Changsha: defenestration central?

[onebir]

I live in a 17 story block in Changsha. Late last summer, one evening there was a lot of noise in outside. When I went out in the morning, I noticed what thought was a dirty puddle where a tile was missing outside the front. Then one of the shopkeepers told me it was blood, and a young woman had fallen to her death tat that spot.

Today when I cam back a shopkeeper told me another young woman had fallen to her death at the back of the building.

That's two deaths in about 6 months in a building with 170 studio apartments. Assuming the windows are all like mine, they have pretty sturdy waist high railings. The chances of the deaths being accidental seem very small. Really quite shocking.

[abcdefg]

That is shocking. I wonder what the fuller story is.

I live in a high rise building in Kunming. The floor below mine has a small foot massage place. I go about once a week for a decent, no-frills, 25 RMB soak and foot massage and to catch up on the local gossip.

Extremely casual. People often arrive in their pajamas and I feel like I'm in someone's home, which I guess I am since the proprietor and his wife live upstairs and the living room has been converted into the business salon. This is the kind of thing I could ask my neighbors there. I feel very lucky to have that informal connection.

I hear the scoop on who is breaking up and whose daughter is getting married and whose business is doing well and whose friends are visiting from other cities and so on. At times it's like tuning in to a soap opera except that I'm a character in it as well.

Edited April 11, 2010 at 02:29 PM by abcdefg

[Meng Lelan]

At times it's like tuning in to a soap opera except that I'm a character in it as well.

Dude, you've got to start a blog so we can all read about it.

[emdog4]

I read an article that was on the front page of QQ Today (Chengdu) yesterday about a young woman who jumped to her death. There were several disturbing (no blood) pictures of her and a news article. I saved the headline because it marked a point in my chinese studies where i was able to read and understand a news story.

成都一女子打完电话后从小区7楼坠下身亡(图)

translation: Chengdu teen, after making phone call, jumps 7 floors to her death. (picture)

The pictures were disturbing because 1. they were on the front page of QQ Today and several other news web sites. 2. because they were uncensored cell-phone pictures giving no sympathy to the family and friends of the victim.

I sent the article to my friend who I consider to be somewhat "desensitized" to content on the internet, and his email response to me was solemn. Sad, sad story for the chinese youth.

Article:http://cd.qq.com/a/20100411/000738.htm

[gerri]

Not to sound harsh, I feel strongly about these things, but... I've heard of such things quite a bit.

Two things, in fact:

One, students (and it seems to be universally females) jumping to their deaths, often enough after phone calls (and it usually seems to be something that makes them think they are not going to fulfill all their - or make that, their family's - dreams and wishes).

Two, guys who handle a breakup less than well and go stabbing their (by then, former) girlfriends. I won't go into details, but one of the cases not talked about here except amongst friends was gruesome...

[Lu]

I read recently that in fact China has an extremely high number of female suicides. About 20% of the world's women are Chinese, but about 50% of women's suicides are among Chinese women.

When China is done with the building up of the economy, they might want to look into doing something about that.

[jbradfor]

One stat I hear somewhat often, but have no source for it, is that in the US women are four times more likely to attempt suicide, but men are four times more likely to commit suicide. [WOOHOO! We're 16x times better than you are ]

Several theories have been propsed for this. One theory is that men in the US have more access to guns, which tend to one of the more sucessful ways of committing suicide, while women here tend to try sleeping pills, which is apparatly quite a difficult way to commit suicide.

If that is the case, the availability of many tall buildings with dubious safety standards in China would provide plenty of availably of a fairly fool-proof suicide method in China.

[Guest realmayo]

When China is done with the building up of the economy, they might want to look into doing something about that.

[Meng Lelan]

About 20% of the world's women are Chinese, but about 50% of women's suicides are among Chinese women.

So why is that?

[Lu]

Many factors. Stress, high expectations, women being considered less than men isn't helping either, and no doubt there are a few more factors at play.

