The Xuzhou mother-of-eight who was found to be chained inside a small hut next to the family home has already become one of the biggest social stories on Weibo this year. Now, local authorities have provided an update on their ongoing investigation into the woman’s background.

Find the latest update to this story here.

It’s been well over a week since the story of a mother of eight children living in a small hut with an iron chain around her neck sent shockwaves across Chinese social media (link).

The story first went viral on January 28 after a Chinese vlogger showed the horrifying living conditions of the woman in a short video.

The footage, filmed in Xuzhou, was widely shared on Chinese social media and triggered massive outrage. Since it was said that the woman suffers from mental illness, netizens asked how it was possible for her to have no less than eight children with her husband.

How was this all even legal? Many netizens wondered if the woman was abducted and kept against her will and abused as some sort of breeding machine by her husband and his family. The fact that the couple had seven sons and only one daughter also fuelled online rumors, and there was also a lot of speculation about why Yang seemed to have lost her teeth.

On January 30, local officials responded to the controversy. In a statement issued by the ‘Feng County Joint Investigation Team,’ the situation of the woman and her husband was partly explained. The woman, Yang *Xia (杨某侠), reportedly was a beggar on the streets in the summer of 1998 when she was taken in by the Dong family in the town of Huankou and she ended up marrying their 30-something son Dong *Min (董某民).

According to the statement, the local officials did not properly check and verify Yang’s identity information when they registered the marriage certificate. The local family planning department apparently also made some errors. They did “implement birth control measures” after the couple had two children, but that obviously did not work out and they failed to follow up.

The family did notice that Yang had mental problems, but her condition allegedly did not worsen until June of 2021 when she would also display aggressive and violent behavior. In order to prevent her from hitting the children or others, she would be tied up by her husband until she was more stable. The statement further said that Yang’s DNA was entered into the national database for missing persons in 2020, but that no match was found.

Feng County authorities claimed that following the online controversy, Yang was diagnosed with schizophrenia and was receiving treatment in the hospital, while a special team was also investigating if Dong could be held criminally liable.

The statement did not succeed in calming the storm. On the contrary, it only seemed to spark more anger as netizens now also knew that the family was receiving subsidies from their town and that Dong *Min was profiting from his sudden online ‘fame’ by creating his own online channel and appearing in several local marketing promotional videos. The fact that many posts, videos, and hashtags relating to this story were taken offline only added fuel to the fire.

Yang is actually Xiao Huamei

On Monday, February 7th, at 23:00 pm, Xuzhou authorities released an update to the investigation on Weibo.

Because Yang’s marriage certificate contained mention of Yagu Village (亚谷村) in Fugong County in Yunnan Province, investigators went there to do research. With the help of local authorities, villagers, and household registers, they were able to determine Yang’s identity.

Her name is Xiao Huamei (小花梅) and she was born and raised in Yagu. In 1994, she married and moved to the city of Baoshan, but she divorced and returned to her village two years later, which is also when local villagers remember detecting that Xiao seemed to have a disorder. Her parents, now deceased, ordered a female fellow villager who had married someone from Jiangsu to take Xiao with her to receive treatment and look for a suitable partner for marriage.

Although the woman took Xiao with her on a train from Yunnan’s Kunming city to Jiangsu’s Donghai, Xiao went missing shortly after arrival. The woman, named Sang (桑), never reported Xiao Huamei missing to the police and she also did not notify Xiao’s family. Local authorities have spoken to Sang and they will later follow up on this story.

As for the current situation of Yang (or Xiao), they state that her condition has stabilized and that she is received proper treatment for her schizophrenia. Medical reports indicate that Yang lost her teeth due to a severe gum infection but her overall health is otherwise normal.

The Xuzhou authorities further write that DNA research has confirmed that all of the eight children are the parents’ biological children.

Although the statement does say that the public security bureau is still looking into Dong’s criminal liability, it does not provide any information on the current living situation of Xiao, Dong, and their eight children.

In the early morning of February 8, the statement had been shared over 112,000 times on Weibo, getting over 1,3 million likes and garnering thousands of comments.

Not Only Yang

Despite the most recent statement, Weibo netizens still have many questions about the situation and the online anger has not subsided. A much-recurring comment is that the statement is mentioning trivial things while ignoring major issues. It does not disclose, for example, how old Yang is now and whether or not she was still a minor in 1998.

Some mention how the public’s trust in the local authorities is gone, others say they suspect that the female villager named Sang might have been a human trafficker, and then there are those who still believe that the mother-of-eight still has another identity.

Those talking about a “third identity” refer to one theory that kept surfacing over the past week, namely that the Xuzhou mother is actually Li Ying (李莹), a woman who went missing in 1996. Old photos of Li showed a remarkable resemblance to the Xuzhou woman.

Yang’s face compared to an older photo of the missing woman Li Ying.

But Chinese media outlet The Paper reported on Monday that the family of Li Ying received official confirmation that there is no DNA match between Li Ying and Yang.

Besides the fact that the online anger over Yang’s situation helped launch a local investigation into her identity and circumstances, it has also raised more awareness of the fact that there might be many more women like her.

Another recent video shows how a disabled woman who is also said to be living in a village in Xuzhou, Feng County, is kept chained on the floor.

Some netizens are saying that (e-commerce) products from Xuzhou and Feng County should be boycotted as a way to condemn the local government. Others are sharing art dedicated to Yang.

One of many online illustrations dedicated to Yang.

“Why are these statements always posted so late at night?” some sleepless netizens wonder: “I am so angry I can no longer sleep.”

Many people are still waiting for more answers: “Please investigate thoroughly, please punish severely, don’t be overly tolerant, no forgiveness.”

By Manya Koetse

Follow @whatsonweibo

With contributions by Miranda Barnes.

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