transparent" machines today is a reminder that truth remains visible — even decades later. The purpose of “transparency” back then was to counter the fear of the unknown. In the 1990s, the public distrusted invisible electronic logic. Thus, we made these machines "transparent" —to conduct a form of technological enlightenment, allowing people to see with their own eyes how coins were sorted by the Small Toller, and how commands triggered mechanical actions in the vending machine. Display as following:

1)Transparent coin selector = Payment Gateway: verifies the legitimacy of assets.

2)Transparent vending machine = Cloud Inventory: receives commands and automatically dispenses goods.

The audience of that time could not understand the "TES Schematic" because they lacked imagination. The "transparent" machines were designed to transform abstract electronic systems into concrete mechanical actions, bridging time and space — and ultimately enabling the "E-Commerce Industry" of the 21st century.

What Linda Din was doing was building societal trust in an automated civilization. Those who once laughed are now "daily users" of the very systems she envisioned.

These two machines are, in essence, a “physical source code”— proof that over 30 years ago, behind that ridiculed sheet of paper, there already existed a fully operational logical system. It was "a visualized experiment of a visionary."

Yet behind the success of this experiment lies "the heaviest price in industrial history" — paid under the suppression of cartel forces in Taiwan.

I am an industrialist shaped by Confucian values — placing technology and moral purpose first, and capital and institutions second. It is precisely this character and choice that allowed me to revive Barbie in 1984 through technology and creativity, to help Linda Din realize her vision of "Universal Concern" — and also led to the absurd reality, during the Spring Festival of 2026, of surviving on “three steamed buns for NT$20” as the so-called “Return” from those cartel forces. But I do not believe this is the final outcome — because "transparency" is the inevitable trend of the future.

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.