An unusual incident from eastern China has taken the internet by surprise after an eight-year-old boy cut his mother’s gold necklace into small pieces and gifted them to his friends, simply as a gesture of affection. According to the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the family only found out about the matter almost a month later when the boy’s sister mentioned that a classmate had talked about receiving a ‘costly’ gift.
The boy’s mother was left torn between anger and disbelief, SCMP reported. But the father reacted very differently, he beat the child as punishment. Local media said most of the gold could not be recovered and the parents could only find a tiny leftover piece. When questioned, the boy said he had no idea how valuable the necklace was. He couldn’t remember which friends he had handed the pieces to, nor where the remaining bits ended up.
How it all happened
Sharing her frustration online, the mother, surnamed Sun, wrote: ‘Maybe you think it is a funny fabricated tale, but it is true.’ After hearing her daughter’s account, she confronted her son, who admitted he had gifted the gold fragments.
The parents checked their home surveillance and discovered footage of the boy opening a drawer and taking out the necklace, a marriage souvenir given to his mother by his father. He first tried cutting it with pliers and a lighter, but when that didn’t work, he simply started biting the chain into smaller chunks.
Social media reacts and a legal reminder
The bizarre incident drew plenty of reactions online, SCMP noted. One comment joked: ‘He must be educated seriously. Otherwise, he may sell your house one day.’ Another user added: ‘If he gave it to girls, then you had better not pursue it. Perhaps one of them will be your daughter-in-law in the future.’
A lawyer told SCMP that by beating the child, the father had violated China’s Juvenile Protection Law.
