Twenty thousand yuan (US$2,410) was returned Thursday to the "donator", a mental patient in downtown Beijing who had given the money away by mistake.
Chen, whose wife suffers from some mental disease and sometimeshas abnormal behaviors, expressed his gratitude when he was paid back the money his wife had accidentally "donated" two months before.
"The government is really sympathetic," Saturday's Beijing Morning Post quoted Chen, who said he never expected he could get the money back.
According to the report, Chen's wife donated the amount to a donation center on October 22, when many Beijing citizens were donating money and relief material to the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region part of which was hit by snowstorm.
"She looked normal when she made the donation, so we accepted the money and gave her a receipt," the newspaper quoted a source from the donation center.
However, in mid November, Chen's son called the donation center to claim a refund, saying his mother had donated the money in a fit of mental disorder.
On December 14, Chen presented to the donation center a certificate of diagnosis, the original receipt and a written application for the refund from his wife, who had by then regained her consciousness and begun to regret for her behavior.
With the approval from the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the donation center soon returned the full amount to Chen and his wife.
(Xinhua News Agency December 30, 2001)
