Two questions: firstly, if your car accidentally knocks down a child, do you call the ambulance or run the girl over again? Secondly, if you see a little girl dying on the ground, do you try to save her, or ignore her and walk away? These questions sound ridiculous and crazy, but a few days ago a driver in Foshan, south China, ended up nearly killing a two-year-old girl, Yueyue, by running her over twice rather than face the hassle of a possible lawsuit. Meanwhile, many people walked by the girl’s mangled body, ignoring the situation, until a scrap collector on a bicycle stopped and saved her life. The girl is currently fighting for her life in hospital.
Perhaps the most tragic thing is that this is hardly unique, just the latest and worst of a series of similar incidents where suffering has been greeted with indifference.
If any good can come of this, it is that the Foshan incident has sparked discussion in China. Many have criticised the passersby and blamed China’s compensation culture for their cold-heartedness, citing a well-known case in 2006 when someone who helped an injured old lady get to hospital was ordered by a judge to pay her compensation. (The judge’s argument was: who helps somebody like that unless they are at fault?)
Others say that Chinese traffic laws encourage bad behaviour among drivers – that they are only required to pay compensation of ¥200,000 for a death caused by a car accident, but must pay all the medical treatment for the rest of victim’s life if the accident is non-fatal.
Whatever the reasons are and wherever we place the blame, there is no excuse for witnessing a human being dying without doing anything to help. As many Chinese web users have written, it’s possible that there is a kind of sickness in Chinese society that has infected us to our core, and which has been growing for a long time.
Source:http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/19/foshan-incident-unspoken-illness-china
