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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8840381/Chinese-girl-run-over-by-a-car-dies.html

Two-year-old Wang Yue was run over by two cars last Thursday in a market in the southern province of Guangdong. Closed-circuit television footage of 18 people walking past her body without helping her has ignited outrage both inside China and worldwide.

After a week of battling to save her, doctors said her heart had stopped beating at 12.32am this morning. Her parents paid her a final visit shortly afterwards.

"For a week, we have spared no effort to save her," said a spokesman for the Guangzhou Military Hospital. "The best army doctors that we have have cared for her, but in the end her traumas were too great. We extend our condolences to her family."

The toddler, who wandered out of her parent's shop while her mother's back was turned, suffered brain damage and severe organ failure after being hit by two vehicles in a lane of the Guangzhou Foshan hardware market.

Some of the people who walked past her body, as it lay bleeding in the middle of the lane, denied seeing her. Others said they had been too scared to help her. It is possible that the toddler could have survived the initial accident if one of the early passers-by had come to her aid.

The episode has deeply shamed China and ignited a national debate about the marked disregard that many seem to have for their fellow man.

The girl's parents, Wang Chichang and Qu Feifei, have stopped short of pointing the finger, however, instead blaming themselves for their negligence. "There are still more good people than bad in the world," said Mr Wang.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8840381/Chinese-girl-run-over-by-a-car-dies.html

This is just appalling. So disappointing of such a great culture.

Absolutely terrible.

Reminds me of a person who'd been hit in Britain and cars just went around her, with pedestrians ignoring her.

An article on the why:

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/313234

And more

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect#Kitty_Genovese

I believe in China that if you stop to help someone, and they later die, you are the person who is left to cover the costs of the medical care etc.

I may be wrong though.

EDIT: Linked article above shows I was half right (knew they were responsible for something).

I just saw a video of when she was hit by the van. She didn't run out suddenly or anything, she was literally just aimlessly in the middle of the road. The guy had to have been 100% blind to not notice her and he just carried straight on in to her.

It's disgusting, simply digusting, I hope it haunts those 18 people

Um...it's China?

From the link posted by MrDwhitey above:

Most people in China are familiar with the case of Peng Yu. As reported by China Daily, an incident occurred on November 20, 2006 in Nanjing. An elderly woman was injured after falling down at a bus stop. At her request, Peng, who was getting off a bus, agreed to take her to a hospital. Not only did he take her there but Peng stayed with her while she was being treated.

The woman later claimed it had been Peng who knocked her down and the woman's family sued him. The judge in the case applied "common sense" and concluded that Peng would not have helped her if he had not injured her in the first place. If he had not been at fault, it was not logical he would have helped her. Peng was ordered to pay damages.

Since Peng was found liable, people in China routinely ignore those who have been injured or are seriously ill.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
And more:

Under China's criminal laws, priority is given to offences against the State. The next most serious crimes are economic crimes committed against the State and individuals. Offences committed merely against individuals such as Yueyue, not economic in nature, do not seem to be viewed as particularly serious acts.

It has only been within the last year, that reckless driving and drunk driving have become criminal offences in China.

i am also surprise from this news and really i am also shocked after listen it and in such a great country,s culture these type of things are totally sad .... and thanks you share with us this news

Well, that's just it: Chinese culture isn't so great.

Manchu wrote:Well, that's just it: Chinese culture isn't so great.

Yeah, whilst things like this have happened in Britain and the US, alledgedly this thing happens all the time there. It's only because it went viral on youtube that it's getting noticed at all, apparently.

Right -- and furthermore, it's because of their culture, specifically their legal and political culture (which weren't just invented yesterday), that nobody helped this kid.

Manchu wrote:Right -- and furthermore, it's because of their culture, specifically their legal and political culture (which weren't just invented yesterday), that nobody helped this kid.

No disagreements.

I did find it funny the wording in the article.

The judge in the case applied "common sense" and concluded that Peng would not have helped her if he had not injured her in the first place. If he had not been at fault, it was not logical he would have helped her.

