MANY Chinese parents have said that time-travel-themed books and TV series are extremely appealing to their children, but there is a growing concern about their influence on children’s mental health.

    Some children are reported to have mentioned their time travel fantasies in school essays and even on exam papers.

    Parents say that children not only read and write time travel-stories, but also discuss them with their peers and even try to find ways to actually travel through time.

    As harmless as these time-traveling fantasies may sound, parents have been frightened to discover “time-travel guides” on the Internet. Such guides often instruct prospective time travelers to “run into a car, swallow some gold, jump off cliffs or take excessive amounts of sleeping pills,” according to a China Youth Daily report Monday.

    “They are talking about death!” says Liu Liang, father of a teenage girl. Liu says that the time-traveling theme makes potentially deadly advice “sound interesting and mythical.”

    But these supposedly humorous bits of advice have resulted in real-life tragedy.

    A 12-year-old girl in Beijing who jumped off a building last year left behind a letter complaining about her school life and disclosed her wish to travel back to the Tang Dynasty (618-907), according to a newspaper report.

    So why are kids so keen on time traveling?

    One reason might be the difficult lives that some of them lead. Liu’s daughter spends a great deal of time on academics, leaving little time to herself. Schoolwork and an afterschool art program have put great pressure on her.

    “The day to day reality of being a child may be boring,” Liu says of his daughter’s life. “I’m glad that my daughter has been enjoying books, but I’m afraid that she might become lost in unhealthy fantasies.”

    Hu Xueyan, a middle school teacher in southern Guangdong Province and a mother of an 11-year-old son, says: “Excessive school pressure has encouraged children to pursue and find relief in time-traveling fantasies.”

    “Kids need quality books but there are very few to choose,” Hu says, adding that although classic literature has many redeeming qualities, it is often seen as boring or irrelevant to children’s modern lives.

    Hu says that inappropriate content on TV has also had a negative impact on young people.

    The popularity of TV shows whose theme is time travel has aroused heated discussion among the public after several dramas featuring time-travel related plots were broadcast earlier this year.

    The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, China’s film and television watchdog, issued a circular last month to discourage the broadcast of time-travel-related shows, criticizing some productions for “advocating feudalism, superstition, fatalism and reincarnation.” Last week the authority said it has banned television shows and films with time-traveling or fantasy elements.

    A microblogger named Danmoluqiang says that some time travel dramas’ plots are “totally absurd” and might “lead to a misunderstanding of history.”

    But others believe that dramas need to be entertaining. “It’s just an amusement,” microblogger aly-chen writes. (Xinhua)