China’s bystander problem: Another death after crowd ignores woman in peril | Hacker News Reader

China’s bystander problem: Another death after crowd ignores woman in peril

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40 pointsBlahah54 comments

I'm American, and lived in China for two years. It's common to see things on the street that you don't understand, even for natives, and it's not prudent to take what you're seeing at face value. There are lots of scams, so one's first instinct is to hang back and protect oneself. Those times when I did get involved to ask if people needed help, it was always somewhat coldly and hurriedly refused, probably because the people I was offering to help feared that I was up to something. At the risk of making a racial/cultural generalization, Chinese people do not trust each other as much as Westerners do. I wish I understood this phenomenon better.

And, at least in big cities, there is so much going on, and so many people. Surely this makes bystander effect much worse. I like to help, but when problems happened, it was almost always the smart thing to do to just get out of the way.

Sad but true, I concur with this. So many scams going on that I have become desensitized to anything weird in my surroundings. Though if I saw something like the situation posted (gruesome), I'm not sure how I would have reacted. Given that the police/fire department would take too long to arrive, you really have to be prepared to act (not just call 411) if you get involved.

I'm not Chinese, but I come from another South East Asian country with very similar culture.

When I was younger (18-19, not that young either), I remembered driving by two Westerners standing on the sidewalk who were (probably) looking for help. As I wasn't sure if I should stop to help and then couldn't turn back because the street was fairly crowded, I asked my dad later that day if I should have stopped and help. His response: "Let other people more experienced (as in older and has more life experience) than you to help". He didn't say it explicitly, but the subtext was that it was probably a scam of some sort. Adding to the fact that culturally speaking, young adult up to their 30s are still considered "inexperienced", it wouldn't be surprised that the problem isn't just merely bystander effect, but people consciously avoids helping.

I do not really know if statistically, there are more scams in those country comparing to with, say the US. But I believe we're way more into gossip of anecdote scams than the West, and that's probably why people do not trust each other.

It's really not too long ago during the Cultural Revolution where people are encouraged to sellout others for the greater good of the Party. If I grew up in that culture I would also be afraid to trust others. If my parents grew up under that culture, they may also teach me to just "mind my own business."

The bystander problem is very disheartening. But I'm afraid it'll take few generations to shed the mentality.

> Chinese people do not trust each other as much as Westerners do

There is an interesting line of thought that high trust societies are caused by out-breeding. The medieval european church forbade cousin marriage for centuries out to something like third cousin. This broke up the clans and arguably made cohesive western nations possible. Today in much of the non-western world first cousin marriage is still normal. I believe most arab marriages are to first cousins. In the places where it's most prevalent you do tend to see clannish behavior and indifference/viciousness to the out-group.

Dunno if it's really true, but it does seem to fit various historical developments.

With China I think maybe you have to keep in mind what a scarring catastrophe Maoism was. Middle class people and values were systematically purged.

> Today in much of the non-western world first cousin marriage is still normal. I believe most arab marriages are to first cousins

First and second cousins, and only in a few countries, and much of the collected data you'll find on the topic is 40-50 years old[1]. But what does that have to do with China?

> Dunno if it's really true, but it does seem to fit various historical developments

This is a really dangerous line of anthropological reasoning; certainly non-scientific at the very least.

[1] http://www.consang.net/index.php/Main_Page has a long bibliography. Unrelated: the site feels a little creepy...I don't totally understand the purpose of having a standalone site for the topic. However, the citations appear legitimate.

> dangerous line of anthropological reasoning

Oh no! Thoughtcrime?

It's perfectly amenable to science. I just don't happen to know the supporting science well myself.

Are you saying chinese are predominantly inbred?

> With China I think maybe you have to keep in mind what a scarring catastrophe Maoism was. Middle class people and values were systematically purged.

Maoism was a resounding success, it was the cultural revolution that replaced the middle class.

