Quirky China: Leukaemia boy’s wish lights up social media, Yakult makes false coronavirus claims and girl forced to skip 3,000 times a day
- A brave five-year-old has caught the attention of Chinese social media after a video of him telling his mother to have another son if he dies goes viral
- Yakult makes false claims its products can prevent coronavirus and has received a hefty fine
The story of a five-year-old boy who has been fighting leukaemia for nearly two years and undergone 17 chemotherapies told his mother to have another child just like him if he dies, has gripped Chinese social media.
“I want to live for 1,000 years,” the boy named Momo said with tears in his eyes in a video uploaded to social media by his mother, who lives in Langfang, Hebei.
“I couldn’t speak at all,” his mother, whose name was not released, told state broadcaster CCTV. “I felt overwhelmed. I couldn’t accept that.”
The mother described Momo as a sensible and strong child who is cooperative when going through lumbar punctures by not moving at all, despite describing the pain as: “it hurts to death”.
He has undergone a bone marrow transplant as well, but his condition has not improved remarkably since, his mother said. The family has also accumulated debts to pay for Momo’s treatments.