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REPORTING FROM BEIJING -– A 2-year-old girl who was the victim of a hit-and-run driver has captured the attention of China and caused many to wonder why it took so long for her to be helped.

More than a dozen pedestrians and motorists passed by as Wang Yue lay writhing in pain after she was hit last week by a van in a wholesale market in the southern city of Foshan, in Guangdong province.

luxi wrote:In China, this kind of situation is referred to as the 'Peng Yu' effect. Before you condemn then, you have to understand their situation. The law right now in China means that many victims of traffic accidents, or people who have fallen ill in the street have actually successfully sued the people that helped them for sums of money that could easily destroy lives, even if there is no evidence that they are the ones that caused the accident (because they were not). There is a China Daily article on this topic.

In a country that executes more than any other, I wonder how willing you would be to potentially implicate yourself in a crime by helping a stranger. Yes, its very sad. But I, for one, find it hard to blame them in this situation. The law needs to change before people can become less suspicious.

TheMediumPanda wrote:It's not uncommon. I can't actually access the video 'coz Youtube is blocked here in China and the video seems to have been taken down by the authorities on some other Chinese video sites. I'm not actually trying to bash the Chinese here but there are some MAJOR differences to our societies in the west here.

First of all, the Chinese are very family orientated. If you're not family you are of very little importance to them. Even long time friends rarely trust each other 100 percent here. Also, the Chinese are MUCH more used to watching suffering, beggars, beatings and accidents than we are, rubbernecking is a national pastime but doing some actual helping is rare. 3rd and most importantly there have been a few documented cases of people involved in accidents being left with huge hospital bills and stuff left with no other action than to sue the people who helped them since the real offender ran off. This is out of pure desperation and the family thing we touched earlier. If the choice is going broke (and around here broke could involve the whole extended family) or wrongfully accusing a total stranger who means nothing to you, well, for many Chinese that's not a hard choice.

There is another reason many people don't want to get involved. China is only in the loosest sense of the words a country ruled by law. Many times you see huge brawls or vigilantism because many people feel they can't trust the police or the courts -with some rights since bribery occasionally happen - so they feel it's better to handle their problems themselves. If relatives think you are the perp you risk being beaten half to death and in China they don't fight man-to-man. 10 vs 1 is not uncommon and there's no chivalry about ending a fight if your opponent is down and out.

On expat sites we occasionally talk about this and most of us still feel we ought to help faced with something like this. The best thing we've come up with is to get the attention people around you and some nearby business owners and shout something like "I see a hurt person. I'm going to help her. Someone please call an ambulance. As you can see I had nothing to do with her getting hurt in the first place" before we do anything. Sad but true.

BuDo wrote:To walk pass a child lying in the streets...What sort of sociological mindset are it's people living in where this is normal.?.... Things are really that bad over there?

Tsume wrote:

BuDo wrote:To walk pass a child lying in the streets...What sort of sociological mindset are it's people living in where this is normal.?.... Things are really that bad over there?

It's called diffusion of responsibility. No one wants to take action until someone else does. This sort of thing happens all the time, in Psychology class a while ago we saw a video of a 78 year old man getting hit by a car, some 30 people walked past and no one helped. So to all of you who said there's something wrong with the Chinese, fuck you.

Tsume wrote:It's called diffusion of responsibility. No one wants to take action until someone else does. This sort of thing happens all the time, in Psychology class a while ago we saw a video of a 78 year old man getting hit by a car, some 30 people walked past and no one helped. So to all of you who said there's something wrong with the Chinese, fuck you.

Macsnow wrote:Nuke them.

strangelove wrote:

Tsume wrote:It's called diffusion of responsibility. No one wants to take action until someone else does. This sort of thing happens all the time, in Psychology class a while ago we saw a video of a 78 year old man getting hit by a car, some 30 people walked past and no one helped. So to all of you who said there's something wrong with the Chinese, fuck you.

Specifically, it's the Bystander Effect playing out in this situation. I think it's incredibly interesting (in a rather morbid way) watching this social phenomenon actually play out on video.

Edit: Looks like this has been added as an example of the Bystander Effect on that Wiki link.

NuclearSilo wrote:Teach the Bible would improve their morality

SM-Count wrote:Agree with that link above/wall of texts. If you help someone like that child, that child dies, the parents can sue you for helping because you don't have medical training and that might have caused the injury.

Being Chinese, let me just say that people in China that are poor, SUCK. 99% of girls in China are gold diggers.

inky wrote:@SM: Odd enough, it's the complete opposite in the US, under the Good Samaritan law. If you're a regular bystander who tried to help someone and ended up causing more damage - it would be considered to be the prudent thing to do. If you're a medically-trained person who's not on duty, and tried to help someone in an accident/crisis and ends up causing more damage in the process, they can sue you. Blah...

Tsume wrote:

BuDo wrote:To walk pass a child lying in the streets...What sort of sociological mindset are it's people living in where this is normal.?.... Things are really that bad over there?

It's called diffusion of responsibility. No one wants to take action until someone else does. This sort of thing happens all the time, in Psychology class a while ago we saw a video of a 78 year old man getting hit by a car, some 30 people walked past and no one helped. So to all of you who said there's something wrong with the Chinese, fuck you.

NuclearSilo wrote:Teach the Bible would improve their morality

And I'd like to torture the judges and throw them into the road

NuclearSilo wrote:Teach the Bible would improve their morality

NuclearSilo wrote: morality

NuclearSilo wrote: And I'd like to torture the judges and throw them into the road