Girls' Time Travel Attempt Leads To Suicide In China

Two schoolgirls in China have committed suicide in an attempt to travel back in time.

The girls decided to end their lives after one of them lost a remote control to a door, China Daily reports, via People's Daily. Xiao Hua told her best friend and fellow classmate, Xiao Mei, that she was worried about coming clean to her parents. The names are reportedly pseudonyms.

In an effort to avoid potential consequences, the girls allegedly took inspiration from a popular television show and committed suicide to travel back in time.

They left notes explaining their decision before jumping -- and subsequently drowning -- in a pool.

In a note obtained by the Shanghaiist.com, one of the girls explained her reasoning for her rash decision by writing: "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," the Christian Post reports.

The chain of events has raised concerns about the influence of media on young children, and the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television has placed restrictions on airing certain shows between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m., according to People's Daily.

But some aren't too sure about the story.

Anna North, a writer for Jezebel, observes that the article seems to highlight the apparent dangers of time travel-centered shows. She wonders whether the government had an influence on the direction of the article.

China Daily is a state-owned paper, described by the Committee to Protect Journalists as "straitlaced." People's Daily Online is the website of People's Daily, which until recently described itself as "the official newspaper of the Communist Party of China" — it now offers a more circumspect description: "one of the world's top ten newspapers." It's possible that Huang and China Daily were under pressure from the government to paint the girls' suicide as a direct result of the evil influence of time travel.

Additionally, the Wall Street Journal points out that media experts in China have also indicated officials might have not been crazy about the "themes of the shows, which centered on escaping discontent in the current era to journey back in time to a better life."

Need help? In the U.S., call 1-800-273-8255 for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

Comments

[grazer333]

04:16 AM on 11/22/2012

I hope no one got high before they read this article.

[Lauren Hardy]

10:41 AM on 11/21/2012

Clearly they never watched Doctor Who.

[Kalonji Jones]

06:22 AM on 11/21/2012

Why am I reading this article, 9 months later again?

[Jenn2]

06:40 PM on 03/18/2012

What a pool and not a big blue police box? Those girls were just watching the wrong kind of shows is all.

[phantomcat]

08:45 PM on 03/17/2012

The world runs on myth.

[clazzigirl]

09:03 AM on 03/16/2012

I thought they banned time travel in China...

[libraryrat]

02:46 PM on 03/15/2012

Just a passing note here ... kids didn't commit suicide like this back when Reagan was President....!

[Bridget Clifton]

12:53 PM on 03/15/2012

Those girls should have just gone looking for The Doctor.

[coriolana]

12:01 PM on 03/15/2012

Overtaking the world in education, huh?

[halligator]

11:39 AM on 03/15/2012

Hey China ! Try subtlety.

[Andrew Triska]

11:24 AM on 03/15/2012

The Chinese government has been cracking down on sci-fi and "subversive" television and fiction for quite some time. This is nothing new -- it was likely an event unrelated to television that the government spun to justify their new restrictions.

[FigView]

11:14 AM on 03/15/2012

(1) "Evolution" claims "millions of years in a TIME-LINE". Not only is a straight line nowhere to be found in nature (particularly not if the earth were a ball), but if the universe simultaneously & orderly functioned for "millions of years", for hewn man, who just recently came here, to claim to "better", "change", or "save" anything is ludacris.

(2) Time-Travel:

The visible (light, photons) flickers in and out every trillionth of a second. There literally IS NO past, for everything is being constantly replenished (fleeting - Commandment #2).

[Agnt Duke]

11:04 AM on 03/15/2012

I can see how the concept of time travel would be attractive to someone who is not happy with their current cirumstances. But since that concept itself is de-coupled with reality, there had to be other issues going on there - probably some mental challenges.

[Master Jace]

10:10 AM on 03/15/2012

Here in America I still live in the past and it is getting worse, Well Kansas that is. And they keep trying to go deeper and deeper into the past. Just read a paper or listen to the news, The Bible Beaters are trying to push us all back to the time of Moses and his group, to bad no one told them that it is all fiction. Someone needs to come in and clean house and bring the state back to 2012, not 0012BC.

[Agnt Duke]

11:16 AM on 03/15/2012

You need to shift your decimal a few places to go back to Moses. At your current estimate, you'll meet Jesus.

Please fix your time coordinates! lol

[LaplacesDemon59]

01:10 PM on 03/15/2012

Try telling them that they can go back in time and meet Jesus if they jump in a swimming pool and drown.

[azjustinsmail]

02:42 AM on 03/15/2012

I blame this on George Bush.