Guangxi man dresses up as dead sister for 20 years to help grieving mum cope

Anyone who has had to live with the death of a loved one would know that the loss can be crippling.

To help his mentally ill mother cope with the loss of his dead sister, a man in Guilin, China's Guangxi region, has been dressing up as a woman for the past 20 years.

A clip of the unidentified man, caring for his ailing mother in a cheongsam, was first shared by Pear Video and has received more than 4.2 million views on Weibo alone.

According to the man, who is in his 50s, he started dressing as a woman after his mother began to show signs of mental illness following the death of her daughter.

This cheered the elderly woman up considerably. In the video, she can even be heard saying, "She is my daughter. When my other daughter died, she became my daughter."

"She was so happy, so I kept doing it," said the man, who has been living as a female ever since and no longer owns any men's clothes.

Neither is he concerned about what others think, adding, "Why would I be afraid of people laughing at me?"

The man's actions have moved netizens, who praised him for being filial and called him a "real man".

"I think he looks pretty as a woman," commented one user.