Chinese girl dies after being struck by truck - WARNING: Links contain graphic images.

[Anonymous]

Anyone who's taken a social psychology class probably remembers the case of the murder of Kitty Genovese.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Kitty_Genovese

I don't think there's anything inherently cultural about this behavior. We have been conducting wars for the last 8 years in which thousands of children have died. The fact that we don't see it happen live doesn't make us any better than the people who passed that toddler.

I didn't know about China's Good Samaritan law until this happened, and I hate to say this, but had I known about the law and been there I probably wouldn't have intervened either.

[Anonymous]

Do they not have a version of 911 in China? Even if they didn't want to stop to help, couldn't they call an ambulance anonymously???

[Anonymous]

In our society a person who runs the first to a victim is a hero. In China a rescuer becomes a victim himself. It's a sick society.

[Anonymous]

I will go ahead and disagree with the poster above. Our culture has its problems BUT I would not say it was pervasive throughout the culture. This culture has been spiralling downhill for a while. I guess everyone has forgotten how they were cutting baby formula with chalk!? Or cutting tooth paste and cough syrup with antifreeze. Or how about the elaborate fake Apple stores that have cropped up in China selling fake Apple products? This is a society that a person would do anything for money! It is morally reprehensible. I thought this was isolated to certain people or groups but then I went to graduate school in a STEM related field where I met many Chinese students studying here. Interacting with them made me realize it is a pervasive aspect of their culture. It is disgusting. They need to do some soul searching...if they have souls. They may have sold those too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is horrible. What is wrong with a culture where 17 people pass by and not ONE helping a baby dying in the street.

I supose the same culture that brings melanine to baby formula as a filler that kills dozens and the same culture that has poisioned rivers with such extreme pollution that nothing lives.

This!

[Anonymous]

It is sad what happened. I cannot imagine ever leaving someone to their death without helping.

That said, in reading some of the responses in this post, I hope that this will not translate into discrimination or typecasting of asians (chinese or otherwise).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do not watch the video. Do not.

I did. And I'm very sorry that I did.

+1

I can't get the images out of my head.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh please. In your culture a girl is raped, her "friends" tape it with their cellphones...

Nobody is in a place to talk about "other cultures" here.

Stupidity is universal. IMO - that's not really the point. The point is that there shouldn't be laws/policies that make killing someone preferred over injuring them and helping someone else a potential crime.

I don't think we should be using this as a way to discriminate/stereotype Chinese people or culture. People do similar stupid acts in the US and other countries as well.

[Anonymous]

I don't agree that it is automatically racist to question cultural trends which could have led to this unspeakable lack of basic human empathy. The Post's story about the soul-searching that is happening because of this incident quoted only Chinese sources, who cited atheism, communism, materialism, selfishness, and hedonism as pervasive aspects of modern Chinese culture which probably contributed to this obvious lack of compassion.

This is a country which operates a one-child policy that uses forced abortions (some while the woman is giving birth) and forced sterilizations. Because of discrimination against girls, tens upon tens of millions of Chinese men will never marry. There are too many old people for young people to support. After decades of treating human life as expendable for political purposes (government-created famine, the Cultural Revolution), how can the Chinese culture still have a humanitarian soul?

[Anonymous]

I did not click on the link but this is so very horrible. And was the video shot with a cell phone? If so, who stands there with a cell phone watching a child go through this? Monstrous.

[Anonymous]

I wonder if more people would have cared if it had been a boy child

[Anonymous]

I should preface the rest of this by saying that we have a lot of Chinese and Chinese-American friends and that they have been nothing but kind to us.
However, last year I was somewhere where lots of Chinese families congregate regularly (don't want to give any further details). All of a sudden, I heard high pitched howling through the crowd, and looking around, saw people's stares fixed on one specific spot beyond my sight.
I walked through the crowd towards the howling and saw a little boy lying on the ground screaming and holding his head, while another boy sat next to him and was trying to comfort him. None of the adults around had moved to help.
I knelt next to the boy and asked what had happened and his friend told me that they were rough housing and the boy had slipped and hit his head on the ground (hard paved surface). I asked the boy to try to see if he could stand up (he could), and checked him for one of the immediate tell-tale signs of head trauma (I'm not a doctor but my kids have hit their head on the ground on occasion too), asked him where his parents were (they'd dropped him off), and took him to one of the adults responsible for the event and explained what had happened.
Throughout this, not a single other adult around intervened in any way. I have wondered since what would have happened if the kid had had some serious issue and I hadn't happened to be there--I assume someone would have intervened, but how long would it have taken?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I should preface the rest of this by saying that we have a lot of Chinese and Chinese-American friends and that they have been nothing but kind to us.
However, last year I was somewhere where lots of Chinese families congregate regularly (don't want to give any further details). All of a sudden, I heard high pitched howling through the crowd, and looking around, saw people's stares fixed on one specific spot beyond my sight.
I walked through the crowd towards the howling and saw a little boy lying on the ground screaming and holding his head, while another boy sat next to him and was trying to comfort him. None of the adults around had moved to help.
I knelt next to the boy and asked what had happened and his friend told me that they were rough housing and the boy had slipped and hit his head on the ground (hard paved surface). I asked the boy to try to see if he could stand up (he could), and checked him for one of the immediate tell-tale signs of head trauma (I'm not a doctor but my kids have hit their head on the ground on occasion too), asked him where his parents were (they'd dropped him off), and took him to one of the adults responsible for the event and explained what had happened.
Throughout this, not a single other adult around intervened in any way. I have wondered since what would have happened if the kid had had some serious issue and I hadn't happened to be there--I assume someone would have intervened, but how long would it have taken?

three questions: 1) are you certain they're Chinese? 2) are they Chinese immigrants or native-born Chinese American? 3) race of the boy?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do not watch the video. Do not.

I did. And I'm very sorry that I did.

Me too. I'm at work and have to keep myself from crying. This is so heartbreaking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is sad what happened. I cannot imagine ever leaving someone to their death without helping.

That said, in reading some of the responses in this post, I hope that this will not translate into discrimination or typecasting of asians (chinese or otherwise).

This has nothing to do with asians, or even Chinese people. It has everything to do with the current societal culture in China. In a country of 1.3 billion people, there are obviously countless kind, giving, empathetic individuals. But overall, it's nasty, brutish, and unforgiving in a way that makes the US look like a bastion of compassion.