520 Presidential Inauguration Day

Written by Peter Li-Chang Kuo

For Taiwanese people, May 20 is "Presidential Inauguration Day"—filled with political atmosphere, not at all romantic, unlike in Mainland China, where young couples exchange gifts and celebrate with a sense of ritual.

To me, May 20 is a day that witnessed a miracle—this was the pivotal moment when I brought "Barbie" back to life, helping tens of thousands of people keep their jobs, and creating a track record in socially responsible investing.

Fig 1: Barbie in her storm age (1982~1984)

There are two May 20s that stand out in my memory: May 20, 1978, and May 20, 1984.

Let’s start with 1978: I went through intense political infighting in the military, yet managed to survive and emerge victorious. From being a platoon leader in the 310th Brigade, I was transferred to the 104th Division as an acting inspector. At the division headquarters, I hosted a small celebration for the inauguration of President Chiang Ching-Kuo and Vice President Hsieh Tung-Min of the Republic of China. After May 20, both Lee Teng-Hui and Lin Yang-Kang came to Chengkungling on the same day, and I was assigned to the “Chief Officer” of the day room. Suddenly, several large vehicles pulled up, and President Chiang Ching-Kuo stepped out. He asked, “How are you doing?”

I replied, “Reporting to the President, I’m good!”

He patted me on the shoulder and said, “That’s good!” Then he got back in the car and drove off through the main gate.

On May 20, 1984, I woke up to find that one of my legs couldn’t move! Worse yet, I couldn’t support my body weight—it felt completely useless. Forcing myself to move was extremely painful, and I had to limp on one leg to Taishan. But still, in just one day, I accomplished a "Mission Impossible" and gave Barbie a new lease on life.

Recall that when I passed the exam of the 26th term of "Reserve Officer," a drill instructor called me in for a talk. He said, “Your father has a black mark in his record—an old communist spy case. For safety’s sake, I suggest you...”

Sure enough, during Typhoon Sarah, I donated my entire military salary to disaster relief, which unexpectedly triggered a plot by the company commander, the political instructor, and even the brigade commander. These scoundrels actually tried to frame me as a "communist spy." Fortunately, heaven was watching over me. The division commander transferred me out just in time, and I became an inspector for the higher-level unit above those vile men. In the following months, I witnessed the ugly side of bureaucracy in the army, but I managed to leave the service safely.

Because of my safety, soon later that satellite receivers were achieved to the world.

Coup of the Property-seizing

I never would have imagined that someone who once held the world’s most powerful precision industry resources and intellectual property would suffer a tragic personal downfall—trapped in a series of schemes by treacherous people, stripped of everything. On June 16, 1982, when I sorrowfully left the business I had built from below zero, one wretched woman even chased after me with a broom and screamed, “Ha! You’ve lost everything! I curses you—you’ll never find a path forward again. Let’s see you try to jump for the sky now!”

All I could do was wipe my nose and go to the Kaohsiung Export Processing Zone (KEPZ), where I found a job at a Hong Kong–owned toy company, Kaida. Even though I tried to avoid the electronics industry, too many people knew me—I still ran into familiar faces.

Imagine that the man Chiang Ching-Kuo once called “Father of Taiwan’s Precision Industry,” known among peers as a “Master of Precision Manufacturing,” and called “Dr. Blacksmith” by clients—now working at a toy factory in KEPZ. What a joke! The more familiar faces I met daily, the more negativity piled up.

Turning Point

One day after work, Linda, my wife handed me a newspaper ad titled “WANTED.” They were looking for a “Specialist” with a “Master’s Degree” and hands-on experience to solve issues in tooling and manufacturing process. It seemed tailor-made for me. Thus began my time-travel connection with Ruth Handler, the inventor of Barbie Doll.

In November 1982, I joined Mattel Ltd. Taiwan (MLT) in Taishan. Improving Barbie came as "a piece of cake" to me. I summarized the problems and solutions as follows:

1. The hair would straighten— so I can make the hair strands hollow. Once heat-treated (curling), they wouldn’t revert due to elasticity.

2. The weight of head lost control— so I can build a dispensor that injected a fixed amount of material, keeping the head weight precisely at 8 grams.

3. Makeup on the face was problematic— so I am able to train a group of young, skilled mask fabricators, and established an electroforming room to directly electroform fresh Barbie heads, ensuring precision.

