The Wǒ Men podcast is a bi-weekly discussion of life in China hosted by Yajun Zhang and Jingjing Zhang. You can find Wǒ Men on iTunes here.
According to the World Health Organization, there are over 300 million people suffering from depression in the world. Over 173 million Chinese people also face mental health issues. Mental health is a topic that we grew up knowing very little about. In particular, as Asians, a lot of us we were brought up with the “be strong”, “don’t cry”, “hide your emotions” culture. A lack of awareness can mean we don’t recognize “depression” for what it is and there is a large stigma attached to it. What’s more, people often respond to such illnesses by suggesting sufferers “take a walk” or “go shopping”. Is this really the right way to engage? And how can we raise awareness of these issues?
In this episode, we talk to Enoch Li, the founder and CEO of Bearapy, a social entrepreneur venture focusing on helping people with mental stress and burnout.
Enoch recovered from depression after fighting it for several years and built this venture to raise awareness and education around mental health.
In this episode, Enoch kindly shares her own personal journey in fighting depression along with tips on how to constructively engage with people who suffer from mental illness.
We also discuss the social and cultural elements in China that create a lot of burden on young people and ways to deal with it.
Have thoughts or feedback to share? Want to join the discussion? Write to Yajun and Jingjing at womenpodcast@outlook.com.
