Another reason that Xu collects wastes is that he feels empty and lonely: when he stays at home, he has nothing to do but sitting and reading or watching TV, so he’d like to go outside to walk around. This is a common problem that occurs to most solitary elderly people. Many of them live lonely and seldom socialize with the society. They might have a strong dependence on children, so the lack of companionship from children a psychological loss or other negative emotions.

“I don’t want to make more troubles for my son”, Xu repeated this sentence many times. Xu has never complained or blamed on his children, although he really needs their company and life care. Especially Xu has suffered from mild cerebral infarction twice. At that time, he was cured quickly under the care of his second wife and it didn’t left him any sequela, but there’s still a potential risk about Xu’s health condition.

Pro. Liu summarized that the survival difficulty, disease pain, mental loneliness were the main problems that solitary elders could meet, also the aspects of the support that solitary elders need and the leading causes of elderly suicide. According to a report from VOC. com published on Sohu website in 2013, “at least 100,000 people over the age of 55 kill themselves each year, accounting for 36% of the annual suicide group, and the aged people have the highest suicide rate, which is still increasing”. According to Pro. Liu, he thinks “the institutional and cultural changes that have been encountered in rural society in recent decades have deprived rural old people of the authority and power to gain any support, which makes rural elders stuck in dilemma and choose suicide”.

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