I think the lack of trust rises from the fact that the chinese middle class were very recently (< 1 generation) the poor/underclass. There concept of wealth is a lot more transient than the west's, they have a much greater fear of losing wealth (given it happened almost overnight during the cultural revolution). It generates what the west views as a "selfish" attitude, but is probably viewed by Chinese as "prudent".

i don't know much about this, but wikipedia lists the culural revolution as one of the "basic components" of maoism. so your distinction between the two doesn't seem to make much sense. can you clarify?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maoism

"Cultural revolution" is a basic component of Maoism (as in your culture changes drastically, as you attempt to remove the bourgeois.

"The Cultural Revolution" was a horrible play Mao instigated through the Gang of Four in order to maintain power and throw those that might take it from him into disarray.

Cultural Revolution was used as an excuse to justify "The cultural revolution", but they are not the same, and you don't need students to go around killing people in order to achieve a cultural revolution.

I am from Brazil and... helping people here is hard too.

I consider every brazillian a potential traitor and backstabber, and anyone that disagreed with me... well...

In Seattle (Belltown) many years ago there was this woman that me and my friends called "sobbing lady."

When you first see her, sobbing and frantic and saying she was robbed, you really want to help her because she seems legit. When you ask her what happened, you start to realize her story makes no sense, and she's either dealing with mental illness or addiction or both.

When you see her for the 20th time of course, sobbing and frantic, you realize she's obviously just grifting and you ignore her.

I could imagine an outsider determining that we are callus and cold, seeing me and my friends ignore a sobbing old lady crying out for help.

The hell?

This isn't China's problem - it's a human problem[1].

This is why the first step in many first aid classes is for the care giver to identify one person among bystanders and instruct that person to call emergency services. Not "somebody call 911" because it's possible that nobody will - but "you, call 911. Do it now".

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Kitty_Genovese

From your source: "the common portrayal of neighbors being fully aware but completely unresponsive has since been criticized as inaccurate."

Also, if you read the article, it mentioned Kitty Genovese, and how the tale was likely apocryphal. That being said, the issue isn't that there is a bystander effect, but why in China it seems like the bystander effect is higher than in other nations.

Well before we jump to conclusions, is it higher than other countries?

There is obviously a lot of selection bias here...

China is a huge place too; is it uniformly higher, or only in certain urbanized areas?

"sn't that there is a bystander effect, but why in China it seems like the bystander effect is higher than in other nations."

I guess that's the part I really question - I don't see anything to support that it's higher in China than anywhere else.

By contrast, in Norway if a medically trained person like a doctor or nurse walks past someone who needs assistance they can be stripped of their right to practice. And I think they can be fined/charged also.

Did a Google search and found there are duty to rescue laws in many places: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_to_rescue

Edit: Changed Wiki link from mobile to desktop version.

Here is similar rule, but doctor can always claim he was tipsy or otherwise unable to help.

I have been helped by passers-by more times than I can remember here in Minnesota. One memorable occasion, on my first winter here after living in Taiwan for three years, was using my forgotten skills in driving on a snowy road to go to a meeting with friends. On the way back home, my car spun off a freeway entrance, burying itself into a snowbank just off the side of the driving lane. Within less than a minute, a woman passing by stopped and asked if she could help. Within no more than a minute more, a man driving a pickup truck worked out how to push my car out of the snowbank and back on to the freeway ramp. I see people stopping to help strangers here all the time.

I was walking home from a research run to the local public library the other day when I had a chance to be the helpful bystander. A woman at the local gas station, who appeared to be a South Asian woman in her forties, asked me to go over to her car. She was trying to fill her tires with air, but couldn't get the stem cap off from one of her tires. After I fiddled with it for a while, I was able to remove it. I asked her if she needed any more help, and she said no. She apparently had a high enough degree of social trust to ask a stranger to approach her.

Most of the personal injury situations I observe in my American life are young people injured at soccer games--always with bystanders around who know the children, often including medical doctors or nurses--or children who have fallen off their bikes. Whenever I see something like that, I respond. Once when one of my children fell off his bike and broke his arm, he was with two siblings (on the way home from the same library I frequent) and they worked out to send one child home speedily by bike, while the other sibling walked the other bikes and my injured son in the direction of home. I was able to meet up with him halfway and drive him to the hospital. We live in a safe neighborhood here, and part of what makes it safe is that neighbors look out for one another.

