This is How I Started the Path of “Crime”

• Author: Chen Pingfu

The experience in my life that awakened me happened in 2005, when I suffered a heart attack and spent a period waiting for death at home. I was hospitalized in the Gansu Province People’s Hospital, and in less than a week I had spent over 5,000 RMB. What was more, in order to live, I would have to spend another 50,000 RMB for a coronary stent! Based on my wages at the time, to save 5,000 RMB, I would have to forego all food and drinks in a year. My company was facing bankruptcy, and workers’ wages and economic benefits were slipping; it was not like working in a public institution, where annual salary increases were guaranteed. If I did not pay the hospital, it would stop my treatment; without money, I might as well be sent home to wait for death! In the end, it was my younger brothers and sisters who saved my life by gathering together 50,000 RMB. After a life of hard work, what were awaiting me was major illness and death. Confronted with the cruel commercial society, how can you expect me to sing hymns of praise to your government’s “good” system?

Indebted and tired, with no road ahead of me, I started to perform on the street for money. For this reason, I was caught and humiliated by the Lanzhou Rescue Station. An evil slave from the Station told me that they were not there to help me, but to prevent me from performing on the street! Since the government did not authorize me to perform on the street, with much difficulty, I finally found a...