Suicide and Time Travel

photo credit to taiwanese-secrets.com

A couple months ago, I posted an article entitled, Imagination and True Love’s KISS, in it I referred to a passage from the Bible in the book of Philippians, Chapter 4, verse 8 where believers are instructed to dwell on whatever is true.

Today, I was reminded of that scripture, when I happened upon an article describing the double suicide of two elementary school age friends. Last week, two 5th grade Chinese girls drowned themselves in an attempt to travel through time. Apparently, the TV shows that have become increasingly popular in China are shows that depict modern people traveling to an ancient past. In most of the shows, the traveler meets and falls in love with a royal family member.

The Chinese media is focusing in on the wild TV shows as the reason behind the suicides, even though in the suicide notes where the girls expressed their desire to travel to Qing Dynasty to shoot a film, and then visit outer space–they also made mention that the incident that spawned their desire to escape was a lost garage door opener.

One of the girls had lost the garage door opener to her house and she was fearful of getting in trouble so she chose the path of suicide. The other girl, being a loyal companion, decided to join her best friend.

The incident left me stunned, and I hope you feel the same way.

I am saddened that the parents and family members have to face such a horrendous tragedy, but I am also a little uneasy about the response from the news media. ChinaDaily.com readily placed the blame on the State Administration of Radio and Film for being too influential in the lives of the young people. Imagination in the lives of youth is what is under scrutiny. There is no mention of the lack of parental influence or supervision in the lives of the young girls. Rather than focusing on what was missing, the knee jerk reaction is to blame the media for its influence on the imagination of the child.

Every parent has the responsibility to be instilling enough truth to counter the falsehoods of any TV show. Little girls should be allowed to let their imaginations “run wild” because the people who are older and wiser are fulfilling their roles by pouring truth into their minds. The truth of forgivenenss and grace that these girls didn’t grasp should have outweighed their time travel fantasies.

We cannot be with our children all of the time, and we cannot control every influence that they stumble upon, which is why it is imperative that we are purposeful in pouring truth into them at every opportune moment.

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