Poverty in China: starving man who staged robbery to get regular prison meals now lives a totally different life

In 2008, 69-year-old Fu Daxin from rural Hunan province in central China was so poor he decided to find himself a better place for retirement – prison. Wielding a peeling knife at a railway station in Beijing in an attempt to stage a robbery, Fu got himself put behind bars and had regular meals for almost two years.

Now, 13 years after his attempt made national headlines, Fu said he was living a life he could not imagine before.

“I am free and can buy whatever I feel like. I am content with my life now,” Fu told China Youth Daily at his home in Qidong county.

His house, costing 100,000 yuan (US$15,500), was built by his nephew and partly paid for by the local government. He can buy his favourite food – fish, glutinous rice and noodles thanks to a 9,360 yuan annual government subsidy for elderly people who do not have children and are not able to work. The average disposable income for rural residents was 17,131 yuan last year.

That is in stark contrast to the 600 yuan annual allowance he received in 2008 as a senior resident without children and not suitable for work. Fu said it was so little that he could barely feed himself.

“It meant 1.6 yuan a day. What could I eat?” Fu said, adding rice was sold at 3 yuan and pork 26 yuan a kilogram.