Yesterday, my wife told me one of her former classmates had been murdered.
A guy was murdered by his own parents. I was ready to console her about it.

But she told a story about the guy's abusive attitude, always laying blame on his parents for being poor, always demanding money, even being physically violent. Clearly he harassed them excessively. It's you're run-of-the-mill "a life for an eye" situation.

I was surprised that my wife felt the guy deserved to be killed. He had a sister, so then I said it's so sad for the sister that her parents will now be executed. Death penalty, right? Nope. Apparently only the mother gets a whopping 3 years in prison.

I don't know full details, but it clearly can't be self defense if there is a prison sentence. It can't be guanxi or bribes if these parents were truly poor, so it must be an air of sympathy and community support that the parents received from being victims of the visible harassment. But how far can extenuating circumstances go?

Then my wife draws a typical Chinese conclusion that gives me shivers: The boy got killed because he had been SPOILED too much as a child. Nice one: The parents are more criticized for their parenting than for the actual murder. It should be noted that there is no mention of bad education, disfunctional culture or a society where loving money more than family is the norm. Nope; it's solely the parents' fault he turned out bad.

I shudder to think how this simplistic reasoning will reflect on my kids upbringing, as my son Owen is in that "terrible two" phase now, where he's being very selfish and disruptive. But I see no signs of any tiger parenting attempts yet.

The conclusion is probably due to influence from the community that got the mother 3 years for killing her child. Even after 3 years of China, I'm still shocked hoe people can make bad decisions and form skewed conclusions. Can't wait to get out of China.