Death by Indifference
Little Yueyue and China's crisis of conscience.
Little Yueyue in the hospital.
Nearly everyday when I take the subway I hear the same refrain, “‘Respect the old and cherish the young’ is a traditional Chinese virtue.” So how does one make sense of the news that a two-year-old child was run over twice and passed by no less than 17 people before she was helped?
“Girl Who Was Hit Ignored by Passersby” is currently the most talked-about topic on Weibo and there is even a dedicated page which encourages users who care to write a post using the tag #please stop indifference. A notice on the list of “hot topics” says, “Please stop indifference! Don’t let Little Yueyue’s tragedy be repeated.” But sadly, Yueyue’s story is itself a repeat. Last September, a man was arrested for running over a three-year-old repeatedly in his BMW. That little boy is dead.
Viewed in this way, it is unlikely that pledges to prevent this kind of thing from happening again will be fulfilled. The problem is not as simple as arresting and punishing the drivers of the two cars that ran her over. If Yueyue dies, she will not have died of a car accident—she will have died of indifference. Two separate people drove over her. Seventeen people walked past her prostrate body. Any of these people could have saved her life. All of these people had the power to do what was morally right, regardless of the consequences. And yet none of them, not a single person, decided to help this child.
According to a damning report in China Daily, the driver was talking on his phone when he hit the girl. What’s more, he made the argument that should be familiar to us all by now:
“If she is dead, I may pay only about 20,000 yuan ($3,125). But if she is injured, it may cost me hundreds of thousands yuan,” said the driver over the phone to the media, before he gave himself up to the police.
It’s not a stretch to say that Chinese society is broken. The social contract has eroded. Values and virtues exist largely in school books. No one thing or person is at fault. This breakdown is the result of a confluence of factors: a political party that has destroyed their people’s faith and culture and can only replace them with material wealth; a government that is largely indifferent to the plight of the people it ostensibly represents, a government that emphasizes economic development at the cost of all else; a society that worships money because money is the only thing that can buy you safety; a weak legal system that, in this and many other cases, incentivizes immoral behavior; and citizens who are too scared to do the right thing, citizens who are willing and eager to sell their dignity for stability.
If I may take a moment to speak directly to any Chinese citizens that might stumble upon these words:
I know you’re scared. I know you just want a stable life. I know you want to go to a good college and get a good job and find a good wife and have a healthy child. I know in this dog-eat-dog world there are plenty of workers but not enough jobs, plenty of mouths but not enough food, plenty of things but not enough money. So it’s easy to see your neighbor as your enemy. It’s easy to think of their gain as your loss. It’s easy to say, I’m just going to keep my head down and worry about myself, worry about my child, worry about my family, and everyone else is on their own.
But, if everyone thinks that way, will this still be a society that you would want to live in? Do you really want to live in a society full of enemies, a society where every day is a battle, a society where all the fables about right and wrong you learned as a child are just that?
One person’s pain is the entire society’s responsibility. One person’s suffering is the entire society’s sorrow. Everyone is implicated in this tragedy, from the very bottom to the very top. If you are too cowardly to ensure that society advances in a positive direction, then you will have no one to blame when it is your child in the middle of the street. This is your country. This is your society. Whether you like it or not. Whether you choose to be a part of it or not.
Do not be indifferent. Do not let innocent children pay for your indifference. Do not close your eyes. The monsters will still be there when you open them.
UPDATE: Little Yueyue has passed away.
This hits the nail on the head quite squarely i think!
The timely counterpoint to Yueyue’s tragedy was the foreign woman who jumped into Hangzhou’s West Lake to save a suicidal woman.
Your exhortation to the Chinese more or less matches what I’ve been thinking. One of the reasons I don’t want to raise children in China is that I wouldn’t want them to be exposed to a society in which only the lives of the people you are acquainted with have any value. It’ll take time, and probably Christianization, for this problem to fade in China.
I’m going to disagree with the Christianization argument. I find it hard to believe that these incidents have more to do with religious beliefs than economic and legal incentives. Take a nation where most people are Christian, place them into a big, alienating city, have courts rule in favor of old ladies who lie and fine good Samaritans a significant deal of money, and see how many people rush to help the helpless because of religious compunction. Just last year, New York residents left a good Samaritan to die and I won’t bring up Kitty Genovese. Evan Osnos and the Guardian have more.
I’m not saying a lack of Christianity is the only reason people choose not to help others. I’m saying I have a hard time imagining this problem going away in China without a major change in people’s mindsets and upbringing, and the rise of Christianity is a real trend that seems more likely to transform Chinese society than Weibo or political reform. (The origin of the term “good Samaritan” is, of course, a parable Jesus told, telling people to show love not only to strangers, but even to enemies.)
Was Chen Xianmei, the cook and scrap peddler who came to the child’s aid, a Christian? Or is it perhaps pervasive materialism, not a lack of “Christian” values, that let those 18 other passersby ignore an injured 2-year old?
Have you not heard that the last shall be first and the first shall be last?
I think it goes deeper than ‘stresses of modern society’ to a deep-rooted cultural belief in the distinctions between insider and outsider. In Confucian world order, obligation was extended primarily to those with whom one had a relationship. They typically did not extend to strangers. “Nei wai you bie.” Insiders and outsiders are different. If I don’t know you, you aren’t. If you aren’t, then I have no social obligations to extend to you. I believe that this thinking remains stronger today than we think.
Thanks for the comment Jo. I think the reasons are multifarious and age-old Chinese “wisdom” certainly maintains a grip on society.
They have Confucianism (the Inside/Outside) in Korea too. That doesn’t mean ‘step over the corpse’. Nice try.
In fact, when I see local Chinese urinating in the street here in Shanghai, I wonder just how much deep-seeded Confucian piety towards the Government and Country there really is. I have no doubt about Chinese undying love and respect for their parents and family, obviously, but the Community here in China is SEVERELY lacking.
Actually that’s not fair: here in Shanghai we had a ‘Better City, Better Life’ campaign for the 2010 Olympics. Spending money on promoting the image of the city is easy. Actually improving things, and educating the people who make up that community? Yeah right.