2010-06-02 07:46

Late in the night, 24-hour eateries such as McDonald’s are known more for “McRefugees” than for their McBurgers.[Sun Jong/For China Daily]

It is four in the morning. Sun Long, 18, steps out of an Internet cafe in Shanghai and walks toward nearby Tianyao Road, where he hopes to spend the night at the 24-hour McDonald's or KFC.

He decides to buy two burgers at McDonald's and sleep in KFC, where the leather-upholstered chairs promise a more restful sleep.

As he is ordering, he notices a waiter stopping two men from lying down on a row of round swivel chairs.

It is a scene Sun has witnessed many times before.

But what happens next shocks him. One of the men pulls out a knife, stabs the waiter, and flees.

Sun makes a dash for the restroom and calls the police. He then walks out of the restaurant and mingles into the crowds of Xujiahui, Shanghai's busy business center.

Nobody notices his disturbed state.

The day was March 19, 2010. According to local media the waiter, who later died, was a Shanghai native called Li Feng. The 23-year-old college graduate used to work the night shifts at McDonald's. The killer was arrested 10 days later.

Sun works in a restaurant in Metro City, a shopping mall in Xujiahui. He makes 1,300 yuan ($190) a month, manning the cash counter for eight hours every day. He was offered a dormitory, but eight people shared the cramped place. He opted out.

The teenager had run away from home in a small village in West China when he was just 10, after getting involved in a gang fight. Surviving on the 1,000 yuan he had stolen, he drifted around Fujian and Zhejiang provinces before landing in Shanghai - the land of gold in his imagination.

Initially, he slept in the kitchen of the restaurant he worked in, but when the water tap began malfunctioning, he was forced to look elsewhere.

That's when he discovered the KFC on Tianyao Road, where people like him gather for a free night's rest.