Suicides among old common in villages
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E-mail Shanghai Daily, August 2, 2014
After taking a bath, 69-year-old Lin Muwen (pseudonym) put on a set of clean, formal clothes, burned some "paper money" for himself and drank half a bottle of pesticide. In a short while, he fell unconscious to the floor.
"I know from the villagers that the old man had planned for a long time before he committed suicide," said Liu Yanwu, a sociology professor from Wuhan University.
Local people in the village, less than 100 kilometers from Wuhan, capital city of Hubei Province, speculated that Lin had a huge falling out with his daughter-in-law.
"He was worried that his children would never burn ‘spirit money’ for him after he passed away (so he did it himself)," a villager told Liu. "He might find it a more decent way to end his life."
Professor Liu began his study on the suicides of elderly people in the countryside in 2008 when he was conducting a farm survey in Jingshan County in Hubei. To his shocking surprise, he learned from the locals that many old people in the county commit suicide.
Over the past six years, Liu has traveled to more than 40 villages in 11 provinces including Hubei, Shandong, Jiangsu, Shanxi, Henan and Guizhou to investigate the suicides among the elderly.
It is a national social science funding project, of which Liu is in charge.
Liu has found that suicide rate among the elderly in China’s countryside have become increased sharply since 1990. During his field trip in Jingshan, Liu found out that 30 percent of the old people who had passed way committed suicide.
"Although China’s suicide rate has decreased over the past decade, more and more elderly rural people choose to end their lives rather than try to solve the problems of interpersonal relationship," he explained. "Perhaps it is a way for them to relieve and stop the emotional pain in an aging society."
Lin’s death seemed to change nothing in his village. His son didn’t even blame his wife for it, saying that "life goes on, and we don’t live with a dead person."
According to Liu’s survey, suicide is even regarded as a normal and reasonable choice in Lin’s village. The local village doctors consider it a natural death, particularly when the old people are suffering diseases. In addition to drinking pesticide, many old people bury, hang and drown themselves.
Around 40 college teachers and students are engaged in the research. "When the villagers told me the tragic stories in a very casual and light-hearted way, I felt so sad and depressed," Liu said.
Liu and his team were also shocked by the villagers’ indifference and cruelty toward suicide even when it happened in their own family.
He mentioned a case in which an elderly couple drank pesticide together but the man didn’t die immediately. However, his children didn’t send him to a hospital. Instead, they told their weak father to attend the funeral of his wife. One day later, the man died.
In another case, a son who was a migrant worker in a big city went back to his village to visit his sick and dying father, getting a 7-day leave from work in the process. But when he came home, he found his father was not sick or dying. He asked him, "Why on earth didn’t you die? The 7-day leave should have included your funeral."
His father proceeded to commit suicide, and the son left his home quickly after the funeral.
In Liu’s opinion, hard and poor lives, disease and emotional problems that include loneliness are the major reasons for old people’s suicides.
"Fast economic development has also influenced the villagers who are seeking maximum benefits of the family," Liu said. "They begin to calculate if it is really worthwhile to spend a big amount of money treating the sick old men."
Yang Hua, a member of the research team, confirms that more than half of the rural elderly people committing suicide took the interests of their children into consideration.
Some chose remote sites that would avoid causing any trouble to their children. Some wouldn’t kill themselves until some time had passed after quarrels with their children. They would wait until the relationship seemed to be harmonious so that nobody would question their children.
He Xuefeng, a sociologist from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, attributes the suicide phenomenon to inter-generational exploitation.
Most of the men who take their own lives have done much for their children such as building or helping pay for a house, hosting a wedding, and caring for the grandchildren. But when they become old and begin to lose their ability to work, they get very few returns, materially or emotionally.
Scholars are worried that China’s rapidly aging society will make matters worse. By the end of last year, more than 200 million Chinese have been aged 60 or above, 14.9 percent of the total population. More than 23 million are over 80.
In the next 20 years, the number of senior citizens will continue to increase and pose enormous economic and social problems.
Some middle-aged farmers are starting to plan for their own future. They no longer count on their children to take care of them during their twilight years, and instead they start to spend some of their savings on insurance.
Experts want the government to establish a better social security system and senior care centers and communities in the countryside to satisfy the elderly’s living and emotional needs.
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