Tragedy forces nation to reflect

Schools and governments vie to make it safer to help others

In response to the death of Yue Yue, a 2-year-old girl who was run over twice by a truck in Foshan, Guangdong province, and was ignored by at least 18 passers-by in October, there have been some attempts in China to make it more safe for good Samaritans to help people in need.

Fanphoto, a photography company in Chengdu, Sichuan province, has designed a plan to encourage its employees to help others.

Yang Qiong, general manager at Fanphoto, says he and many at the company were in shock when they heard about the incident and the reluctance to help the injured girl.

Yang says that if one of his employees, in the act of helping the elderly or other injured people, is slapped with an unexpected lawsuit from the people they are helping, the company's law firm will provide legal assistance.

Yang says the company is trying to instill benevolence and ethics in its employees and the public conscience.

"If the law firm loses the case, the company will bear the responsibility for legal expenditures in full. And there is no upper limit for the payment, for example, if an employee needs to pay 200,000 yuan ($31,450) to the accuser, the company will pay this amount of money," Yang says.

The move follows on the heels of a September announcement from Wu Zhipan, executive vice-president of Peking University, who says that the university's legal aid center will assist students and alumni if they are sued for helping others.

The announcement was widely circulated among netizens in China after Yue Yue's tragic accident in mid-October when 18 people ignored her severely injured body as she lay bleeding on the ground after the collisions. The girl eventually received help from a street scavenger but died later from injuries to the head.

The tragedy has triggered debate on compassion in China, where many passers-by have grown more hesitant in helping others for fear of being extorted by "victims" for compensation of medical costs.

Since the death, a number of local authorities have taken steps to encourage more goodwill, such as establishing a traffic accident relief fund to help people who don't have enough money to pay their medical bills. Several local governments are also attempting to improve social policies and the judiciary process to encourage people to help others.

Peking University President Zhou Qifeng added his support to promote morality last week, urging students at the university to "be ready to help".

Zhu Hongwen, a sociology professor from Beijing Normal University, says the reason why people have stopped helping those in need is their collective fear of unnecessary troubles. There have been a number of cases in recent years of alleged victims taking advantage of people's kindness to make a quick buck.

"Even though the majority of Chinese people are educated to some degree, a large number of them still lack social values. Yue Yue's tragedy further reflects this fact. However, this reality to a certain extent has effectively forced people to re-examine the conscience of their human nature in this society, which is a positive change," Zhu says.

Yue Yue's death has left many netizens in China wondering if the nation's rapid economic development has created a negative effect on ethics and morality in the public.

"Under such circumstances, the government should take effective measures to establish or improve relevant laws and regulations to intensify efforts to safeguard the rights of the kind-hearted and punish swindlers," Zhu says.

Wang Yang, Party chief of Guangdong province, told a high-level provincial meeting that the tragedy should be a "wake-up call" for society and such incidents should not be allowed to occur again.

"We should look into the ugliness in ourselves with a dagger of conscience and bite the soul-searching bullet," Wang says.

(China Daily 10/28/2011 page3)