奇速英语

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A 76-year-old man is rescued by police and firefighters after he attempted to commit suicide on a bridge across the Yellow River in Lanzhou, Gansu province, on July 3, reported by China Daily. This piece of news arouses people’s attention to the issue of suicide among elderly.

The suicide rate among elderly people in rural China has increased greatly in the past 20 years. Liu Yanwu, a sociologist, who has spent six years studying the issue, found suicide rate among the rural elderly has increased from 100 per 100,000 to 500 per 100,000 in two decades. “But I was more shocked by the lack of concern in villages where the elderly commit suicide," said Liu. "It seems that death is nothing to fear, and suicide is a normal, even a happy, end." For the elderly, death is a relief.

Liu’s investigation began in 2008 with a study of 10 villages in Jingshan county, Hubei province. During a two-week stay in one village, three elderly people ended their own lives. Similar tragedies occurred in other villages. In the villages around Yingcheng in Hubei, few elderly people have died of natural causes in recent years, Liu found.

Liu's research extended across China to dozens of villages in Hubei, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shandong, Shanxi, Hebei, Henan and Guizhou provinces. While the circumstances differ from place to place, the common factor is a poor quality of life.

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