The evidence:
- Female College Graduate Beaten and Killed in Busy Street over Dispute
- Brazilian Beaten Up For Stopping Thieves As Chinese Stand By
- British Man Beat Up For Sexually Assaulting Chinese Girl (telegraph.co.uk, beijingcream.com)
- Chinese Bank Robber Spends 4 Minutes Smashing Hole In Reinforced Glass
- Top 10 Problems in 2011 China, CASS Survey of Chinese Public
The reason that Chinese people exhibit a much worse case of the so-called bystander effect is because parents depend on their children to support them in their old age and because of television (?). If parents only expect their children to follow the rules of society and make lots of money—or marry someone who does—then helping injured or threatened strangers is not socially rewarded nor does it help one's parents.
This means that in cases where helping someone actually leads to a legal penalty or fine, the older population has no reason to put pressure on the government to change the law to make helping people less dangerous.
Population controls in China are mainly for urban dwellers, leading to significant differences in family sizes which are magnified for larger generational spreads. China needs more government support for the elderly, more and higher quality jobs, or both. This might require less obsession with brands and possibly changed attitudes toward housing, but support for the elderly may need to come first. It might not need to come from the central government if communities see clear benefit from policies which lessen the dependence of parents on the financial success of their children or child, but anything that isn't nationwide would be more vulnerable to exploit even if geographic mobility is lower in China due to the Hukou system.
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