A 46-YEAR-OLD woman jumped to her death from a five-story building after joining a mysterious training course, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported yesterday.

    The woman, Zhang Haibi, was an accountant with a monthly wage of 10,000 yuan (US$1,451). Her husband, Zhu Changxu, worked at a logistics company and earned 5,000 yuan per month. Since they bought a two-bedroom apartment in Zhongshan City last year, they have had a mortgage payment of 4,000 yuan each month.

    Zhu quit his job after he had a stroke during the Spring Festival, which almost paralyzed his right hand. “My right hand is too flaccid to even hold a pen now,” Zhu said.

    Zhu didn’t recover very well and the couple faced financial pressure as Zhang became the only breadwinner in the family.

    Zhang’s childhood friend, identified as Gao Mingmei, recommended the training course to her. Gao had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer and she believed that she was still alive only because she had taken part in the training course.

    Zhang and Zhu signed up for it in February hoping to cure Zhu’s hand.

    During the seven-day course, trainees weren’t allowed to eat anything and drank only fruit juice. They couldn’t leave the hotel where they were staying, and they had to do mindful walking for at least seven hours a day in the training room. They weren’t allowed to use their mobile phones or take video or audio recordings of the course.

    Two tutors, one named Deng Junyun and the other called Xinglai Master, gave lessons at 7 p.m. Deng claimed to be a guest professor at Guangxi Medical University, which the university denied.

    Deng said that he had studied mindful walking in Yunnan Province for 28 days where he only ate one sesame seed a day.

    Deng told the trainees that consciousness was energy and energy was the basis of all substances. He also said that cancer was a substance that came from nothing, so cancer cells could be turned into nothing.

    Zhu said that his wife had become absent-minded and started crying for no reason on the third day of the course. Zhu brought his wife home Feb. 22, six days after they had joined the course, but Zhang killed herself the next morning.

    An undercover reporter from the Southern Metropolis Daily signed up for the 10th training course that opened Monday at a holiday hotel. The course was attended by around 90 people from across the country.

    A participant, Zhang Fen, said her hemorrhoids, which had bothered her for over 20 years, had been cured after she attended the course. But another participant, Li Xiaoyan, escaped on the third day of the course to eat at a nearby eatery because she was too hungry.

    The course’s entry fee is 980 yuan per person, and participants have to pay for their own accommodation fees and purchase a training outfit for 150 yuan.

    All participants have to sign a disclaimer issued by the course’s organizer. The disclaimer notes that the course isn’t a replacement for medical treatments and isn’t aimed at diagnosing or treating any physical or mental diseases.

    “I never expected things to be like this,” Zhu said, when he visited his wife’s tomb a day before the Qingming Festival.

    (Zhang Yang)