The story has sparked debates about cryogenics and fidelity. But it also tells us something deeper about our responses to loss
O
ne of the last remaining fun things about the internet is getting to pass judgment on the goings-on in households that you would never hear about otherwise. On Reddit, for instance, there is a whole thriving sub for just this purpose called Am I the Asshole?, where people describe conflicts from their lives and ask strangers to adjudicate on them.
This week, a story on the BBC threw up a particularly juicy piece of other people’s business that has been sparking debates on Chinese social media. It starts in 2017, when Gui Junmin decided to cryogenically freeze his wife, Zhan Wenlian, after she died of lung cancer. She was the first Chinese person to undergo this procedure, which was paid for by a science research institute in Jinan, east China, that agreed with Gui to preserve his wife’s body for 30 years. Reports suggest Zhan herself consented to the process before she passed away.
But what has piqued the interest of nosy people across the world is the revelation that, in 2020, Gui began dating again. He now has a new partner, a woman named Wang Chunxia. People have asked: is this fair, to either woman? It would be quite a trip to be the wife: defrosted from the land of the dead, slowly working out what happened – and then discovering your husband found a new girlfriend in the time you’ve been on ice. The sheer social and ethical complexity of the situation would have me asking the doctors to stick me back in the freezer.
