Warning: this story is likely to make you very angry.
Back in the winter of 2009, Mr. and Mrs. Zhu were a happy family. The couple, who were living in Anhui at the time, had just given birth to their first child, a daughter named Qian Qian. They had plans to move into the city and make a better life for themselves. Things were looking up.
Five years later, Mrs. Zhu was nowhere to be found. Mr. Zhu was arrested for stealing crackers and a few dollars from a food truck. And Qian Qian was living in conditions that can only be described as horrific. At the center of the family’s decent into nightmare: online games.
(See: Two young Chinese gamers killed in fight over internet cafe broadband speed)
After the family moved to Wuxi in 2009, Mrs. Zhu got into online games, and fairly quickly became addicted. Things got very bad very fast. When Qian Qian was only two years old, she accidentally stumbled into her mother’s computer cord, disconnecting the power and abruptly entering her mom’s gaming session. Flying into a rage, Mrs. Zhu poured a cup of scalding water onto her young daughter, causing permanent scarring on her stomach and one leg (pictured below).
In July of 2013, Mr. Zhu came home from work one day to find that Mrs. Zhu had disappeared, presumably to play games, leaving Qian Qian home alone. She couldn’t be found and she never returned, so Mr. Zhu and his daughter were on their own.
Unfortunately, that’s not where their bad luck ended. Zhu lost his job. Relatives wouldn’t or couldn’t help out looking after Qian Qian, and a serious illness quickly drained away their savings. By 2014, father and daughter were living in a filthy underground garage, subsisting on scraps of food from the garbage. Their home, such as it was, is pictured below.
A couple weeks ago, on the morning of July 29, Qian Qian complained to her father that she was hungry, and that she felt a sharp, stabbing pain in her stomach. Unable to find food elsewhere, Mr. Zhu stole two packs of crackers, nine packs of cigarettes, and 11 RMB ($1.80) from a van near where they lived. A local security guard saw him do it, detained him, and called the police.
Mr. Zhu was arrested, but that turned out to be the best thing that had happened to him in years. After he explained his situation to the police, they opted to help rather than throwing him in jail. He returned the goods he had stolen, and the police quickly brought his daughter into the station to give her a proper bath and meals. Officers brought in used clothes to donate to the father-daughter family, and helped spread Zhu’s story online, where sympathetic net users have already donated more than 8000 RMB ($1,300) to help the Zhu and Qian Qian get back on their feet. The police even helped Mr. Zhu find a job, and finally, things are looking up again.
It’s probably worth noting that this story was originally spread by CCTV, China’s state-run broadcast network conglomerate. With that said, though, there’s no reason to believe any part of it is untrue.
(CCTV News via Sina Games)
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