In an effort to travel back through time, two girls in China have committed suicide. After one of the girls lost a door’s remote control, the two girls thought it best to commit suicide. The names of the girls are pseudonyms. Xiao Hua told her friend, Xiao Mei, that she did not want to tell her parents that she lost the remote control for the door. The girls got their time travel inspiration from a popular television show and decided to commit suicide so they could time travel.
The girls did leave notes that explained why they decided to commit suicide and then jumped and drowned in a pool. One of the notes explained one girl’s reason for the decision:
“In my life, I have two secret wishes. One is to time-travel back to Qing Dynasty and shoot a film with the emperor, and the other is to travel to outer space.”
The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television has since put restrictions on the airing of some shows between the hours of 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. each day because of the worry television shows have on youth. A writer for Jezebel, Anna North, does not seem to believe that the article is completely true. She writes:
“China Daily is a state-owned paper, described by the Committee to Protect Journalists as “straitlaced.” People’s Daily Online is the website of People’s Daily, which until recently described itself as “the official newspaper of the Communist Party of China” — it now offers a more circumspect description: “one of the world’s top ten newspapers.” It’s possible that Huang and China Daily were under pressure from the government to paint the girls’ suicide as a direct result of the evil influence of time travel.”
Some of the shows airing in China have themes that allow actors to travel back in time to get away from the current day’s discontent, according to media experts.