Ted Junior is handsome, like all his siblings of the Kennedy clan. I did not know he lost a leg when he was a little boy before he told a personal story about his father, to an audience of 1,400 dignitaries and stars, including four U.S. presidents and first ladies who gathered Saturday at the imposing Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica in Boston to pay last respects to the towering political figure in U.S. politics.

“My father taught me that nothing was impossible,” he said when he told a riveting story about how he learned that lesson. He lost a leg to bone cancer when he was 12. On one snowy day, when he was trying to get used to his new artificial leg, his father took him out with a sled and asked him to climb up a hill to sled down. “The hill was covered with ice and snow ... and as I struggled to walk, I slipped and fell on the ice and I started to cry, 'I can't do this and I'll never be able to climb that hill,'” he said. “And he lifted me in his strong and gentle arms and said something I'll never forget. He said 'I know you'll do that, there is nothing you can't do. We're going to climb that hill together, even if it takes us all day,'” Teddy's voice began to crack, with tears welling up in his eyes.

But there were “harder lessons” than that, Teddy Junior revealed, saying his father “even taught me how to like the Republicans.” The revelation brought the house down. “He once told me, 'Teddy, Republicans love this country just as much as I do...'” I saw in the audience George Bush and John McCain nodding with approval.

His father, however, “was not perfect,” and “far from it.”

“Dad believed in redemption and he never surrendered. Never stopped trying to right wrongs, be they the results of his own failings or of ours.” He was referring to Sen. Kennedy's strenuous efforts to emerge from the shadows of Chappaquiddick and other moral peccadilloes that doomed his presidential ambitions in the 1970s and undermined his moral authority as a political leader.

Remember the bumper sticker “nobody died at Watergate”? It hinted that even “Tricky Dick” was morally superior to the rising star of the Democratic Party who was unable to explain the bizarre death of a young woman who drowned in his submerged car in Chappaquiddick in an accident in 1969 that remains a mystery to this day.

The redemption was successful and complete. Senator Kennedy's re-emergence from the dark shadows as a political giant bore witness to the success. He gained the respect and admiration of the American people, especially the voiceless and the disadvantaged “little guys” who genuinely believed in his greatness despite the moral lapses of this “imperfect soul,” as he once admitted. He worked harder than most other politicians and he truly believed in “service for the people” — not a slogan but a purpose and cause. In the end, the redemption made him a “kind and tender hero,” in the words of President Obama.

In many aspects, Sen. Kennedy's beliefs and philosophy sounded strikingly Chinese. He admired perseverance, telling his son that they could climb the hill “even it takes us all day.”

The Chinese are even more so in their belief. The old Chinese tale about a man trying to move a mountain in front of his house contains the same moral.

If you wonder why mainland China won more gold medals than the United States in last year's Olympics, it was because Chinese athletes worked harder. If you wonder why Taiwan's little leaguers from Taoyuan lost the championship to a California team in the World Series Sunday, it was because American kids worked harder.

Yes, the Chinese believe in redemption — a Confucian virtue. The Chinese sage once said, “who else except the saint does not err? To right the wrong is an enormous virtue.”

Unfortunately, examples of born-again politicians like Sen. Kennedy are hard to come by in Taiwan's politics. We just have too many unrepentant sinners in politics who always blame others for their own sins.

But there is a difference, glaring difference in Kennedy's political beliefs and those held by Taiwan's politicians. “Republicans love this country as much as I do” sounds something of a heresy here. On this island, to “love Taiwan” is a monopoly, politically. How could people on the other side of the political aisle “love this island as much as we do?” It's preposterous!

I must admit that not every politician in America possesses such a big heart as Ted Kennedy did, as evidenced in the divisive, polarized U.S. presidential election in 2008. Perhaps that's precisely what made Sen. Kennedy great, despite, or perhaps because of, his failure to win the presidency.