(Blind, 6 year old Guo Bin lies in a hospital bed after his eyes were gouged out by a woman in China’s Shanxi province.)
It was like something something straight out of a horror movie.
On August 24 a six year old boy in China’s Shanxi province was found covered in blood in a remote field. The boy had gone missing for several hours when he was found, in a drugged state, crying in an abandoned field.
Upon finding the boy, his father thought the child had fallen and smashed his face on the ground.
It was only after they took the boy to the hospital that they checked his swollen eye-lids and discovered that his eyes had been taken out.
NEWS REPORT ABOUT THE INCIDENT
At first, the police suspected that the boy’s eyes had been cut out by organ traffickers looking to sell the corneas (the only part of the human eye that can be transplanted).
But this theory was dismissed once they found the boy’s eyeball’s at the scene of the crime, fully intact.
The only thing they did know, from what the boy had told them, was that their main suspect was a woman.
When I first read this story I was absolutely shocked. I felt sick and disturbed. How low can humanity sink that a woman, especially a woman, that being that is supposed to be all nurturing and caring would kidnap a young boy and gouge out his eyes
And if not for money, then for what? For pleasure? For revenge?
How Could This Happen?
And so it was that this story lurked in the back of my mind, festering away, causing me to doubt the better part of my nature that always looks for the best in people.
It was only natural that the fate of this poor Chinese boy should come up in casual conversation one day when I met an old friend of mine. My friend’s name is John and he has worked as a professional screenwriter in Hollywood for many years.
John was a former client at the screenwriting agency where I worked and he has sold more scripts than any other screenwriter I know.
This I put down to one simple reason: John has incredible empathy for people. And this empathy shines through in his writing—from his characterizations right through to his wonderful dialogue.
Empathy: The First Step To Understanding
“I understand your distress.” John told me in all sincerity. “On the surface it is terrible tragedy for the child and everyone involved.”
Being the well-read person that he is, John was more familiar with this story than I was.
“How could someone do this? How could someone do this to a poor, defenceless little boy?” I asked him. Almost begging for an answer, for some way to make sense of the madness.
After six days, the Chinese authorities released a statement saying that they now had their prime suspect—the boy’s aunt.
According to the report, the boy’s aunt Zhang Huiying, had committed suicide by throwing herself into a well outside her house. Police then released a statement to say that they had found a purple shirt at the scene of the crime where the attack happened.
The purple shirt, covered in the boy’s blood, belonged to the now deceased aunt.
“She’s a monster. How could a family member do this?” I asked in complete confusion.
“Well, no one knows for sure, but you’re asking the right question.” John responded.
Deducing Motives From Facts And Hearsay
And here’s what John explained to me:
Shanxi province is one of the poorest parts of China. The average salary for someone in the area where the attack happened is $317 a year. That would buy you little over a weeks rent here in the States.
On top of that, the boy’s aunt worked a grueling job in a chicken slaughterhouse, not only supporting her house-bound husband who was injured in a work-related accident the year before, but also assisting in the support of her husband’s disabled father (the child’s grandfather).
It was also mentioned by the deceased aunt’s husband that his wife had been acting in a strange manner in the days before her death. She was hearing voices in her head, particularly the voice of an old lady telling her to do things.
Then, finally, there is the report of a family feud. The boy’s aunt had apparently quarrelled with the boy’s parents over the financial upkeep of the family’s ageing patriarch. And although the family denied there was any feud, given their circumstances and impoverished lives, it’s highly unlikely that a feud didn’t exist, even in China’s great collectivist society.
There are a lot of issues we’re dealing with here. John explained. The first is soul crushing poverty. I put myself in the aunt’s shoes and tried to see things from her perspective.
If I was her what would I do? I’m earning $24 a month. I have to take care of myself, my daughters, my husband and my father in-law all on $24 a month! And that’s just the financial burden. There’s the emotional and physical stress as well.
The aunt was working long, hard hours in a chicken slaughterhouse. Then, upon returning home, she has to take care of the husband and father in-law as well as her daughters—cleaning, cooking for them, and tending to their needs.
The stress Zhang Huiying must have endured is unfathomable to the majority of people living in the West.
“If I was her, I might have jumped down a well years ago,” John told me.
Put Yourself In Someone Else’s Shoes
“I’m a screenwriter,” he continued. “Part of my job is to think of solutions to problems. So, I put myself in the shoes of this woman who supposedly did this terrible thing and I tried to think of a way out of this terribly stressful life… ”
Now, I’m assuming she’s not a terribly educated person. So, I looked at all her options and I couldn’t come up with any solutions that could possibly improve her life, except for one and that would option involves huge risk—that is, to profit from illegal activity.