4. The body had issues— so I can use the body measurements of Taiwanese girls, and the problem will be vanished.

5. The legs would break easily— so I designed a new leg armature. I won’t say much, but it took me only ten seconds to come up with it, along with a new process 240 times faster than the original.

Fig 2: Peter L. Kuo's designed Barbie's leg armature in 10 seconds

Based on my experience running "Cheng Kuang Precision Industrial Co., Ltd.", I believed these five major issues could be solved within two months. After that, Barbie’s production could be nearly defect-free (zero-defect)!

But I was too naive—there were too many "Political Calculations" involved. Especially after Mr. McDaley, who had recruited me, was soon transferred to the Philippines factory. I suddenly realized that my actual task was to prove that "Barbie could no longer be saved!"

It was absurd— after I had been forced to leave Tainan by malicious people, I quickly encountered even worse behavior from so-called professional managers.

After work, I told Linda about my discovery. The young woman’s eyes lit up and she said, “The economy is so bad right now— this is your chance to prove your theories by saving Barbie and help tens of thousands of people keep their jobs.”

Strange Connections Between Irrelevant Nodes

The main reason I risked diplomatic fallout by going to the U.S. to develop a "satellite receiver" was because Taiwan’s economy was in dire straits. The oil crisis and President Jimmy Carter’s administration had significantly negative impacts on Taiwan. I did the math: taking on the contract of American client would earn me much more than staying in Taiwan. So, after receiving a deposit from a client, I increased the capital of Cheng Kuang Precision “from NTD 1 million to NTD 6 million” before heading to the U.S., handing all the cash to A-Jin (aka the Empress Dowager Cixi), and bought myself a single plane ticket to New York.

Little did I know, while I was out waging battles abroad, conspiracies brewed at home. As I witnessed the bleak scene stretching from Seattle to New York, I originally planned to stay for five years and fulfill the title of "Dr. Blacksmith"— not just a nickname from clients, but in name and in fact. Unexpectedly, A-Jin saw through my plan and summoned me back to Tainan, swiftly launching the “May Fourth New Xuanwu Gate Coup.”

When A-Kun told me to go to the North District Household Registration Office on Cheng-Kong Road to have my household registration removed. There, with my third sister A-Hua yelling beside him, they demanded I sign "a document waiving all claims to property." Not only did I fulfill their wishes, I even gave them "a large sum of money," fearing they might go hungry. I pleaded with them not to touch the "cooling fan" I had developed for a friend surnamed Wang, nor any of its components— but they exchanged real gold for a pile of worthless cooling fan junk.

Six months later, A-Kun came crying with my brother-in-law to find Linda, trying to use familial affection to persuade me to return— because they were facing the unprecedented crisis of "having no money to spend." I knew exactly what I was walking into, yet I still returned.

Another reason was that I had close ties with Mayor Su Nan-Cheng’s urban planning team. In 1981, though business was slow due to the poor economy, I was still making several hundred thousand NT dollars in net profit each month. At that time, “NTD 300,000 could buy a hectare of land.” We planned to purchase 85 hectares around Chong-Hua East, West, South, and North Roads. However, after getting the company back on track and only acquiring about ten hectares, A-Kun, A-Jin, and their sons couldn’t wait and launched one more property-seizing coup.

That twist of fate eventually brought me to Taipei. Besides open the classes of teaching the apprentices, "saving Barbie" became part of my daily life. What was truly infuriating was that a few so-called professional managers, driven by personal interests, deliberately stalled a "Five-point Improvement Plan" that only involved a piece of cake.

From my observations, Mattel at the time had two factions. One was the "Dead-End Faction"—the professional managers I just mentioned. The other was the "Living-End Faction "— those who, seeing that Barbie’s deep-rooted problems couldn’t be fixed, shifted to developing the "He-Man" Series toy line, launched a comic series, and even had Dolph Lundgren star in the He-Man movie, which captured the hearts of boys around the world.

Fig 3: The little boy’s dream toy “He-Man”

The "Dead-End Faction" not only obstructed my five improvement plans, they also sabotaged the He-Man project. They seized an opportunity—one new He-Man toy featured a chest of "drum" that would display battle damage when he fought Skeletor. That battle damage required a pad-printing machine to apply. Somehow, this tiny feature became their point of attack.