Several theories have been proposed for this. One theory is that men in the US have more access to guns, which tend to one of the more successful ways of committing suicide, while women here tend to try sleeping pills, which is apparently quite a difficult way to commit suicide.

A theory I heard (not about the US, but on why men's suicides tend to succeed more often than women's) is that men tend to use more aggressive methods, with a higher success rate. When you try to kill yourself with sleeping pills, you can change your mind or be discovered and saved for quite a long period after the act. Not so with guns (or defenestration).

[skylee]

成都一女子打完电话后从小区7楼坠下身亡(图)

translation: Chengdu teen, after making phone call, jumps 7 floors to her death. (picture)

一女子 = a female/woman, not necessarily teen.

[abcdefg]

Several theories have been propsed for this. One theory is that men in the US have more access to guns, which tend to one of the more sucessful ways of committing suicide, while women here tend to try sleeping pills, which is apparatly quite a difficult way to commit suicide.

According to what little I've read, references below, the ready access rural women have to strong poisons, especially pesticides, is a big factor in the lethality of their attempts. Apparently most women use that method in the countryside, whereas in cities they may impulsively jump from tall buildings. Many factors contribute to their distress. Clearly it's a serious problem.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/5086754.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/2526079.stm

[jbradfor]

Valid, but slightly disturbing analysis, from http://seekingalpha.com/article/205338-foxconn-suicide-cluster-blame-apple?source=article_sb_popular

Let's do the sad math. The rate of suicide in China is, according to the WHO, 13.0 per 100,000 for men, and 14.8 per 100,000 for women (China is one of the few countries where the female suicide rate exceeds the male one). Given 300,000 employees at Foxconn's massive Shenzhen facility, we should, therefore, expect somewhere between 39 and 43 suicides a year -- tragedies, but also the interplay of known suicide rates and a large company population. So, what does this tell us? We have had 6 suicides so far this year among Foxconn employees in Shenzhen, and we are not even halfway through the year.

Apply that math to Changsha. Wikipedia says Changsha has a tad over 6 million people. Given that rate, that's about 840 suicides per year, or a bit over two per day.

[skylee]

Take a look at this, which happened in Shenzhen -> BREAKING: Suicide Jump Number 10 at Foxconn

[Chinadoog]

My gf and I were going out for dinner a few weeks ago and there was some 20-30 year old woman threatening to jump out of her 5 story window. She conveniently waited for well over an hour for the police to come and set up a mat for her to jump into. When they carried her away she was yelling 'why did you want to save me?'

At my university 1-2 months ago there were 2 stabbings within 1 or 2 weeks. One of them was cold-blooded, where the student was hiding outside waiting for people to come by so he could attack them, and I think the other one was because of some argument between roommates and one of the roommates randomly stabbed and killed the other one.

Pretty messed up stuff.

[Lu]

Valid, but slightly disturbing analysis, from http://seekingalpha.com/article/205338-foxconn-suicide-cluster-blame-apple?source=article_sb_popular

I'm not so sure that math is valid. People working at Foxconn have a job, now I'm not an expert but I'd guess that the suicide rate is a lot higher among unemployed people than among people with jobs. You need to take more than just the overall numbers into account when looking at something like this. And even then, every suicide is one too many, so especially if more than one person in a company commits suicide, the company might want to look into whether it can do anything to prevent further suicides.

[skylee]

I can't recall if there are other threads that discuss Foxconn suicides. Anyway I saw a TV programme on Foxconn yesterday and thought people here might be interested. It is in English, and will be viewable on TVB.com for about 2 months. To watch it, click the link below. To admin, if this is not the right thread for this post, please feel free to move it to an appropriate place. Thanks.

http://programme.tvb.com/news/pearlreport/video/739/128769

[liuzhou]

The Foxconn suicide rate is considerably lower than the average in China.

[WestTexas]

defenestration - a new word for me. cool.

[roddy]

It's as appropriate place as any. The issue is also done to death (pardon the pun) hereI think.