别管闲事 - why?

[Sydney Matt]

Walking home tonight with my Chinese wife, we went up a fairly-decent sized laneway, which we've walked many times before. This is not a particularly out-of-the-way place, although it is a little dark. We saw something going on, a bit of scuffle, a man punching another to the ground. Went back to the main street, and as it happened, a police car came past. I stopped them, and asked them to have a look, then my wife and I went on our way.

 

My wife was somewhat angry at me, saying what happened had nothing to do with me, and that what if these people decided to get revenge on us the next time we walked that way? I'm still really confused. As I see it, if it really wasn't anything, well, the police have only "wasted" two or three minutes of time, and if, on the other hand, there was something happening, the police could handle it. 

 

What do you think?

[Angelina]

文化差别 

That's how it is. 

[889]

This is the way things are.

It was probably some 小地痞 local ruffian bullying a street vendor for not paying protection money or such. It's not uncommon.

 

There's no sense arguing who's right in some abstract sense between you and your wife. It's simply a fact of life in China that you keep your nose out of those problems.

[XuanWu]

someone had said here, in an another topic, that after many years of living in China, he is still impressed about how people dont care about each other.

I dont remember what was the topic about or his exact words, but i remember the meaninig, because it hurted.. I dont want to develop this subject..also you need

a new topic just for that

 

I have seen a chinese fight too.. nobody stopped them..just watched. I did

[Tianjin42]

This is interesting. I would agree with the others that this is simply culture difference - I've witnessed the same thing a number of times. It may be contentious but I feel that within a framework of mutual respect one can constructively criticise particular traits regardless of whether they are examples of cultural difference or not.

I wouldn't advocate mindlessly criticising another culture that is not understood, however I do feel it can be positive to engage and on some occasions criticise. Sometimes it feels a little too easy on both sides to simply say 'culture difference'. As I say to my Chinese colleagues, sometimes 旁观者清.

I left my colleague completely bemused as I intervened in the street where a man was vigorously strangling his girlfriend. Obviously the local people simply walked past but the man in question was seriously hurting his partner; I felt it was right to intervene then and I do now. I explained to my colleague that I was acutely aware of the cultural difference however I thought that it was right to intervene on that occasion.

[陳德聰]

It's difficult for me to believe this can be chalked up to cultural differences only. I think it is highly dependent on individual differences. We see the same thing in Canada all the time with pathetic bystanders watching and taking videos of things instead of doing anything to help. And yet always there will be the exception in Canada and in China.

 

Some people have a sense of civic duty and some people don't. I try my best to only associate with people who do, or with people who don't try to tell me that I shouldn't have one.

 

Another issue might be that in China, it's actually a lot more likely that the scenario your wife described could happen where you end up with a hit out on you. I would say it's probably a lot harder to get away with murder in Vancouver than it is in Shanghai for example.

[Shelley]

The small steps towards change can be made by people taking a chance and intervening.

 

I agree that it is not always down to cultural differences, I have seen this sort of thing in all 4 of the western countries I have lived in.

 

It is a "not getting involved" mentality that is is borderless and happens regardless of cultures.

 

I have also seen people in need of medical attention being ignored. Again its a "not get involved, I have got my busy life to get on with" mentality.

 

I remember seeing a TV documentary about some tourists traveling in coach on a trip, stop because a Chinese lorry had gone over a cliff and there were a few Chinese people standing around listening to the man's cries for help but not doing anything, when the tourist said why are they not helping him they were told its "karma" the tourist then immediately tried to help which seemed to galvanized the Chinese people to rescue the man.

[AdamD]

I saw a fight in Pudong Airport on Saturday, just before I went through international departures. A woman was wailing on the floor and a man (her father?) kept pushing and shoving her. A person from airport security stood next to them but essentially did nothing. The man kept shoving the crying woman and security just sort of stood there. Everyone around them carried on. 文化差异 or not, I can't reconcile behaviour like this.

[fanglu]

I wonder if its not also a symptom of living in a society with no legal security; sticking your head up could easily get you thrown in jail / sent for re-education / harassed by red guards / massacred in a public square. The fact that you were doing nothing wrong and were just trying to help probably won't save you. Given all that, probably better to keep to yourself.

[Shelley]

Similar thing with doctors getting sued for failing to save people in the street. Crazy crazy world we live in

[Pingfa]

 

 

文化差异 or not, I can't reconcile behaviour like this.

