Some somber wedding news out of China from New York Magazine:
Bride-to-be Li-Wan was so devastated when her fiance Wang Lu called off their wedding, that she climbed out on a window ledge 80 feet in the air in Changchun, China. Still in her wedding dress, she sobbed there as a crowd gathered to try to stop her from jumping. Unfortunately, jump she did — but not before an aid worker could rush up close. The worker, Guo Zhongfan, caught her in mid-air by the neck. Pinning her to the building, he managed to save her life with the help of others on a lower floor. He also managed to create the most intense photo op of the day.
Wow. You just want to take her hand and remind her that he’s just not worth it. Rescuer Guo truly deserves praise for his timing and unwillingness to let go.
Submitted by: Unknown
Via: NYMag
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That is so sad. That poor girl.
Love is a monster. I love to see all the good things that come of it from this site- it’s heartwarming- but I’ve been both on the awful end and the amazing end of love. It’s certainly sobering to have this reminder of how horrible love can make a person feel.
She should marry Guo, he’s obviously a much more compassionate guy.
I was thinking the same thing! Maybe the story will have a happy ending after all.
Agreed!
exactly what i though! i’d definately marry the guy who saved my life
umm…but would he want to marry her? I feel really awful for the girl, but she can’t be stable.
I’m sure she’s stable, and will eventually heal from this…remember China has a different culture than most do, and girls are viewed differently(hopes I’m expressing myself properly when referencing the overpopulation, and girl babies being undervalued situation)
I don’t think Guo would go for that girl. He’s probably thinking, “That’s one crazy beyotch.”
And I’m sure he’s got lots of new lady fans that would be all for him.
You never know, some guys might like the crazy. My brother’s ex-fiance married the policeman who came to the door after she stabbed my brother in the leg….
Sounds like there should be a youtube video of this.
that’s very sweet but they might not have anything in common
Well, yes, he might even be married already. However for the sake of my poor, starving inner romantic, I’m pretending that he helps he overcome her emotional insecurities, they start dating and he proposes to her during a firework show at New Year’s. Don’t take that from my inner romantic, I already won’t let it watch RomComs.
*bleargh*
I second that “bleargh” and raise you an *eyeroll*
Exactly. This is why I don’t let my inner romantic out, much.
It’s this kind of “fairytale” thinking that gets women like this in these heartbreak situations in the first place.
I mean, how unbalanced is a relationship gonna be when it’s based on such a powerful thing as having your life saved by the other person.
What on Earth would they tell the grandkids about the day they met “Hey kiddies, your grandma was trying to kill herself over a guy and I caught her by the neck as she jumped”.
He caught her by her NECK? It’s a miracle she survived THAT. Wow.
She’ll be sore for enough weeks that it should teach her a lesson…
… not to date jerks who do and ditch.
…especially guys who are smart enough to leave a woman who’s obviously emotionally unstable.
Damn.
That poor woman! How horrible that she’d try to throw her life away, but how incredible that she was rescued in time! Guo is a true hero! T_T
i agree. its a heartbreaking yet uplifting scene. i’ve learned over time that life is painful, too painful to give up.
No one is worth killing yourself over. Love can and will come again.
I am so glad people were there to help, and I hope she continues to get the help she needs…
I agree – she should get together with Guo!
…Should have just let her fall.
You should go jump off a building.
You silly Billy, you’ve posted your comment on the wrong site.
You must have meant to go here:
http://artoftrolling.memebase.com/
The Guo is clearly a hero. Let’s just hope Li-Wan gets the help she needs to allow her to deal with the massive emotional upset she suffered.
It wasn’t just that he cancelled the wedding…he married another woman I wanna say 2 days prior to their wedding. At least that’s what the news story said..
Yup – the guy sounds like a real winner:
http://en.terra.com/latin-in-america/news/devastated_bride_jumps_out_of_window_after_being_dumped/hof15056
Not to mention that in China women take status from their husbands. Being thrown over for another woman two days before the wedding, would bring shame to HER family. Chances are she never loved him and didn’t even know him that well.
Oh my God! Seriously??
That poor woman! I’m glad Guo was do determined to help her and I hope she takes this chance as a sign to start fresh and anew and to find someone who really loves her.
Real life is turning into disney more and more each day.Royal wedding pope gets beautified bad guy killed and now women saved just in time.
Beautified? The Pope got a makeover?
I think you mean Beatified
pwahahahahaa! XD funny!
my ex fiance and i parted ways close to our wedding day…it was devastating…especially when he got married to someone else REALLY quickly. i dont think suicide is ever the answer but i get it. im glad someone saved her. i hope the best for her.
I can’t blame her, either. I agree it’s not the answer but I don’t think anyone should judge her for wanting to end it all.
http://cheezburger.com/View/4776336896
Not cool.
