Well at least he wasn’t homeless. He had lots of cash. And he had appeared to have kept it in a sweetie box together with valuable jewelry. But what was the old man at the side of the road in Nanjing doing with it after dark?
It was just in the last few days that officers from Nanjing’s Confucius Temple Police Station came across the scene during their evening patrol.
A bystander told them that he had asked the old man what or who he was looking for, but the old man didn’t say.
Having ascertained that he had neither an ID nor a senior citizen card on him, police then took interest in the box the elderly man was clutching.
Inside, they found over ¥100,000, mainly in 100 denominations, and the jewelry, reports The Paper.
Old man: “This is money”.
Police: “I don’t want money”.
The officers then made the decision to take the old man home, from where they were also able to call his daughter and put her on speakerphone.
Daughter: “I passed by just today. Dad, put your things away. Go to bed. I’ll be back tomorrow”.
Old man: “Ok, come tomorrow”.
Police: “Don’t bring money when you go out next time”.
Old man: “Ok”.
Policeman: “It’s very unsafe”.
Nanjing’s finest learned from his daughter that after his wife died 2 years ago, the old man’s mental state has been getting worse and worse.
Policeman: “As for his cash, you’d better deposit it in the bank”.
Daughter: “This has caused you too much trouble. I’m so sorry”.
At least the old man’s daughter had been around for her father that same day. And that’s really the crux of the story. According to the psychiatry edition of medical journal, The Lancet, around half of China’s over 60s are “empty-nest elderly”, without children, or whose children have left home and work elsewhere.
With little social support, the epidemic has had a big impact on this particular group. Closed public transportation and other restrictions mean they are often unable to journey to medical facilities and as a result won’t get their necessary monthly meds. Making things worse is the fact most elderly find replacement online consultations impossible to navigate.
The authors of The Lancet article allege, “There seems to be insufficient and inadequate attention paid to this vulnerable population in the recently established crisis psychological services in China”.
With her mother passing around the time that COVID hit, the daughter of one old man in Nanjing would likely agree with that sentiment.