My sentiments exactly. Just because it's 'cultural' doesn't mean it's not worth putting under scrutiny or shouldn't be changed. Especially when it's a woman or child being brutally beaten by a man, as in the incident where a pregnant woman was kicked in the face and stomach repeatedly because the store ran out of ice cream cones... and several males just stood there gawking. Another relevant news story that infuriated me was one about a guy that drowned after pulling a family of 3 (father, mother, child) to safety who were shouting for help because they were swimming somewhere they shouldn't be (there was a fence and a sign warning them not to go in due to the strong current), but after the family had made it to safety they left the guy to fend for himself; when they were stopped by bystanders the wife said, "关我屁事！"

 

It's one thing to not help someone in distress, but in the above case the guy was in distress because of their irresponsible behaviour. The worst part is these people aren't even a special case, it's 'cultural'

 

As Fanglu said, though, this is largely to do with the incredibly flawed legal system in China. Like all people, the people of China are products of their environment.

[LiMo]

I don't really see why the matter is worse when a woman or child is beaten by a man. Most grown adults can inflict sever injury on others regardless of sex. This is the kind of thinking that leaves a poor guy beaten and bloody because he was too much of a wuss to defend himself against some female mugger yeah it seems unlikely, yeah it goes against all your expectations, but I'd bet my life it happens and it shouldn't no matter what. Granted males may tend to be physically stronger, but depending on the situation a woman intervening would stop the situation whereas the presence of a man might cause it to escalate. These things are simply a matter of doing the right thing or not. I'm not saying I would necessarily step in in every situation (I hope that I would), but it shouldn't be so sexist as to assume that men should “be real men" and play the hero, or that a woman beating up a child is not as bad as when a man does it. 21st century folks.

[imron]

In recent years there have been cases in China where a good samaritan has gone to aid someone and then found themselves landed with that person's medical expenses or blamed for that person's injuries.  This has greatly increased the general public's unwillingness to step in.

[anonymoose]

Intervening has risks, so whilst those who intervene and end up with a righteous outcome are seen as heroes, I can quite understand why people would also choose to not intervene, regardless of whether it is China or elsewhere.

 

I also think that those standing by and filming shouldn't automatically be demonised. For example, a lot of these wrongs that have been filmed and uploaded to Youtube for the public to see serve a kind of justice that may not have been delivered by the law, or the videos my provide evidence that is required for the law to serve justice. (Of course, that is not to say that injustice may not also be served by people uploading these videos, but that is a different issue.)

[Angelina]

There is a lot of bullying happening in China. Almost all of my classmates are Chinese and I can see some behaviour I would probably not see back home. There is one guy, and the others keep calling him 学霸 in front of everyone. Nobody acts like they care. Phychological or physical, violence is violence, but this is a society where people are not supposed to intervene. There are exceptions, yet the general feeling is different. 

[Angelina]

These are adults by the way

[anonymoose]

I think much worse things happen in UK schools than being called 学霸. And by the way, 学霸 is usually more seen as a compliment than an insult in China.

[Angelina]

Hm, the word is originally a compliment, but I think they are using it as an insult. He is not a popular kid.

 

I don't know, in my country adults don't usually act like that. I feel like I am back in high school. 

[Guest realmayo]

I'm probably wrong here but sometimes I've wondered if some of the fights in public between two people, where there isn't a great deal of physical damage done, have a large perfomance element: I don't mean they're faked, but that the reaction of the onlookers, or at least the fact that it's being played out in front of onlookers, is important to both people involved.

 

I also think that we're far more products of our different societies than we like to think, so a public-spirited westerner acting public-spiritedly in China is simply acting according to western norms. And he may not have any choice but to intervene, because of his background -- particularly if the short-term consequences seem trivial. Although I'd guess plenty of those interveners would think harder before wading into a gang of guys with knifes in a murky London alley, for instance.

[gato]

Realmayo has a point. You could see this as the flip side of the fear of getting into trouble. Because of this fear, you see a lot less public violence in China than many other places. Even less in the South than in the North.

On the other hand, the "anti-altruism" so to speak is a part of the loss of belief in Socialism. Socialism has been replaced with Nationalism, but Nationalism doesn't really have a morality, thus the widely talked about 信仰危机 (crisis of faith).