Imagine going into a mental hospital, setting up a table with a microphone and letting the inmates have their say - on the radio.

Sound crazy? That's not a word that scares Alfredo Olivera, a former volunteer social worker in Buenos Aires who founded La Colifata, or Crazy Radio, which became a pop-culture sensation there in the 1990s.

Olivera, who has worked to replicate the program in about a dozen cities in Europe, Latin America and Canada, was in Beijing recently to share his ideas.

Talking with students studying Spanish at Beijing Capital Normal University, Olivera found "a lot of curiosity regarding insanity" among people who hadn't given it much thought before.

He knows that the mentally ill are "set aside" in China - out of sight and out of mind. But that is a common response to societies everywhere, he says. That isolation is what inspired Crazy Radio in the first place.

"We also talked about how there is not always a clear delineation between 'crazy' and 'normal' - or 'crazy' and 'genius' - and how the radio shows try to connect 'the two planets' with call-ins and other feedback."

The embassy of Argentina arranged programs for Olivera at several cultural venues during his visit. But it was hearing students eager to talk about what insanity is - and how to see through it to the humans trapped in a different reality - that got him most excited about his China visit.

He did not have the chance to share his ideas with health or social-service agencies here, but he is sure that a Crazy Radio of China's own could be a positive and vibrant force in society.

"First, we create a therapy for patients," Olivera says.