The daughter-in-law clubs, the son kicks
Immoral crime to expel old mother in her 80s
Chinese Spring Festival (Lunar New Year) Holiday Conflict
Chinese New Year, the biggest holiday, is stained with immorality. The incident of assaulting an elderly mother on the first day of the holiday sparked public outrage in the local area.
On the 25th, a video was uploaded on Weibo, a local social network service (SNS). The video titled ‘Daughter-in-law beat 83-year-old mother-in-law with club on New Year’s Eve’ showed a woman assaulting her mother-in-law in front of her house.
The old mother, hit in the head by a club wielded by her daughter-in-law, sat on the ground bleeding. Her son was also present at her scene, but instead of stopping her wife, she kicked her fallen old mother with her foot and left.
The incident occurred on the 21st, the day before the Lunar New Year, at a family home in rural Yongzhou, Hunan Province. The video’s publisher, who identified himself as the grandson of an elderly man who avoided himself, said, “It happened while I was away from home to set off firecrackers the night before the Lunar New Year’s Day.”
▲ An elderly Chinese man in his 80s who was beaten by his daughter-in-law during the Lunar New Year holiday. weibo
“My stepmother asked the grandmother she lived with to leave the house. After kicking her grandmother out of her house, she continued to point and curse at her, then lifted her club and hit her with a stick that had been propped up once morest her fence.” “Her grandmother, who was sitting in her chair, hit her head and knocked her to the ground,” she explained.
The grandson burst into anger that his father also participated in the assault on his grandmother. He said, “My father, who is 10 years older than my stepmother, does not have the right to speak, so I do what my stepmother tells me to do.”
The grandson added, “My grandmother had blood on her head, and following regarding 10 stitches, she was hospitalized, but her health is not recovering.”
The immorality incident that occurred on the first day of the Lunar New Year holiday (21st to 27th) sparked public outrage in China. In the local area, “Chunje, where the whole family gathers and spends a harmonious time, has become a nightmare for the elderly. Voices of lamentation continued, such as saying, “The emotional pain of being abandoned by a child will be greater than the physical pain.” The public demanded severe punishment for the son and his wife, saying, “The virtue of respecting the elderly has long since disappeared.”
In China, parental support is stipulated by law. In 1996, the Elderly Rights Protection Act was introduced to solve the emotional poverty problem of the elderly parents generation.
At the time, China was rapidly disintegrating the traditional family structure due to urbanization and the one-child policy. Conflicts between parents and children have increased, and the death of the elderly living alone has emerged as a social problem.
In response, in 2013, China strengthened the legal obligation for parental support by adding a clause stating that ‘if parents are negligent or insignificant, they will be punished’.
According to the law, if the parent-child relationship is completely severed or if the child’s immoral behavior can be judged objectively, if the parents file a complaint, legal punishment can be imposed on the child.
Reporter Kwon Yoon-hee