I’m not condoning what she did. Indeed, if this woman did cut out this boy’s eyes it’s a terrible, brutal thing to do. But by putting myself in her shoes, I can come a little closer to understanding the pain and difficulties she must have been experiencing in her life.
I explained to John that I still couldn’t understand why, even under great stress, she would commit such a terrible act.
I have a few theories he explained.
Number one, is mental illness, most likely schizophrenia. The voices the deceased aunt was hearing (as mentioned by her husband) allude to this. Wether or not she developed a mental illness recently or was suffering from it all her life we might never know.
But it’s possible that this woman’s environment coupled with extreme stress could result in the on-set of mental illness. And in such a situation, it’s not too hard to imagine voices telling her to do terrible things.
My second theory, involves revenge. If we believe that there was a feud between the two families then Zhang might have done what she did out of pure frustration and overbearing stress. It’s a strange way to vent and we still don’t know all the details—but why gouge the boy’s eyes out? As a form of revenge, it doesn’t make too much sense.
My third theory is superstition or criminal intent. Let me explain the superstition part first. It’s a stretch, but Zhang Huiying might have somehow believed that by removing the boy’s eyes she would bring good fortune to herself and her family. It’s a strange theory and possibly the weakest theory of all.
Now, as for criminal intent, John explained. Facing great financial pressure, the boy’s aunt might have sought a way out of her difficulties by selling the boy’s eyes on the black market. It’s feasible that she heard about organ traffickers making a lot of money from selling prized body parts, and in her desperation she saw this as a way out of financial poverty.
After discussing this tragic incident with John, my thinking slowly started to change. I started to feel sympathy for the deceased aunt, even if she did commit this terrible crime.
There was no doubt that John had opened my eyes to this woman’s suffering—making me realize that this woman was facing a stress almost unfathomable in the West; that is the stress of having almost no hope and very very few options.
Theory Of Mind: Humanities Great Connector
It is this ability to feel empathy that makes John such a wonderful screenwriter.
He explained to me that he never started out writing with a view to selling his scripts or getting an agent. He wrote so that he could better understand the world and the people in it.
John explained that he used to be terrified of people and the world he lived in—because, as he put it, he didn’t “understand people,” he said.
“I was completely tuned out to the needs of others and I was completely self-focused—it was a dreadful combination of traits that made me a terrible writer. Only when I started looking outside myself. Trying to put my feet in other people’s shoes did my writing improve.”
This is one of the best writing tips I’ve heard. A lot of screenwriters write screenplays that are completely emotionless and flat. This is for the one simple reason that these screenwriter’s don’t empathize with the characters they’re writing about.
Good screenwriting is about getting inside a character’s head, seeing life from their perspective, and doing your best to understand a character’s actions and thoughts (no matter how repellent).
If you can truly empathize with your characters, dialogue and action should then flow naturally on the page. Psychologists call this ability to empathize with others “theory of mind.”
It is this “theory of mind” that makes us human. We can feel other people’s pain and understand their suffering. And while empathy doesn’t excuse terrible acts of cruelty, it helps to shine a light on the issues at hand and see life from another human’s perspective.
The Secret To Great Screenriting
It has been said time and time again that if you can write a quality screenplay then finding an agent to represent you and/or selling your script is a piece of cake.
While this is usually true, writing a quality screenplay is never easy. That is, it’s never easy until you develop your empathy muscle… if you can do that, the dialogue, action, and characters will all flow naturally.
“Truth is stranger than fiction,” John concluded. “And certainly this story has the potential to make a great movie, but it’s too soon, the end is yet to be written.”
“What end do you have in mind?” I asked him.
“The boy, Guo Bin, gets his sight at least partially restored and while he’s suffered beyond belief I was relieved to hear that so far the boy’s family have received over $100,000 in donations. It’s some small comfort, but it does show that people care enough to do something.”
“In the end,” John continued. “I hope this incident can shine a light on just how difficult life can be for some of these people—think the aunt had a tough life? Imagine how much harder things will get for her husband and her daughters?”
* Liz Fairbanks has worked as a reader, development assistant, and talent agent in Los Angeles over the last seven years. Liz loves traveling, reading and yoga. Liz also works as a freelance consultant for Script Mailer (a company that connects screenwriters with agents and producers in Hollywood).