"condemning an event while enjoying all the salacious details of the story, and the traffic it brings"

Sounds like Danwei.

Danwei does not condemn, we just point out, and sometimes enjoy.

This is kind of sad. I was going to say she deserves Darwin award but it's her dad that died.

She's seriously sick, and spoiled.

The really sad part is, when the reporter were asking whether she loved her father or Andy more, she finally woke up and was saying "oh father please come back, please come back."

That's messed up yo.

Did you get the wrong verb there, Jeremy?

Perhaps "Danwei doesn't enjoy, we just point out and sometimes condemn"?

"Enjoy" seems a little odd for a suicide, even for Danwei.

This story was constantly reported on Chinese TV yesterday and it annoyed the hell out of me. Here's a woman who obviously has a serious mental problem and the media is all too willing to give her airtime and make fun of her. Reports such as this really stink.

Truly, Xiao Zhu. With the media following their every move and asking inane questions ("Do you feel a bit better now that you're back in Lanzhou?"), how can the family cope with the father's death?

Foreigners, especially those living China, have to remember that the Chinese approach to mental illnesses for many years has is very from the Western approach. Up until a decade or so ago, many people didn't even recognize that mental illnesses existed.

These people suffer from something. Even if it is a psychosis provoked by the old idea of yuanfen 缘分, there must have been pre-existing conditions for it to happen in the first time.

I think that with proper social awareness of the reality of mental illnesses, such an event can hopefully be avoided in the future.

I agree with Xiao Zhu: the constant media attention is just as sickening as the whole story itself.

Interesting stuff though -- the many faces of a developing China....

Someone's already announced plans for a movie:
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-04/04/content_5931603.htm