On mental illness in China...

It's heartbreaking reading news in China when innocent school children are hacked by aggrieved and/or individuals with supposedly mentally illness. There's also report of the government's effort to try to brush over the reports.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

News like that bring back some memory of a maternal uncle. I don't know much about him since my parents don't talk about him much. Even as a child, I know that the reason for the hush-hush was due to the fact that he's in a mental asylum, which is one major taboo subject in China. In China and even in Hong Kong, people treat mental patients as if they are invisible in a rather ostrich approach. The idea goes, that if you lock the "problem" away, and if you don't see it, it won't be a problem anymore...not on a daily basis anyways.

From the little that I gather from my mom, my uncle used to be a decorated army officer in China during World War II, and a rising star at that. He's tall (well over 6'1") and strongly built. And then, something happened... This is the part that either no one really knew what happened, or no one wanted to talk about it. I can never get a word from my parents or grandmother (before she died), as to what might have caused it. The only version of the story for his "condition" is that, some deceased distant great uncle had a grudge on my maternal grandfather, and his ghost tried to get back at our family by playing "tricks" in the mind of the only son (my uncle) in the family, in order to get even. Ah well, Chinese love ghost stories, and no one can ever dispute it anyways.

In any case, towards the end of WWII, my uncle "snapped" in the army, and was sent home to my grandmother like a damaged goods. No matter that he was a decorated army officer, nobody wanted him anymore, once he lost his mind. There was no pension, no follow-up, no medical treatment or help. Grandma was left with the caring and feeding of him. Although she's a relatively big woman by Chinese standard (5'6"), she's no match to my uncle in his prime 20s. Time and again, when he snapped, he would turn the house upside-down and even beat grandma. Other times, he would run out and be gone for days, and come back home destitute, without saying a word.

Grandma had treated so many times to get intervention and help from the government. Every time, she got the same answer, saying that it's her own problem since he's her son. And then, she got "lucky." One time, uncle stormed out of the house, roamed in the village, and snapped again; but this time, he hit some stranger. The villager complained to the local government official who, in turn, came to grandma's doorstep. She told him, there's nothing she could do because she couldn't restrain him to the house. If they wanted to prevent him from hurting other people, then they had to get him treatment in the hospital/asylum. That's when the government finally agreed to take uncle in to the local mental asylum, for free.

For the longest time, uncle stayed in that asylum. When I was a child, I have always wondered what kind of treatment my uncle got in the mental asylum. Some years later, I finally have had a look at what a mental asylum looks like in China, since my mother eventually agreed to take me and my sister to go see uncle there, when we become adults.

The condition in that local mental asylum was suitably depressing. My mom, sis and I went there with another auntie and two cousins. (From what I gather, my aunt visited him from time to time, maybe monthly, but the cousins rarely visited, if at all. I'm not sure if it might be due to superstition, since the local Chinese seem to consider mental illness like contagious diseases, for some reason. Or, perhaps, it's due to the "out of sight, out of mind" mentality. But they're probably afraid too, to just look at mental patients.) The cousins came with us that time, since we were in such a large group.

We arrived at the gate where the reception area was, which was just a small window with an attendant. We announced the patient's name for a visit, and were told to wait. There was a broken down bench; other that, it's just concrete wall. From the front, there's view into a much larger holding ground, with wired fence around it. There, we saw maybe a hundred or so mental patients who were walking about mindlessly around in the fenced-in area. There was no eye contact, no talking, no sitting, no loitering. All the mental patients were just shifting their feet sluggishly in there. Off to one side of the reception area, there's a short corridor that leads to a room where there're maybe 6-8 beds in there. We didn't realize it until we heard screaming from down the corridor. We looked, and we saw a few patients strapped down to their beds in there. The screaming came from a guy, pretty strong built, who refused to be restrained. With much difficulty, three small men who worked in the hospital were trying to pin him down. There was no equipment in there; just beds, and patients/workers (they didn't even look like doctors or nurses).

After much waiting, my uncle was finally led out by a hospital worker. He was tall, by all account. Although he's in his 60s by then, with greying hair and all, he's still very strongly built, with eyes darting everywhere. Mom and aunt told us that uncle used to be much stronger and bigger, but the asylum feeds very little to the patients. Aunt tried to visit from time to time, leaving food and cigarettes behind for him, but was told by uncle that he was robbed of anything that was left with him inside the asylum. So, he learnt to just eat and smoke as much as he could only during the visitation. That time, mom and aunt brought him some soup, noodles, and cigarettes. Uncle recognized mom and aunt, and knew none of the rest of us. He even uttered "sis" to them, which brought tears to mom's eyes. She would later tell us that, this was the first time for a very, very long time that he ever showed any recognition for anyone, not to mention uttering any words at all. We didn't talk, and just watch him squatting, eating and finishing his smoke. Aunt tried to give him something to bring back in, but he refused. After that, he went back in, without saying another word or turning his head. That was the first (and last) time I ever met him.

My grandma had passed away for a few years at that point. My uncle died maybe a year or so after that visit. When mom told me about it, she almost sounded relieved. For some 30 years, the families had lived with the taboo and the caring of uncle, with no resources or help from anyone. But finally the pain was gone.

Those were the days before TV and news became commonplace in China. Would it have put wrong ideas in uncle's head, if he saw news of people hacking at children, so that he'd go out and do copycat deeds? No one could tell. But for the central government to try to push aside a taboo subject like how to deal with mental illness, it's a disservice to the populace. Before any resources would be allocated, there has to be recognition of the issue/problem, then debate on the alternative solutions. Since that one encounter with the mental asylum in China, there does not look to be much changes in the horizon. It's an opportunity wasted. Perhaps, all these news could serve as catalyst for something to be done. That would be one silver lining from it all.