Two young girls in China reportedly committed suicide in an attempt to travel back in time. The girls, Xiao Mei and Xiao Hua (pseudonyms), were fifth-grade classmates at a primary school in Zhangpu county, Zhangzhou. They each wrote suicide notes before their death, expressing their reasons for ending their lives, which included a wish to travel back in time. They believed that dying was the only way to achieve it.
Xiao Mei wrote in her note that Xiao Hua wanted to kill herself, because she was afraid of backlash from losing a remote control. Mei also wrote that she wanted to die with Hua, because they were best friends. Hua mentioned in her suicide note that, “In my life, I have two secret wishes. One is to time-travel back to Qing Dynasty and shoot a film with the emperor, and the other is to travel to outer space” She believed that she could still do this, by dying.
The Shanghaiist reported that, “Time-travel dramas are a relatively new soap opera genre, in which women living in the present travel back in time to fall in love in the Qing Dynasty after having an accident, such as a car crash, being struck by lightning or falling off a building.” This is most likely the reason the girls felt they would be able to achieve time travel through drowning in a local pond.
The girls’ story brings to mind this question; what kind of influence does the media, do TV shows or movies, have on today’s society? What kind of shows are really appropriate for children to see? The girls deaths have caused an uproar in China about television shows that have this theme, because they fear that children will have a hard time separating fiction from reality.
What do you think? Are these shows appropriate for children, or do they need to be censored, to prevent further deaths like this?