Like I said*, my mother’s side of the family is from the countryside. When my mum married my dad, so she moved from her rural home to the city. However, my mum’s oldest brother remains living in the countryside with his family. He has four daughters, the first one died during birth, 30 years ago; after 2 more years, they gave birth to my cousin, their second child. Those who live in the Chinese countryside frequently value sons higher than daughters, so that’s why a third and fourth child was on the way.
When they had just three children, my uncle and his wife were farmers. I want to tell you an interesting story from when my fourth cousin was in the womb. Due to the strict birth control policy at the time, my aunt-in-law lived in our house for one year, up until the girl was born. I still remember that when I was in my fourth grade that my aunt in law had a really big round belly and suddenly moved in with us, I was so uncomfortable with her presence, yet too scared to ask why she was with us.
Just right before the baby girl was born, my aunt-in-law was picked up by my uncle to give birth in the local hospital. I never met the little girl until she was 5 or 6 years old because she was sent to her mother’s sister’s home in order to avoid any government workers reporting them.
I still remember the first time I met the little girl. It was during Chinese New Years’ time. Since my uncle is the oldest brother on my mom’s side, we all should visit his house to eat New Year’s lunch. I remember when we visited, the little girl was sitting on the kang (heated bed), and just stared at the ceiling. The girl didn’t even look at us or say anything. We were really excited to chat with her, so we just greeted her, but she didn’t even look at us, still looking some elsewhere.
We all felt so awkward just standing there until my aunt-in-law came in and moaned at her for not greeting us, the girl was still looking around, and then my aunt-in-law was so embarrassed and walked away to continue cooking. The whole Chinese New Year time I didn’t even see the girl laugh. Even today, I’ve yet to see her laugh.
My relative all thought the girl was so rude and decided to dislike her. Yet in truth, we still didn’t have a chance to get to know her.
Recently I kept hearing from her, now she’s 17 years old and attending high school. On one side, my grandfather is so proud, he keeps praising her for being a really good girl and hardworking. On the other side, I’ve heard that since she moved to her dormitory, she always argue with her other roommates as she doesn’t allow them to speak. She says she needs study and others talking would distract her.
For most of you, I think you’re not familiar with the Chinese high school system. Our high school system can in some ways be divided into three parts: one is our classroom life, where students study and eat lunch/dinner; the second part is dormitory, where students sleep, relax, and call their family/friends; the third part is outside, including the outside street and students’ home. In my hometown, around 80% of students will choose to live in their schools, because they can focus on studying. They only return home or go outside about once a month. Therefore, for Chinese students, most of the entertainment time is in their dormitory, so if my cousin forbids them talking, nobody can tolerate that. And that’s why they all argue with her and one of the girls asked some of her friends to hit her. She told her parents about this and they felt scared, so took her home for a few days.
When she was home, her behaviour was odd. Suddenly she would start crying. She never ever laughed and of course, she argued with her parents. Also, my cousin just eats and eats - her weight is about 90 kilos now. My family all told my uncle that her mental health is unstable and suggested taking her to the hospital. My uncle is a very diligent peasant, he told us that she was fine and just had a large appetite (a good thing in his mind). The only issue was that she felt upset about her school, that’s why she always wailed every day. I’ve visited their house once during that time, the girl just sat on the bed and cried noisily.
I thought was only a crazy woman from our neighbourhood who cried like that. When I saw her I was truly shocked. She’d throw things at people and shout GO AWAY! My uncle was miserable, he didn’t know how to comfort his daughter, so he finally took her to the hospital.
When the result of the hospital came out, it was major depressive disorder aka depression.
My aunt kept crying and my uncle was despondent. They don’t want to speak to anyone about their daughter’s ‘disease’ - they even refused to visit the doctors again.
This must shock you.
Almost everywhere in China, not just in rural areas, people think depression is not a mood disorder or an illness. They believe that it shouldn’t require any medicine or therapy, just leave it be, and then when the person acts better, then everything would be ok and if they can’t, then it’s just something unlucky that happened. What’s worse, my grandparents even say that my cousin is not sensible, that their family already works hard to make a living and support her to study. They say she cannot be sick because she still eats so much food (in China before people normally relate someone’s appetite to their health), so my grandparents blame her for getting into trouble and not wanting to study.
I feel so sorry for my uncle and his wife, they’re both almost 60, yet their daughter is only 18 years old, there is a big age gap between them, so obviously they are not in the same time. Before only my cousin cried at home. Now her mother cries with her as helpless to support her daughter.
I’m unsure about how I can help her. Those with depression in China lack any familial or societal support. No one knows how to help those with depression. Frankly, no one really knows that these people need help… According to some sources, there are 54 million people in China depressed**, yet our hospitalization rate is less than 10%. I hope as China develops that people’s attitudes towards mental health will evolve.
*See my previous article about article about Hukous and you will understand exactly what I'm talking about. (hopefully you’ve already read it!)
** http://news.sohu.com/20170407/n486948318.shtml (sorry that it’s in Chinese, but one should always back up data with evidence)
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