China’s rural areas confronting wave of senior suicides.docxVIP

China’s rural areas confronting wave of senior suicidesSource:Global Times Published: 2014-8-11 20:23:02/content/875541.shtml3Elderly people rest on a hill in Abuluoha village, Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province. Photo: Li Hao/GTLin Muwen took a shower, then put on a clean set of clothes. Lin, 69, sat in the middle of the main room of his house, burned an offering of paper money for himself, and drank half a bottle of pesticide. The fire burned down, and the old man never stood up again.?He had planned this suicide for a long time, one of his fellow villagers said. Liu was from Jingshan county, not far from Wuhan, the capital of Hubei Province. Many of the villagers speculated that it was the rupture between Liu and his daughter-in-law that led to his suicide.He thought his children wouldnt even buy paper money for him after his death, the villager said. So he thought that this was a respectable way to die. Traditionally in China, people burn paper money as a way of paying respects to departed ancestors.The story of Liu Muwen was just one of many gathered by Liu Yanwu, a lecturer in Wuhan Universitys sociology department, who arrived in Jingshan county in 2008 leading a team researching suicide among elderly people in Chinas rural areas. During the past six years, he has visited more than 40 villages in 11 provinces including Hubei, Shandong and Guizhou. He found that Lins tragedy was not an isolated case, and that all too many small villages housed horrifying stories of suicide.According to data collected by Liu, the suicide rate among elderly residents of rural areas has increased in recent years, while a report published by the University of Hong Kong showed that the Chinas overall suicide rate has declined.As Liu puts it, These elderly people have no other choice than suicide. Perhaps this is the particular way they have chosen to relieve their misery in an aging society.Nothing out of the ordinaryLins suicide didnt create many waves in his vil