HONG KONG - As China basks in the spotlight of hosting another international
extravaganza - the World Expo, which opened May 1 in Shanghai - it is worth
noting that a homeless man named Cheng Guorong is one of the most popular
figures on the Internet in the country so far this year.
Actually, while most netizens would immediately recognize Cheng's strikingly
handsome face and strange sartorial flare, they probably would not know his
real name. For months, Cheng, a vagabond in the city of Ningbo in eastern
Zhejiang province, was regarded as the "coolest man in China".
His rugged good looks, captured in photographs by Ningbo residents enthralled
by the possibilities of his life story, prompted comparisons to film stars such
as Takeshi Kaneshiro and Ken
Watanabe. He was called the "Beggar Prince" and the "Handsome Vagabond", but
the name that eventually stuck and transformed him into a mythical cyber hero
was "Brother Sharp".
Brother Sharp, who appears to be in his mid thirties, became widely admired for
his penetrating gaze and the "beggar chic" style of layered clothing he wore -
blue cotton pullover, black leather jacket and black overcoat, all of these
rather soiled items apparently picked up off the streets of Ningbo. And, the
ever-present cigarette in his mouth or between his fingers only further
enhanced his image as a rebel without a cause.
Once his image went viral and his fame spread, Brother Sharp was hounded by
paparazzi and a growing band of groupies as he made his daily rounds as a
Ningbo beggar. A legend was born. Brother Sharp's story morphed from a
curiosity piece into the epitome of man versus society - or, in this particular
case, handsome, intelligent Chinese man versus greedy, inhumane Chinese
society.
China's most popular shopping portal, taobao.com, introduced a Brother Sharp
fashion line, with a jacket inspired by the tramp's motley wardrobe priced at
nearly 9,000 yuan (US$1,318). The mainstream media picked up his story, and
speculation about his background became rife. Was he a university graduate who
had given up on socialism with Chinese characteristics? Was he a jilted lover?
Perhaps both? The stories multiplied.
As it turns out, however, Cheng is nothing like the Brother Sharp depicted on
blogs and in Internet chat rooms; he is a schizophrenic who had been separated
from his family with no idea of how to get back home. After his wife died in a
car accident 11 years ago, Cheng left his home in the city of Shangrao in
Jiangxi province, which borders Zhejiang, to become a migrant worker. At some
point, his family lost track of him.
Now, thanks to his unwanted fame, they are reunited.
While that outcome should be celebrated, the dark side of this story should not
be ignored. It is unfortunate that the revelation of Brother Sharp's
schizophrenia has caused most of the millions of people who followed his story
to lose interest. The story continues, and it is much bigger and more important
than a beggar chic fashion line.
According to the World Health Organization, 7% of China's population - about
100 million people - suffers from some form of mental illness. Most of them,
like Brother Sharp, are left to their own devices.
The news is full of reminders of a growing mental health crisis. The final week
of last month was especially eye opening. On April 29, a knife-wielding man
burst into a kindergarten classroom in the city of Taixing in Jiangsu province,
stabbing 29 children and three adults before he could be subdued. A day earlier
a teacher with a knife stabbed 16 students and another teacher in a city in
Guangdong province. On that same day, 42-year-old former surgeon Zheng Minsheng
was executed for killing eight children in a schoolyard knife attack on March
23 in Fujian province. The week ended with state media reporting that a man in
Weifang, located in Shandong province, had burned himself to death after
injuring five children with a hammer at a kindergarten in the city.
Such bizarre attacks on schoolchildren have become a common story over the
years, but this recent spate of insanity has been particularly unsettling,
spurring the Ministry of Security to order police to step up protection of
children in schools across the nation. But where is the accompanying call by
the Ministry of Health to identify and take care of the millions of deranged
people who are currently untreated in China?
To their credit, health officials have finally recognized the growing problem,
with major research into mental illness included in the government's current
five-year plan. In Beijing, where there are now only 6,900 psychiatric beds for
the more than 150,000 people estimated to suffer from mental disorders, six new
mental health clinics are planned.
That's progress, but there is still a long way to go.
It is telling that Zheng, who was almost certainly insane, was executed for his
horrible crime without any inquiry into his mental health. Last December,
Beijing's indifference to the mentally handicapped attracted international
scrutiny when a mentally disturbed Briton, Akmal Shaikh, was executed for drug
trafficking.
China's suicide rate, which official media acknowledge is among the highest in
the world, is another sign that mental health is being neglected in the
country. Every year around 2.25 million people attempt suicide in China;
250,000 to 300,000 succeed.
China is one of a few countries in which more women (58% of the total) commit
suicide than men and in which rural residents die by their own hand in greater
numbers than their urban counterparts. Suicide is now the leading cause of
death for people between the ages 15 and 34.
Add it all up and China accounts for a quarter of the total of global suicides.
All this is happening in a nation of 1.3 billion people served by, at last
count, 4,000 psychiatrists and a paucity of psychiatric hospitals that are used
more as lock-down centers for those who oppose the Communist Party than
facilities to help the mentally ill.
For example, Xu Lindong, a perfectly sane villager from central Henan province,
whose case had been exposed by the reform-minded China Youth Daily, was finally
released from a psychiatric hospital last month after enduring six years of
interrogation, electric shocks and forced drugging.
His act of criminal madness: petitioning his local government over a land
dispute.
During his incarceration, Xu's family had no idea where he was. He had simply
disappeared. Now, thanks to the China Youth Daily report, he is free and,
although physically broken, determined to seek justice. He plans to sue the
government and the psychiatric hospitals that confined him.
China's practice of treating troublemakers as psychiatric patients goes back to
the Cultural Revolution, during which the profession of psychiatry was
outlawed; its tradition of ignoring those who are actually mentally handicapped
goes back much farther. But the proud nation that is now hosting the biggest
and most expensive World Expo ever also needs to show the world that it cares
about its most vulnerable - and, in some cases, most dangerous - citizens.
Kent Ewing is a Hong Kong-based teacher and writer. He can be reached at
kewing@hkis.edu.hk.
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