
Why Did Crowd Flee Shanghai Subway After Foreigner Fainted? - samsolomon
http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2014/09/01/344033379/why-did-crowd-flee-shanghai-subway-after-foreigner-fainted
======
otoburb
Notwithstanding the hypotheses offered in the article such as scams and
supposedly "sharp divides" between tight-knit kinship communities vs. stranger
divisions, the Bystander Effect[1] probably was the biggest initial culprit.

The article tries to explain this in a round about way in the first few
paragraphs.

[1]
[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect)

~~~
icebraining
I can see the bystander effect leading to inactivity, but not to desperate
flight!

------
JohnHaugeland
We do stuff like this too.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect)

~~~
kawsper
True. I helped a homeless man that was passed out in his wheelchair with an
open wound from his forehead, and with his trousers down.

It looked like someone had hit him in the head, and I couldn't get through to
him, and he smelled of alcohol. I didn't know the reason for why he was
unconscious was it the head trauma or the alcohol?

After spending several minutes trying loudly to wake the man, several people
joined me. This was at a particular busy place, so lots of people have walked
by him.

I called for an ambulance because I couldn't wake him up, and it took them 30
minutes to arrive, and when they finally arrived I had managed to wake him up
from his boozy dreams, and he resisted help (It's free in Denmark!), and the
ambulance personnel was angry with me for calling an ambulance for one that
didn't want help :-( But I am glad that he woke up, and was able to talk and
could travel with his wheelchair.

~~~
patio11
I once summoned the police in Nagoya under similar circumstances.

A gentleman had passed out with half of his body on the sidewalk and half in a
busy street, around 7 PM in a very well-trafficked portion of Nagoya. If he
had been there for more than five minutes, dozens of people had already passed
him, and surely one of them had... was presumably the calculation that
everyone had made. I made the same calculation, got twenty feet away, and then
had a strong feeling of "God requires you to do better than that", so I walked
to the local koban (police popup box) and explained that someone had passed
out in the street. They hadn't heard of it, and after asking a few questions
which were transparently designed to elicit whether he was homeless or a
productive member of society, we walked twenty minutes over to find him still
in the road.

The cops succeeded in rousing him, ascertained that his normal address was a
park across town, and told him to go to it rather than sleeping in the street.
They also made him apologize to me, because quote "Onii-san [+] here is
clearly exhausted after a long day of work but nonetheless went out of his way
to summon the police because he was worried about you. You should apologize
for having caused him distress."

The cops then noticed there was a bar next door and called the proprietor out.
They asked if he had noticed the man collapsed outside his establishment. The
proprietor said "Yeah. I had assumed he was sleeping it off." At this point
one of the officers went _positively volcanic_. He proceeded to throw a loud
tirade about the general decline of Japanese society and the particularized
lack of moral fiber of the bar owner, who would not life a finger for his
countryman while quote even the Brazilian endquote knew it was clearly
necessary.

[+] Literally "elder brother", figuratively a roughly appropriate non-specific
address for a young man.

~~~
dctoedt
> _the bar owner, who would not life a finger for his countryman while quote
> even the Brazilian endquote knew it was clearly necessary_

Echoes of the Parable of the Good Samaritan .... [1]

[1]
[https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2010:25-37](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2010:25-37)

------
r0h1n
I'm from India and here too most bystanders choose to not get involved when
someone on the road needs their help, for fear that they'll get entangled in a
"police case". But I doubt we're anywhere near as extreme as this!

For instance had this happened in, say, the Delhi metro or Mumbai local
trains, I'll bet there'd be enough good samaritans to help the person. And
there'd certainly be no stampede to escape from the vicinity of the fainted
man!

------
msie
The comments in the article point out that this is not special to Chinese
society with specific examples that happen in America. And one in the article
points out that fainting people are indeed being helped. I can't tell if this
is a regular occurrence or just hype.

Perhaps, like in Russia where every car is equipped with a dashcam to avoid
scams, everyone should be equipped with a chestcam. ;-)

They also mention anxiety with recent terrorist attacks and Ebola, so that may
be a larger factor.

~~~
afafsd
>The comments in the article point out that this is not special to Chinese
society with specific examples that happen in America

Of course they do. It's an iron-clad rule of the internet that if you ever
mention anything that happens in a foreign country, the first comment will be
about how the same thing happens in America (or else complaining that the same
thing doesn't happen in America).

~~~
XorNot
A countries citizens concerned with what happens their own country? Shocking!

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msie
This reminds me of a scene from Bad Grandpa where Johnny Knoxville (dressed as
an old man) gets his penis stuck in a vending machine at a gas station and
cries for help. The hidden camera records many people either ignoring,
laughing or taking pics with their cellphone cameras.

------
aleksandrm
There is a great award-winning short film (11 minutes) about this, based on a
true story, Bus 44[1].

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CK4TUP0VKLY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CK4TUP0VKLY)

~~~
mads
Really great one.. Thanks for posting!

I misread your comment and read bus 22 first, but saw the movie and read the
chinese characters bus 44 in the title screen. Thought that was weird - not
sure if I am learning English or Chinese anymore these days... haha..

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owlmusic
The Good Samaritans law, which is enacted in varying forms across Europe and
North America seems to be making it's way into Chinese provinces, Shenzhen
being the first this year.

------
ronnier
In the US, unfortunately my first reaction when seeing something out of the
ordinary is to wonder if I'm being setup for a YouTube prank video (or a scam,
or robbed)

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msie
With social media, internet and cameras everywhere it seems the bar has been
set very high for how a society responds to an emergency. If a cam records
even a slight delay in a victim getting help then there will be hell to pay
from the Internet. Everyone be on your toes! The Internet is watching and
judging!