I recommended purchasing that “Tampo Printer” manufactured in Lu-Chou for NTD 200,000 per unit —it was the most suitable choice for printing the "drum" of chest wound. But Big Beard A-Larrson rejected my suggestion immediately. Instead, they spent dozens of times more on the machines made in Hong Kong. They were delivered six months later, and spent 23 hours and 30 minutes each day under repair. The "Dead-End Faction" called in experts from all over the world. After another half year, nothing worked. The He-Man Series toy line collapsed, and Mattel teetered on the edge of ruin.

By then, I had written over ten proposals to report the solution and sent them to Mattel’s headquarters in El Segundo, but they all vanished without a trace. 1984 was the harsh winter of Taiwan’s economy. News finally broke that the MLT would be shut down. Five thousand employees were about to lose their jobs, but A-Larrson’s face beneath his thick beard revealed a wicked smile.

Mrs. Ruth Handler chose "Live"

On May 19, everyone prepared to go home for the holiday of President Chiang Ching-Kuo's inauguration— Big Beard angrily summoned me and accused me of meddling. He said that Ruth Handler had recently walked into the office, picked up a "To Be or Not To Be" report, and wrote "To Be" on it—authorizing me to fix the machines of tampo printing machine. But Big Beard added, "Tomorrow is a holiday—you have just one day to fix it!"

Faced with such an unreasonable demand, I actually replied, “One day? Fine! Who’s afraid?” And a sternly voice rose in my heart:

"Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you." (Deuteronomy 31:6)

May 20, 1984— cloudy with rain, a Presidential Inauguration Day in Taiwan. When I woke up in the morning, one of my legs couldn't move. Standing was excruciating. Linda helped me limp to the alley entrance, where I hailed a cab straight to Taishan. Incredibly, with one crippled leg, I fixed those Tampo Printers in a single day so that they could run 24 hours a day— saving Mattel Ltd. Taiwan (MLT) from closure. Thanks to three team members who formed an "Mission Impossible" unit on the spot.

Witness the Power of "Goodness and Faithfulness"

This experience showed me that the power of goodness and faithfulness can indeed move mountains and sweep away evil in an instant. On the morning of May 21, when I walked falteringly into MLT again, the entire factory stood in salute. Cries of “Master! Doctor! Hero!” rang out. Concerning That "a piece of cake"— those "Five-point Improvement Plan"— were quickly implemented. Barbie was reborn from the ashes and once again claimed the title of number one in the world.

One day, someone calling himself "Jack" phoned to scold me, saying I had cut off his income stream. He used to earn tens of millions of U.S. dollars each year from home—now all gone. It turned out that he had designed "leg armature" for Barbie that was not only overly complex but prone to breakage. He charged Mattel ten cents in IP royalties per leg. With annual production over 100 million legs the IP revenue really was in the tens of millions.

To me, that leg armature was just a small technical trick--a piece of cake. It had only taken me ten seconds to design a new one, and I even developed a whole set of peripheral processing equipment in semi-automatic for Mattel. Compared to the ultra-precise “Eyelets” I’d made for Apollo 4, this leg armature was a thousand times simpler— yet I never charged the Americans any development fees or IP royalties. No wonder Mrs. Ruth Handler later said:

“Everyone else negotiates terms before doing anything. Only Peter delivered a whole host of results without asking for a thing.”

I give thanks to the silent, faithful, and kind God who watches over us. Mrs. Ruth Handler was a woman of faith. She was kept making prayers in tears for the company she founded and her invented Barbie doll. Her prayers wove invisible threads that stretched from Tainan to Taishan, and then all the way to El Segundo. Incredibly, she actually saw the report I wrote, and just like magic, I reversed the outcome in a single day—truly "To Be."

From that point on, whatever I said was taken as "TRUTH." Barbie’s long-standing ailments were quickly resolved, and she returned to the top of the world. I, in turn, was nicknamed "Mr. Barbie."

Perhaps I represent the spirit of kindness unique to Taiwanese people. On this politically charged day, I hope everyone can reflect on the wisdom of Master Qu Yuan:

“If the Canglang River is clear, I can wash my tassels in it; If the Canglang River is muddy, I can wash my feet in it.”(The Fisherman, Qu Yuan)

“Donateto the NDART”

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.