BEIJING, July 23 -- Hundreds of thousands of Chinese netizens have been posting on Sina Weibo, China's twitter-like microblogging site, to mourn Chester Bennington, the Linkin Park frontman who hanged himself on Friday.
Hours after news of Bennington's death emerged, online mournings peaked at over 250,000 posts, with contents either emotionally recalling the days of Bennington's songs accompanying them in their growing up or diving into the personal suffering that led to the international idol's tragic suicide.
Below is a digest of some of the most liked and/or commented posts.
-- "A lot of people would see those who have depressive disorder or drug addiction as sick, self-abandoned and useless human beings. However, you never know what they have been through. I have learned from the voluntary training class that lots of tramps have the same experience of being abused or humiliated in their childhood, which could cause a life-long psychological damage. You don't understand them, only because you are not living in the hell where they are."
-- "R.I.P. I am a fan of Linkin Park because of a game's background music (Editor's note: There is a very popular game which uses Linkin Park's "Numb" and "In the End" as soundtrack). Appreciate those songs I grew up with. Thank you for your contribution. Suicide may be a relief for you. Now that you have chosen to leave, I wish you safe and sound in heaven."
-- "All pedophiles deserve to die."
-- "It suddenly reminds me of Leslie Cheung and Renliang Qiao (Editor's note: They are both famous male singers in China whose lives ended up in suicide). I wonder why so many talented people leave us this way."
-- "May he find his favorite note in heaven."
-- "God wants to listen to the music again, so he aggressively rob us of a great musician. I really love his songs especially when I was in middle school. I can never forget his music style."
-- "I knew you guys from my brother's tape 'Somewhere I Belong' in 2003. I had no money to buy a cassette at that time, but I bought every one of your albums afterwards. You canceled the concert in Wuhan City (in central China) in 2008 due to a back injury. Unfortunately, I missed your concert in Chongqing City (in southwest China) in 2017 again because of scheduling conflict. Those two regrets will last forever."