Not funny.
Doesn’t make sense.
Doesn’t belong here.
lol
Poor girl! Just remember, no man is worth that misery or your life. I sincerely hope she gets the help and counseling she needs and can move on and be happy!
She needs a sassy gay friend!
why did i laugh
Why is the glass shattering?
The video shows that someone from the adjacent window smashed it open to (I guess) lean out and try to help, which is kind of dumb considering the emergency crew below had inflated a bouncy cushion. If she fell on the glass that would be pretty awful.
It also looks like her wrist was bandaged, so I wonder if she tried to make an exit in another way first.
Oh well: she’s very young and will be getting some help and sympathetic attention, so here’s hoping the kid will be all right.
We all do! But she definitely gets first dibs.
Its a rescuer trying to get out the window to help pull her up.
It’s possible nobody in the building had been a guest at suicide before?
I suppose they didn’t even notice the air bag hurriedly brought in to save her should she have jumped. I have to ask though, wouldn’t it have been easier to just open the window, rather than smashing it?
Not if (a) it was locked and/or (b) it was stuck.
It seems something serious, but it doesn’t mean that you kill yourself. You need to talk and express yourself to someone who really likes you.
Guo would REALLY be a super hero if now he’d go and beat the hell out of her fiance!!
He has incredible reflexes to catch her. What a hero.
That is incredibly sad. Imagine how terrible she must have been feeling, and how being caught and humiliated in these pictures will have made her feel even worse. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very glad they caught her, but I sure as hell wouldn’t want to be feeling what she must be enduring right now.
I’m not trying to make light of the situation, but she would be feeling a lot worse (or nothing at all) if he hadn’t of caught her.
A lot of the time, suicide attempts are calls for help and I suspect that most people that attempt suicide in this way regret it the moment they make the actual leap.
On the strength of these pictures alone, she doesn’t look like someone who cares if she’s rescued or not. If she was relieved to be rescued, I would expect her to be holding on to her rescuer, whereas if she was determined to die (which fortunately she doesn’t appear to have been), I would expected her to be struggling to be release from her rescuer’s grip.
Looks like the shock of what had happened to her became too much to handle.
Totally agree. Whatever the situation, I’m just saying that she must be suffering a great deal.
I’m DEFINITELY not suggesting that they shouldn’t have caught her. Of course they should, that goes without saying. That may just be my Western viewpoint that “honor” is insignificant in such a scenario, but I can’t help but feel that way, even though I know that in certain cultures the barrier of one’s personal and family “honor” is frankly insurmountable. I’m not trying to comment on that.
However, I do feel terrible for her, not only due to what she went through before the attempt that made her want to commit suicide in the first place, but that (at moment of incredible and extreme personal pain and vulnerability)
I work in the mental health services, and my colleague and best friend is a psychologist who has worked with people who have attempted suicide. Apparently it is not uncommon for her patients to view their survival as a form of failure and some can be greatly ashamed, at least at first, of having survived. It can be viewed a further reason for self-hatred and additional proof of their worthlessness. It’s an incredibly difficult time for such survivors, and privacy to work through such issues is of the utmost importance. To have that captured, and the entire story that made her feel her life wasn’t worth living (for whatever reasons, cultural or personal) aired both to the world and to those who hurt her in the first place must be incredibly painful to someone who had already been through a lot (to put it mildly).
There have even been suggestions that this is a “feel-good” story, with news message boards congratulating the rescuer and suggesting this is a “great story,” or a case of everything sorting itself out because they caught her. Really traumatic pictures from what must have been the worst moment of this girl’s life even ended up on “funny” or “entertainment” sites like this. That just seems wholly inappropriate to me.
I would hope no one reading your comments would misinterpret your view on the subject. You have made it very clear that you (like myself and I trust many others) are glad she was rescued.
Given what you have said about your occupation, I can’t possibly hope to comment from the same basis of experience as you, but I would like to offer my opinion all the same. I hope my use of the term mental health in my comments below is correct.
I agree with you that of course this is not an amusing story and while it must be extremely embarrassing/shaming or whatever the relevant cultural term for this situation is, one can only hope that stories like these will go some way to trying to remove the stigma that is associated with mental health issues.
Clearly this poor woman has suffered an extreme set back emotionally and for what are almost certainly complex reasons decided she couldn’t go on. Clearly she has mental health issues that need to be dealt with.
What annoys me is that if someone had a broken leg or a terminal illness, people would almost certainly offer sympathy without stigma but if someone has a mental health issue (which, as can clearly be seen in this case, can lead to a fatality – fortunately prevented) there is a stigma attached.
