The Torment of the Devoted Parents

Last Friday an article along with six photos titled The Torment of the Devoted Parents (可怜天下父母心) appeared on the Tsinghua University’s BBS message board, bringing to light a heartbreaking episode. After escorting their son or daughter to enrol in the tertiary courses, and doing all the room cleaning and bed making for their precious offspring, some parents had no bed to sleep themselves. When the author of the article, pen named Big Stomach Li, returned to the dormitory at night, he witnessed over a hundred mid-aged men and women sleeping under the open sky or sitting in the corridors. Upon inquiry he was told that they did so partly because the hotels nearby were all packed to capacity, and partly for saving money. "Hey, it’s a nice summer night, fresh and warm outside," they said, sounded cheerful. But he felt sad, as he clearly sensed some of them had spent all their savings on this trip with no money left for a decent bed in a hotel, regardless of whether or not there were vacancies.

The article at once caused a big splash in China’s online forums and blogs. Many accused the university of lacking of heart, some criticised the over-devoted parents enslaving themselves to their children. Still others pointed their fingers at the market economy driven education system that places a hefty financial burden on the ordinary families.

According to the figures released by the Tsinghua University, there were about seven to eight thousand parents and relatives escorting 3000 new students to campus. On Tuesday the university authority public appealed the parents to forgo their trip to Beijing.

A lakeside scene in the Tsinghua campus

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23 August 2006 (Lunar July 30)

Money Hungry, Literary

Zhang worked as a bookkeeper for his village Linjiawan in Jingbian County. Last year the government offered a financial compensation package of 200,000 yuans for using their land to build gas pipes.

Following the regulations, Zhang distributed about half of the sum to the relevant groups and individuals, and was asked to temporarily store the rest of the cash in a safe place. He had never seen so much money in his life, and understandably was worried to death that somebody might come to steal it.

It may be because he has watched too many guerrilla warfare movies, or he could just be a reincarnated guerrilla fighter, he came up with an ingenius idea of digging a pit in his stable and hidding in it the notes wrapped in plastic sheets. Having done that, he happily went off to tender the farmland.

Yet he did not realise that the thieves were closely watching what he was doing right from the beginning to the end. As soon as he left home, 10 thugs dug the money out, and enjoyed the notes as if they were rice cookies. When Zhang’s wife returned home to feed the sheep, she found in her horror that they had already treated themselves to a 100,000 yuans snack banquet.

By the time Zhang received his wife’s emergency phone call and rushed home, it was all too late. Of 100,000 yuans, 97,000 had been safely stored in the stomachs of the sheep. Among the greedy ten, a goat is said to be especially money hungry – it alone swallowed 50,000 yuans of cash. The fragments of the evidence were extracted from its stomach through the autopsy after the execution of the guilty ten.

The place where Chinese money is printed out

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