If true, that means the Judge could not understand why someone would help a stranger for no reason. What kind of bizarro thinking is that? The kind of culture that breeds that... good lord.

Why do people claim that China has such a great culture? I mean, the traditional culture might be beautiful. The history is great. But as far as the current culture? Awful.

The reason why people don't stop to help is because they are afraid to be sued if something goes wrong. Blame people who sue for no reason.

Manchu wrote:Well, that's just it: Chinese culture isn't so great.

Reminds me of a recent read here:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/banyan/2011/10/chinas-communist-party?page=1

It's kinda hard for China to export its culture like the US does. Nobody wants it after all, while US culture is glamorous and full of the hopeful idea that hey, I can get rich too one day.

MrDwhitey wrote:that means the Judge could not understand why someone would help a stranger for no reason. What kind of bizarro thinking is that? The kind of culture that breeds that... good lord.

You can't take moral values for granted. Mencius argued that if a person saw a child about to fall into a well, he would immediately act to save the child -- unless his innate goodness was overcome by bad habits. In this case, only one of nineteen people did anything. According to Mencius, this does not speak well of Chinese culture and society. On the other hand, Xunzi believed that people will pursue their own interests (and thus be selfish and bad) unless they are trained to do what is good. Again, Xunzi would interpret this incident to mean that Chinese society does not train people to be good. So, whether people are innately good or not, Chinese culture is bad according to these two Confucian traditions.

In the West, we have the Great Commandment of Christ: thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind and love thy neighbor as thyself. One does not have to worship Jesus to incorporate it into one's moral values. It is because of Christianity's pervasive influence on our culture that we find 18 people walking by this injured little girl scandalous. It's not to say that we would be less scandalized if we were all Confucians. But if we were not scandalized by it -- well, you can see that having these sorts of values is important and it's not just something that springs out of each inidividual's head or heart. In any case, whatever kind of moral outlook the Chinese currently have -- at least in Guangzhou -- it did not serve Wang Yue too well.


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Melissia wrote:http://www.economist.com/blogs/banyan/2011/10/chinas-communist-party?page=1

“These last few days the whole of China has been asking itself: is this just the way people are by nature? or have they only fallen to this state as a result of prolonged damage to their public morals?”

Sounds like they could stand to read some Mencius and Xunzi, no?

The answer, most analysis has concluded, is the latter.

And, unsurprisingly, most agree with the Neo-Confucian orthodoxy (Mencius's view). But here's something totally new:

“At the same time as people’s rights have been suppressed, people’s sense of righteousness and justice has been restrained too.”

That's not something you would hear from any Confucian -- rather, the Confucian would speak of the suppression of roles, namely that if people are not allowed to be morally responsible actors then they will become morally irresponsible. Mencius did not speak of a "right" to be good but rather of the innateness of goodness which must be nurtured through training. Goodness was the prerogative of those who could afford the training. Goodness, of the sort that a Confucian gentleman needed to cultivate, was a privilege and from thence a duty.

What's great about Chinese culture is that it has produced and preserved all kinds of questions and answers about all sorts of topics. And yet, in response to the people being worried that no one is moral, the officials meet to discuss how the government can be more powerful.

Seriously Manchu? I don't have to know religion to know what is right. I don't have to be religious to know that if a little girl were to get hit by a car I would run to her aid. To some it's human nature to help others, not something taught. To give religion credit for knowing when something is right is just ignorance.

MrDWhitey mentions the Kitty Genovese case. I guarantee the majority of those who listened to her die and did nothing were Christians as that is the primary religion in the US now...and most certainly in 1964.

Give mankind some credit that we can do the right thing without religion.

$pider wrote:Give mankind some credit that we can do the right thing without religion.

Even if people are born (a) knowing the difference between right and wrong and (b) are naturally attracted to what is right rather than what is wrong, it is still apparent that people do what is wrong (what we generally agree to be wrong) instead of what is right (what we generally agree to be right). Why do they do that? And, furthermore, why do some people think a thing is right while other people think a thing is wrong? Call it religion, philosophy, spirituality, ethics, whatever -- these systems of thought are what actually guide us and shape us. If you don't notice them then you simply haven't looked very closely at the world.