It is unfortunate that those who are most vulnerable are the ones who ended up on the news in stories like this, but one can only hope that the general feeling that this is a “feel-good” story, shows that most people are glad a victim of a mental health issue has been saved from a suicide attempt rather than being concerned with any issues of honour.
As I understand it, there are many cultures that appear to prize honour over life (a view my own country shared not too many years ago), but fortunately such views appear to be in decline. One can only hope that this story will help to fight the stigma and shame attached with mental health and that those who suffer with such illnesses can find the strength and courage to seek the help they deserve as anyone else would do if suffering from a physical health issue.
In conclusion then, I believe I see your point, but I hope that my comments help you to see that there can be a positive element to come from the reporting of this incident.
I read a news report, years ago – a man jumped off the Empire State building. In this building was a TV studio, which , as it was a hot day, had all its windows open. The wind blew the man in through the window – naturally, they interviewed him at once, this not being a common occurence! He said that he’d regretted it as soon as he’d jumped. I presume most people do, but he had the incredible luck to get a second chance. hope he made good use of it.
hope the woman in the pic does too. maybe she was frozen in terror at the realisation of what she had done and the danger she was still in, maybe she was still too apathetic to care much either way.
but in any culture where part of the population is viewed a second-class, whether because of gender, skin colour, religion, sexual preference or anything else, and where the oppressed underclass is conditioned to think of itself as havine little or no worth, sometimes the burden of living is going to be so heavy that suicide might seem the only way out.
It’s probably wrong of me to hope that karma catches up with the ex-bf …
Apparently her “fiance” married someone two days before this wedding was to take place.
I agree with RIco; while some people might think what some of the posters here are saying, the sad truth is all she has is shame upon shame now; not only was she dumped, she made a “public spectacle of herself” and “advertised her shame to the world”-her culture is not a “he didn’t deserve you,” it’s a “there must be something wrong with you” and not a “oh you poor girl, look what he drove you to; lets help you,” but a “if you were going to kill yourself, you should have done it privately, instead inviting the world to see your shame; now you have doubly shamed your family” culture.
Sad, but true. You put it very well, d.
Are you really suggesting that it’s better for someone to kill themselves because of the actions of someone else than to bring shame on their family?
While I appreciate everyone should try to understand and accept other cultures, any culture in which the fact that someone has ditched you means you’re expected to go off somewhere to quietly kill yourself is not one I respect.
I really do hope your opinion of Chinese culture is completely wrong.
It’s not an opinion that was stated; d is stating facts about the cultural norms of China. Do some reading & you’ll find that he/she is exactly right.
Please provide me with a link to the facts that you feel d has exactly right as I would be interested to read them.
If d (and by extension yourself) are exactly right, can you explain why people (fortunately) tried (and even more fortunately succeed) to rescue her and people cheered when she was rescued?
Surely, if the cultural norm is as d suggests, neither of these events would have occurred? I do not claim to be an expert on Chinese culture, I only made the point that I hope things are not as d suggests they are (which you go on to claim are not suggestions but exact facts).
This story suggests to me that that Chinese culture is not like d states but your comments cast doubt on that.
Do the research yourself, lazy ass.
Stay ionmfrative, San Diego, yeah boy!
I don’t think s/he meant that the Chinese think it’s better to kill yourself in that situation. I think they just meant that her family will be ashamed that she tried to do it so publicly. I think that having someone you love kill themselves (or attempt to) is painful enough, but to have them do it out in the public eye like this (where it will been shown on the news and talked about by everyone) is even worse.
You are right of course that I may have misinterpreted d’s comment. However, my question was a genuine one rather than accusation, which of course is difficult to see when in purely written form.
d’s comment doesn’t really expand too much in terms of expressing a view, hence my question, to see if d agreed with the view s/he has about Chinese culture.
I personally suspect there are few people (regardless of culture) who would want their loved one’s suicide attempt made public, least of all because of the unfortunate stigma attached to mental health issues.
When this girl recovers (which I strongly hopes she does), she will probably be forced to deal with the media scrutiny that her attempt has drawn. However, I hope she will be able to use any media attention into a battle against the stigma and supposed shame associated with mental health issues.
Perhaps it will go some way into helping people understand that mental health problems are as much real afflictions as a broken bones or a life-threatening illnesses.
I don’t imagine any such change will happen over night or from one single incident, but every journey starts with a single step.
There are cultures (con’t know if China is one of them) where, if a woman has brought “shame” to the family, her father, brothers or other male relatives will kill her to preserve “family honour”.
Unfortunately there are horrific stories about this sort of thing even in this day and age. It’s tragic that some people believe that the lives of their own family members are less important than how honourable other people perceive their family to be. It is additionally horrible that they some how feel murdering one of their own family will in some way restore their honour to some degree.