Social trust is almost always lower in dictatorships than in well functioning democracies. (My two stays in Taiwan, one in the early 1980s under the dictatorship, and one around the turn of the century after democratization, provided vivid examples of that.) People in Taiwan have always been very kind to foreigners in low-danger encounters. But I recall more bystander neglect amid the frequent traffic crashes of motorcycles there under the dictatorship than over a similar time span under the freely elected government. China probably has to move in the direction of more political power to the people and less censorship of information channels to build up more social trust and more care for strangers.

For every horror story, there are bound to be examples of people helping when they had no need to.

Near Lijiang in China, a middle-aged couple stopped to help my brother and I who were stranded and in need of a lift, miles from a town. We are 6'3" and 6'9". They didn't seem fearful at all (and had no reason to be) and were more than happy to take us along with them.

In Switzerland this year, I got stranded waiting for a bus near midnight in the mountains with full luggage, wife and a baby. A woman had her husband come along, pile us and all our luggage into their little car, and drive us up to the gondola so we didn't have to wait for 40 minutes with an hysterical child in the dark. (It wasn't overly cold or dangerous, just very uncomfortable and we'd been travelling for almost 12 hours.)

Maybe it's life and death situations where people are far more wary?

It not just China, I've seen this in India too. I've also noticed another thing about it - In India its the poor people who are much more willing to help compared to the middle and upper-middle class people. I call it the "not my problem" problem.

While I don't doubt the veracity of this article, it is wildly presumptuous to characterize an entire nation based on one or two isolated, anecdotal incidents.

How would we feel if the rest of the world characterized Americans by the antics of single individuals, like Lindsay Lohan or Miley Cyrus?

Uh... that does happen.

Great point. That does happen a lot.

Granted, the average US person I've met... are not far from that, or from 50cents, or Paris Hilton...

By average I mean literally average, the majority, not HNers

Please elaborate, in what ways are the literally average majority of Americans like 50 Cent or Paris Hilton?

In the sense they are their role models (not only they, but pop culture celebrities in general)

People strive to be like them, rich and individualistic for their own pleasure (instead of being content, or wanting to be a bill gates in the sense of being good to other people beside himself)

The people I've met were usually highly materialistic, individualistic, consumerist, and willfully ignorant (ie: being seen as smart is bad, being seen as sexy but of average intelligence is good), and having a incredible sense of superiority and exceptionality.

I lived in china for 2.5 years and american's are characterized by its celebrities. In the beginning, i spent most of my lunch time conversations explaining that... No i do not own a gun, but i also explained many times as the men told me they stopped drinking as they prepared to have children.... That is odd; most children in the US are conceived by parents that were drunk.

most children in the US are conceived by parents that were drunk.

What? Consider me skeptical.

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

I know the author of the news article pooh-poohs the common depiction of the Kitty Genovese murder as not being true, but that has nothing to do with the veracity of the effect as a whole (or the other examples provided on that Wikipedia page).

I think there is a distinct difference between not wanting to put yourself in harms way by getting involved with a murder and taking photos of someone who has their head stuck in a guard rail.

From that link: "In April 2010 Hugo Alfredo Tale-Yax was stabbed to death in New York City after coming to the aid of a woman who was being attacked by a robber. Yax was on the sidewalk for more than an hour before firefighters arrived. Almost twenty-five people walked by while he lay dying on a sidewalk in Queens, several stared at Yax; one of them took pictures, however none of them helped or called emergency services".

When you come to a pedestrian crossing with someone already there, do you wait patiently, assuming that they have pressed the button, or do you push the button?

I tend to push the button, but that doesn't stop me feeling guilty about it. I feel that I am indicating to the other individual that I think they are too stupid to have pushed it.

Would the same thing happen with accidents? If you come across an accident with someone already there, do you call the police, or do you assume they've already been called?

I have seen this happen in Shanghai. An elderly woman lying on a busy road. People took photos of me while i helped her up and took her to the side. When you experience this first hand, it is really hard not to feel enraged by the spineless gawkers. My natural instincts felt like doing some damage to these citizen paparazzi, but my head knew that this would be a foolish move that wouldn't solve a thing. You just have to chalk it up to a cultural difference snd not get emotional about it.

It's been my experience that many cultures have this problem, not just China.

