A hiatus and a story of sacrifice
I’ve taken a break this week from (published) data viz, but I’ve still got something to share
A combination of personal responsibilities during the last several days have stopped me from producing a data viz post detailed enough to share this time around. I’m sure this won’t be the last time this happens, so I’ll just have to forgive myself. Thank you for your understanding!
In the meantime, I’ve been busy creating content to celebrate National Volunteers’ Week in the UK. I was lucky to join a handful of nonprofits during this country’s successive lockdowns, and this week has given us plenty of time to reflect on our work so far.
When thinking about the impact of volunteering today though, I looked outside the four nations and remembered an extraordinary story shared with me by an old friend.
Immeasurable sacrifice
TW: the below section mentions suicide. If you’re having a difficult time right now, here is a list of international hotlines that you can access for support. Please remember that you deserve to be well.
Chen Si (陈思) is a 51-year-old transportation company official who lives with his wife and daughter in Nanjing, the capital of eastern China’s Jiangsu province. Every weekend since 2003, Chen has traveled 25 kilometres from his home to the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge, which he then patrols end-to-end on a motorbike from 7:30 am to dusk.
He looks for those in visible psychological distress and speaks to them, pulling them away from the bridge’s metal railings. Considered an engineering wonder in China, the double-decker structure is also the site of the highest number of suicides in the world. Chen seems determined to do all he can to change this tragic record.
A gruff and often blunt figure, he has never received training in psychiatry or therapy. However, when out walking on the bridge with his daughter in 2000, he stopped a young migrant worker from harming herself just in time and became energised to continue this work. He has not missed a single weekend in 18 years, and has used tens of thousands of RMB from his own earnings to pay for gas for his motorbike. He also runs a small accommodation facility for those he rescues from the bridge, allowing them as long as they need to recuperate in a supportive environment. This, too, is self-funded, though people around the world moved by his mission can now donate here.
Chen is often referred to in news articles as a “hero” or “angel”, two terms which he opposes. When interviewed, he attests to his frustration and feelings of powerlessness; he can’t be at the bridge all week, and there are many people he can’t save. I only recently began to think of him as a volunteer: someone who gives their time and energy to others when they have no material wealth to gain. That might be because of the scale and backbreaking difficulty of his work.
Nevertheless, I’ve learned a lot about volunteerism from reading about Chen’s approach.
He doesn’t have fancy equipment or an enormous social media presence, relying only on his motorcycle (which has been replaced nine times since he begun patrolling) and his mobile phone (his number is plastered across the bridge for those in need of an empathetic voice).
He uses personal experience to relate to those he tries to persuade, and is unapologetically direct in a manner that some would find shocking. That tells me that there’s value in veering away from convention.
And he doesn’t leave people behind after encountering them once, saying that it’s difficult to promise people life will improve if he doesn’t help them continue their journeys. That’s why he set up those accommodation facilities.
The most important thing that I realised after revisiting Chen’s story, however, might be how much I can learn from his sacrifice. What the world admires him for is his willingness to give up rest, a more comfortable living situation, time with his family, and to some extent, his own health to serve others in need. This work has taken much from him — documentarians who produced a film about his life in 2015 noted that he visibly aged during their year of shooting. He deserves more support, a larger team, and frankly, a society that is more keen to open up about mental health and fund psychological services.
In the meantime, I thought I would thank this extraordinary volunteer for his work through a simple illustration. From 2003–April 2021, Chen has saved 412 people by his own account, equating to roughly one person every two weeks. This has made a sizable dent in the total number of suicide deaths on the bridge.
In the image below, each white dot represents one person saved. Chen has often been photographed wearing a jacket emblazoned with “善待生命每一天”, a phrase whose literal English translation might be “treat every day of your life with kindness”. Here, he is shown surrounded by the lives who owe the most to him.