And it’s always *female* family members who are the vicitms of “honour killings” – never yet read of a man being killed by other male relatives for dishonouring the family name. But then men never do any wrong! Only women can dishounour men, right?
This is off target to the picture and general trend of the thread, but , but – a book called “Misogyny – the world’s oldest prejudice” written by Jack Holland. I picked this up in the shop because, being written by a man, I expected it to be a defence. Far from it! My blood was boiling as I read it – especially the “honour killings” – he cites a case: in an Indian village, a man was *suspected* of seeing a womn of higher caste. How did the village elders deal with this? they ordered that his sister should be publicly gang-raped. yeah, that’ll really punish him! and that’s “honour”
Was that woman Mukhtaran Mai? Incredibly brave woman.
I’m afraid that I don’t remember her name – over a year since I read the book, as I put it down for a moment somewhere and have yet to find it again! But I do urge people to read the bookj – Amazon uk has it and probably other Amazons will as well.
Well if you don’t know the name of the book then how will we know which one to buy?
Anyway here’s Mukhtaran Mai: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mukhtaran_Bibi
(hands you a pair of glasses) I said that I didn’t remember HER name – the name of the woman that it happened to.
I had already named the book and the author in my previous post – ” a book called “Misogyny – the world’s oldest prejudice” written by Jack Holland.”
Thanks for the link: it sounds very much it could be her
Whoops, I forgot that.
Those idiots, honor is everything to those people! Why didn’t they let her drop!?
That is so so sad i feel awful for her , sometimes its not as easy as just sucking it up and saying life goes on. Bless her i’m glad she gets another chance at life and i hope she finds someone who really loves her.
How wrong is it that the first thing I thought was “What a waste of such ”
fabulous shoes!!”
No man or woman is worth jumping out a window over. I hope she gets help & then marries some smokin’ hot, filthy rich celebrity so she’s in the news every day to remind the loser that dumped her what a loser he really is.
They shouldn’t write “funny-wedding-photos-china-suicide-bride-rescued” for the caption when you hover over the picture because it’s not funny. It’s awesome that the guy caught her but lame that this is circulating in the “funny” section.
The whole site is dedicated to humor. even though this is not humorous situation, this is still a “funny-wedding-photos” site….
Pretty sure the “funny-wedding-photos” part is automatic.
I hope she finds the happiness that ever person deserves.
Off topic…it was a nice dress.
The first picture could be an artwork. The woman in the dress, totally passive, her body as though she was standing on the ground. The contrast between the show of the wedding dress and the run-down building.
I know it’s not, from other pictures, but that first image looks posed.
I thought so too!
That’s what I thought when I saw the thumbnail
Hopefully the poor girl will get the help she deserves, and hopefully realize that it wasn’t meant to be. The dude was a loser and didn’t deserve her, and she’s better off without him.
Some guys are just jerks! My fiance shocked even his best friends and family when he broke off our engagement.
The fact that her “man” had even managed to marry someone else two days prior shows how sneaky and coniving the Bstrd could be. May she go forward and find her true “Perfect mate” and prosper greatly, thats TRUE revenge!
It’s just stunning everytime I see the pictures! that such strong feelings!
In the report I read, the guy that saved her WAS her fiance.
It still gives me the chills, I readed (that’s not the proper word, right? Whatever, my English is Engrish) this yesterday-eve and it’s still spooking around in my head.
If by ‘readed’ you were referring to the past tense, then the proper word is ‘read’. Pronounced like the color ‘red’.
And yeah, it’s a chilling story. I can’t imagine how I would react in such a situation.
I agree. This bride is most likely a really sweet person who wanted to bring honor and happiness to her family, even if it meant marrying a stranger. Imagine how she felt when she found out-she would feel like a disappointment to life. I’m seriously glad they caught her-but honestly, why can’t we drop the honor thing in China, and find her a nice guy who deserves her?
you know… technically shes more valuable than her husband… men out number women in china 3 to 1… they are having problems finding enough women.
They’re getting around it by importing brides from poorer countries like Vietnam.
there was a report years ago about a new sport in China – bride stealing. because so many girl babies aren’t encouraged to live, there’s a shortage of adult women – so, the report said, women are kidnapped and forced to “marry” their kidnappers.
ps – try Googling “bride stealing in China” just thought of that, plenty of hits, sadly
see what hacks me off is chinese (and most asian) girls are totally gorgeous… just kinda sucks that none of them seem to want me.
I’m surprised this man didn’t go to jail for saving her life.
In America, if you save someone from suicide attempts, you could get in really big trouble.
He did, in China it is against the law to prohibit someone from committing suicide if they were doing it to protect their honor.
*s* happens to all of us now and then