Painful denial
Along with Jiang Hui, Li Eryou, 62, from rural Handan, Hebei Province, also traveled to Malaysia in search of his son. On his first long flight, he seemed uneasy and panicked, perhaps because of his deep fear of airplanes. After all, when MH370 disappeared, Li lost his only son.
Li's son was one of the few college students in his village. In 2013, he joined ZTE's Asia-Pacific network services department stationed in Malaysia for a short time.
After hearing the news that MH370 was missing, Li, a farmer who had never been outside the county, was confused about the meaning of the term "missing."
With a determination to set out with other families to find their next-to-kin, he bought a globe for finding clues in Malaysia, learned route planning using online tools, and even taught himself simple Malay. For four years, he has written more than a thousand poems on social media in memory of his lost son.
He spends more than 10 hours every month traveling from his hometown to Beijing for meetings with Malaysia representatives. After the meeting ended on the evening of August 3, Li and his wife slept overnight at the Beijing West Railway Station waiting for the earliest return train the next day. His wife put the thick investigation report under her head as a pillow, as if she rested on hope.
For a man who has spent all his savings over the past four years searching for a plane, a hotel room that charges 300 yuan for one night is indeed a luxury for the family.
During the year after the accident, Li's wife had to take Valium every day. She often cried in her sleep or smashed her mobile phone for no reason. In the summer of 2015, his wife was diagnosed with major depression after she broke three of her mobile phones.
Li said he had never dreamed of his son. "My child is a telecommunication worker who has to travel all year around. Though he is missing now, I still feel that he is working far away. It's the same as before."
He continues to telephone to his son every Sunday morning as before, turning a deaf ear to the reminder saying, "The phone you dialed is power off." He still talks to him about domestic trivia as if nothing had happened, and urges him to find a girlfriend over the phone.
The happiest moment he could remember with his son was talking about the novel Robinson Crusoe. "I think it's amazing, it's like a destiny. I guess he should be on a beautiful island like Robinson now, and I am sure he will live there very well."
"This is my hope, still a glimmer of hope," he said.
"I know it can be fantasy or comfort, but I still wish to hypnotize myself."
Tiring protests, repeated inquiries and indefinite waiting have made up the lives of more than 100 families of the missing Chinese passengers for four years and six months.
This Global Times reporter asked Li, "If there is not any result 10 years from now, would you consider taking compensation and giving up the search?"
"Never. Definitely never. If I can't search anymore, there will be my next generation to take up the cause, generation by generation. I want my son to know that his father never gave up on him," Li said calmly.
