A group of journalism students at Shantou University have put together a website of their stories profiling the daily lives of Shantou residents, from a hard laborer to an artist to a leprosy patient. From the latter story:
Leaning on a wooden door, 72-year-old Lin Mushen had been sitting alone on a stool for the whole afternoon on a recent January day. The setting sunlight penetrated trees, then lay on his room. He grasped the door, and struggled with his disabled body to stand up. It’s time for him to make supper.
“I do the same thing repeatedly every day. I know exactly what I would do at each moment of the day,” he said, staring at the mountain that was not far away, sheltering half of the setting sun.
Lin caught leprosy in his early 30s. It was a disease that could not be cured at that time in China. As a result, he was sent to a remote village in a mountain of Jie Dong City, where he has lived for more than four decades.
43 elderly men, who also had leprosy before, lived in two public buildings in the village. All of them were away from their families’ company, although they had recovered from the disease. Everyone had his own room, or shared a room with another man. Lin lived on the first floor of the first building.