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$pider wrote:MrDWhitey mentions the Kitty Genovese case. I guarantee the majority of those who listened to her die and did nothing were Christians as that is the primary religion in the US now...and most certainly in 1964.

The reason that the Kitty Genovese case is so famous is not because it was caught on film or tape recording (unlike Wang Yue's death in this case) but because it was unique. In other words, it was a scandal because it was so clearly wrong according to our Christian-derived popular moral outlook.

Manchu wrote:

$pider wrote:Give mankind some credit that we can do the right thing without religion.

Even if people are born (a) knowing the difference between right and wrong and (b) are naturally attracted to what is right rather than what is wrong, it is still apparent that people do what is wrong (what we generally agree to be wrong) instead of what is right (what we generally agree to be right). Why do they do that? And, furthermore, why do some people think a thing is right why other people think a thing is wrong? Call it religion, philosophy, spirituality, ethics, whatever -- these systems of thought are what actually guide us. If you don't notice them then you simply haven't looked very closely at the world.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

$pider wrote:MrDWhitey mentions the Kitty Genovese case. I guarantee the majority of those who listened to her die and did nothing were Christians as that is the primary religion in the US now...and most certainly in 1964.

The reason that the Kitty Genovese case is so famous is not because it was caught on film or tape recording (unlike Wang Yue's death in this case) but because it was unique. In other words, it was a scandal because it was so clearly wrong according to our Christian-derived popular moral outlook.

Wait a sec. You think religion, sepcifically Christianity, is the reason we know right from wrong period? Christianity and it's representatives have done plenty of bad things during it's existance as an organized religion, let's not forget that. The idea of good does not itself come form religion. Not all people were bad before religion existed.

No, $pider, that's not even close to what I said.

Manchu wrote:

$pider wrote:Give mankind some credit that we can do the right thing without religion.

Even if people are born (a) knowing the difference between right and wrong and (b) are naturally attracted to what is right rather than what is wrong, it is still apparent that people do what is wrong (what we generally agree to be wrong) instead of what is right (what we generally agree to be right). Why do they do that? And, furthermore, why do some people think a thing is right while other people think a thing is wrong? Call it religion, philosophy, spirituality, ethics, whatever -- these systems of thought are what actually guide us and shape us. If you don't notice them then you simply haven't looked very closely at the world.

The reason why people know what is right, but do what is wrong is because we are still a young species.

We could not have made it out of the caves if we didn't have an innate sense of right and wrong.

Being religious does not guarantee good behavior, by a long shot. There have been too many atrocities due to religion to think so.

Regards,

@Phanatik: As I mentioned to $pider, I did not claim that being religious guarantees good behavior. You guys are arguing with someone who is not here.

It's pretty sad that they were all too afraid of being sued to help them.

Manchu wrote:@Phanatik: As I mentioned to $pider, I did not claim that being religious guarantees good behavior. You guys are arguing with someone who is not here.

Hey, I'm not arguing. I hit the quote button to bring up the message screen.

I'm just babbling my .02 worth.

Best,

Manchu wrote:No, $pider, that's not even close to what I said.

That's my impression from both of your posts combined. What you allude to in your second post seems to be derived from your beliefs that you mention in the post I initially replied too. Could be me misinterpreting you as well. It is Friday.

All I mean is that our sense of morality does not spring into exist spontaneously upon our birth but is rather developed by, through, as a part of, etc, culture.

What I'm getting at, again, is that contemporary Chinese culture is not so great.

It's undeniable that the western world is strongly influenced by Abrahamic religion thanks to history.

That doesn't restrict altruistic behaviour to any particular group of people.

Hence my discussion of Confucianism.

Exactly.

Altruistic behaviour is found in all kinds of cultures.

Anyway, it's the explanation for it or the explanation for its absence that is interesting with with respect to Confucianism and the apparent contemporary debate in China regarding Wang Yue's death. The Chinese still think people are not really bad by nature, just trained to be bad. The government's response ("we should exert more soft power") is indicative of the problem.