Was at dinner with one of my other friends tonight and we were talking about things that would be first nature back home and those same things which must be adjusted for in China.  One of the things that I feel really strongly about is helping others if you cannot tell from my blog or two seconds of speaking with me.  Unfortunately, in China many people feel that we need to hold back on helping others because of the culture here.

For example, in the US at the minimum I would call 911 and then stay with the person until help arrived.  In China, I still call 110 but I do not stick around to see if help arrived because usually once people figure out that you are a westerner they assume that you either had something to do with the incident or assume that they can blackmail you into giving them money.  I was really surprised that my friend said the same thing.  (My experience is from China circa 2008-2009 where I went to stop a fight and my aunt started screaming at me).

My friend is an EMT back in the US which means if you see someone in trouble you go off and help them even if they are a stranger.  In China my friend and another friend of the friend was walking around, saw a motorcycle get hit by a car and they left the scene.  My friend was correct in that had they gone over to help, they would have been blamed for the accident and the driver would have fled the scene.  Sometimes being a “foreigner in China is scary because the first words out of a local’s mouth usually is, “Look the foreigner did X,Y,Z to me,” even when totally untrue.  After that you have to deal with the mob and how do you explain to an enraged, illogical group in your terrible or non-existent language skills what happened?

I never thought that I would be a Katie Genovese bystander and in some ways I am not because at least I go and find help or call for help before I leave.  However, I am not happy with certain aspects of life in China and this is one of them.

Now for those of you who do not know about the Katie Genovese case and resulting psychological studies on the issue, please read the following link even though it is a wiki page:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Kitty_Genovese.

I am trying to get people more interested in first aid training for teachers, staff, and professors at the university level because we have had issues where a student died or got hurt on campus.  Usually people are scared to help because they are afraid of liability issues – if this is the case then we need to pass Good Samaritan laws in China to encourage people to help out.  The training issue is hopefully more easily solvable – this is my new year project for school 😀

Current Mood: Still a little sick but very happy because I had dinner with a great friend who I can vent at and commiserate with.