People & Culture / Trending in China
‘My dying mum cooked me one last meal’: man in China films frail, cancer-stricken mother making dinner before death and moves millions to tears
- A video of a mother dying from cancer cooking her son a final meal goes viral in China
- The man filmed the video shortly before his mother died earlier this month from cancer and it has been viewed online hundreds of thousands of times
Alice Yan in ShanghaiPublished: 2:00pm, 5 Nov, 2022
A video taken by a Chinese man of his cancer-stricken mother making their last dinner has trended on mainland social media, becoming one of the most searched news items on the weekend.
The video was published on Douyin last week by a man, surnamed Deng, from Dalian in northeast China. In the video, his mother, who was bareheaded and wearing pyjamas, was busy cooking in the kitchen.
The video is set to the famous Chinese folk music song Farewell while Deng captioned it with: “Mum, rest in peace. Nothing will defeatme any more.”
Deng, who is in his 20s, filmed the video shortly before his mother died earlier this month, the Xiaoxiang Morning Herald reported.
He said his mother, who was a strong and independent person, was diagnosed with cancer in February but did not tell her family, fearing they would worry. She only let Deng accompany her for medical treatment for the cancer which was not specified in the news report.
Deng said his mother had undergone three rounds of chemotherapy, but no matter how painful it was, she never complained.
He said days after his mother’s third chemotherapy session, she suddenly asked him what food he wanted to eat.
“She asked me to go to the market with her. We bought kelp, potatoes and meat. After returning home, she went to the kitchen to cook,” Deng said.
“While she was cooking in the kitchen, I was sitting in the living room. I couldn’t stop crying seeing the sight of her back,” he said. “She was already very feeble, but she still cooked for me. She was gasping for breath and took a rest for a long time after cooking.”
Deng said the meal, the last his mother ever prepared, tasted as good as previous meals she had made.
“The taste was the same as before. I ate all the food at that dinner. I will remember those tastes forever,” said Deng.
His video has received 800,000 likes on Douyin alone.
“Perhaps my mother knew that I am a vlogger and this video is the last gift she gave me,” Deng said in his latest video.
“Death is not the end of love which always exists, although in another form,” wrote one of the viewers.
“Don’t be too sad. She only changed the way to accompany you. She is the wind whistling past your ears. She is the star you see in the sky. She has never left you and will always be with you,” a second person wrote.
“I found a bag of frozen dumplings my mother made for me in the fridge one month after she passed away. It contained the meat stuffing I like best. I ate a bowl of these dumplings, with half a bowl of tears,” another person shared their personal experience.
https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/tr...obox=1667634572