Indeed. I was in London with a group of people a few years back and saw a homeless man about to get beat up by another man in an alley. Everyone else ran away instead of calling the police. I'm no hero, but I just thought, if I were in that position surely I would want someone to give a damn.

Although .... When I lived in London I stopped a guy from beating up his girlfriend (he was, simply put beating her along the street). I had the girlfriend start attacking me with her stiletto :(

I am also reminded of this http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/aug/04/ukcrime.features11

With all that said, whilst I might wade into a crazy situation; ignoring a situation is not some that I think is specific to china or a specific culture, but rather a failing of our innate social skills. There is a long list of research into the bystander effect (e..g http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KE5YwN4NW5o) where if it is out of the comfort zone for people the simply choose not to observe the event, why do you think that most emergency guides start with the line "Call 911, don't assume that someone else will because they assume you already have"

Although .... When I lived in London I stopped a guy from beating up his girlfriend (he was, simply put beating her along the street). I had the girlfriend start attacking me with her stiletto

A friend in Amsterdam stopped a guy in the process of beating a woman on the street. He had to disable the guy (with a strike) to get him to stop. The woman promptly attacked my friend.

I think it's very common in domestic violence situations for the receiver to defend the aggressor.

Yes I have heard this too. Basically, the receiver is with their partner, for other reasons. And hence tend to downplay the significance of the violence.

I too had heard that, it makes me wonder how much goes unreported, undiscovered and unresolved :(

I don't know, maybe it's not just about countries or cultures but about the current safety state in the place you are.

My car broke down in Germany on relatively wealthy area(Wiesbaden, close to Frankfurt) and lot's of people tried to help me and I end up with a job and wonderful friends.

This isn't a cultural effect, this is a Human effect. What I don't understand is why haven't anyone done a comparison of modern day China, arguably at the same stage of development as the Industrial revolution (Circa 1800) era Britain/France. Anyone read any stories from that time period could easily do a one-to-one social phenomenon comparison. Young homeless/helpless girl frozen to death/killed on the street on Christmas day/broad day light without anyone batting an eye? Check. Middle class is generally a crappy place to be in society? Check. Oliver Twist? Any stories by Victor Hugo? Charles Dickens? Thomas Carlyle? Any Victorian era writing?

I see lots of talk about cultural/societal problems, but this is at least in part (if not mostly) due to a string of unfortunate lawsuits in China that were reported to have punished good samaritans. It's quite possible that the media organizations spun the stories to make them seem worse than they were, but the effect on public perception is huge.

For instance: http://en.ntd.tv/reference/chinablog/a-good-samaritan-punish...

Good point. In fact, the better researched article [1] describes precisely this:

According to state mouthpiece Xinhua, the woman’s brother-in-law said: "In fact, we understand those onlookers. Who dares to help when encountering such a thing. Everyone is afraid of getting into trouble."

I personally find it unfortunate that when it comes to Asians, even highly educated people often fail to see how their viewpoint is influenced by exasperated stereotypes. In addition, there is the colonialist mindset that it only takes a few years to completely understand Asian culture, or that all Westerners living in Asia are privy to great insights that Asians lack.

[1] http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/328584-chinese-woman-brain-d...

This kind of thing makes me sick.

I think it's one thing for people to ignore and walk by, disengaging themselves from the situation. It's another thing completely to actively involve themselves by taking photos and videos.

This is humanity at its worst, or even a non existence of humanity. I would not like to have an accident or fall ill in China.

What a terrible way to die. I think a passerby could have rescued her by slipping a car jack below her neck to spread the bars. If that didn't work though it would take hydrolic cutters.

"Compassion is the basis for all morality" -Schopenhauer

But this is problem in western cities as well. There was study in London on busy bus station in rush hour, where man was laying on street in agony asking for help. Homeless guy got help in 15 minutes, man in suit in 30 seconds and well dressed woman immediately. It is few years since I read this, so no link.

I also remember woman who swallowed chicken bone and was choking to death for 10 minutes on busy train station, she looked drunk.

I doubt the Chinese have a bigger bystander problem than the US. Exhibit A - Good Samaritan laws that both require and legally protect attempts to aid.

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