American woman jumps into West Lake to save suicide attemptee

The rescuer's name is Maria Fernanda Gomez Arregui and she indeed is american but from South America, from Uruguay.

i love the expression on the rescuers face, it's like she's thinking, "here we go again, bloody idiots.". 

Why is life so cheap here? That's a serious question. Why do foreigners give a fuck about life and living, and Chinese people don't. Answers on a postcard please.

I wish non-Chinese wouldn't be so judgemental of Chinese.

The reason is very simple: foreigners aren't part of the Chinese system, so they can act accordingly to their ideals and wills (be they good or bad) whereas Chinese have to act accordingly to a system that will punish them if they act out in kindness.  That means that if a Chinese jumped into the lake to save that girl and that girl drowned, then that Chinese would be blamed for drowning her.  Yes, that sounds retarded, but the blame must go somewhere in China.

That's why foreigners can be such heroes (the airport stabbing, the subway epileptic), but Chinese are so unwilling to help (ie. Nanjing court ruling that its "common sense that the first person who helps out is the one who is most to blame" (elsewhere called the "he who smelt it dealt it" defence); the one where some woman fell from crossing a highway median but convinced a court that she was hit by a car).

“Foreigners can be such heroes but Chinese are so unwilling to help’?

As I doc I saw suicides almost daily in my hospitals, many
of them were stopped and rescued. In China, for 13.2 suicide death of 100,000 and there are 7 attempt for each, by a medical stats in 2009. Do the math you will know it’s impossible all the attemptees were saved by foreigners, even if foreigners are doing nothing in China except busily saving people like angels.

There are about 20,000 old Chinese over 65 falling down each day (when more than 5,000 Americans in same age are seriously
injured by falling). Even if only 1% fell down in public places, then you must be an idiot to ever think all of them fallen got up by the helping hand of expats who love to rescue Chinese but enjoy KOing Iraqis.

There are always idiots like you thinking all the noble things as such are done by laowai, like helping suicide and fallen down oldies, murder victims. An bright expat even assure me weeks ago ALL the abandoned Chinese baby girls were adopted by Westerners.

The problem with all of you is you saw too much Hollywood movies and read too much of news about human biting dogs.
As the suicide attempt clinically are mostly a wish to attract attention and affect another person, a motive well shared by you, I highly recommend you seek proper consultation from a doc, or at least from a veterinarian. Some day you’ll feel grateful to my advice.

I think it's pretty reasonable to be judgemental of the Chinese in these situations. The Chinese live in a Chinese society that the Chinese people created for themselves and what's wrong with making judgements on it? I think it's better than making excuses. Feel free to criticise and judge my culture and society too, it's far from perfect. 

But this incident, which is by no means isolated, highlights an aspect of Chinese behaviour that is far from pleasant and it should be pointed out and criticised, I would expect the same condemnation and criticism if it happened on my home turf.The blame does have to go somewhere in Chinese society and it seems retarded because it is. It's a paradigm that is nurtured into the Chinese from birth and should be nurtured out along with the concept of 'face' and unquestioning filial piety.

dude,

I agree with some of your points like saying "Chinese face" is an outdated concept and that unquestioning filial piety is bad, but that doesn't mean that we can't have a modernized concept of face (like Westerner's) or that filial piety isn't a bad concept.

You demonstrate some knowledge of Chinese culture but you don't show any understanding or compassion towards it.  If you really are a 中国通 you'd know that pointing fingers isn't the way to encourage change. 

You'll find that you'll understand Chinese culture better if you stop putting yourself so high above it.

Terroir all I here is excuses. These people no better than guiltless murderers.  The passers are the same as the cowards in my neighborhood that are afraid to talk to the police when they witnessed a murder perpetuating the reason why these incidents continue to occur.  Its not just a matter of corruption, or the system in place, or even the laws, its the people of the land. Selfish, mindless, drones, just going about their life like the world revolves around their life.  Now that everybody has a camera phone and there are cctv cameras everywhere (in CHINA) there is no excuse for anyone not to think twice about anything.  The drivers should have `stopped and laid in his bed to a lessor charge now he's a murderer.  The second driver shame on him now he's in trouble (maybe).  The people that look away unfucking real.  20 people holy fucking shit.  If it was their children if it was your kid or  you for that matter would be fucking irate if no one came to help YOU. 

This is not a new phenomena for the Chinese its not even a cycle.  Historically this is the Chinese way (not esclusive) every one has their specific humanity record Chinese being faithfully negligent in too many areas.Thanks to technology and todays social media the rest of the world will witness what can only be read in banned books in Chinese script.  You can see these traits any where around the world thru out history of the migrant main land Han culture .  The system in place whether legal, environmental, political and geographical  is a direct mirror of what type of people the Chinese really are (not all but a large %age) and its fucking disgusting. 

 It starts with the little people and these are the people that don't give a fuck. These are same people who officials writing the laws, running country, the police, the doctors, politicians and so on.  I can go on but the fact of the matter is that GDP and political prowess is nothing with out true public awareness and public action amongst their own.

"Chinese are unwilling to help others." that is all you need to know, except if you have $$$.

Dude,
you know that isn't entirely true; Chinese will go to great lengths to help their guanxi, (your aforementioned triple $), but they are also very willing to go to great lengths to help their friends (see: the lamb and the pig weibo story).

We can be as judgemental as we can (see martin below), but the fact remains that if you have a good friend in China, you have a good friend no matter what terrible occasion.

I wouldn't stick around either.  Might get sued.

Thank goodness for humans treating other humans like humans.