Wang Yue, the two-year-old girl who was left for dead on a narrow street in southern China after a hit-and-run accident, has died.
The toddler, nicknamed Yueyue, had been cared for in a hospital in Guangdong province since she was injured a week ago.
She succumbed to severe injuries Friday morning.
Two hit-and-run drivers ran over Yueyue, one after another, after she wandered into the alley outside her father's hardware store. Both fled the scene but are now under arrest.
But there was one thing more shocking than the double hit-and-run: the seeming apathy by pedestrians, cyclists and drivers?18 of them?who did not stop to help.
Yueyue laid motionless in the street for 10 minutes until Chen Xianmei, a 58-year-old woman who collects trash for a living, passed by. She moved her to safety and called for help.
A security camera captured the incident on tape. After the video was posted online, Yueyue's plight prompted sympathy, outrage and debate in and outside China. How could 18 people pass by the critically injured child and do nothing? The incident has also prompted widespread soul-searching in China about the state of the nation's morality and civic-consciousness.
Why is it so difficult for Chinese nowadays to be a Good Samaritan? There are many possible explanations and many possible culprits.
Some blame it on the lack of laws and regulations. Others argue it's caused by the failure of China's education system to inculcate respect for human life and dignity.
Still others blame it on what some call "jingshen kongxu", or spiritual vacuum. As the country's 1.3 billion people compete to make money and climb the economic and social ladder, experts say, many people find themselves spiritually adrift.
Reynard Hing, an astute China-watcher, cautions against making sweeping conclusions. "It's funny how many people read into this, to the point that anti-Chinese sentiment arises," he wrote me. "This situation is not unique to China."
He cites the case of Kitty Genovese. In 1964, the woman in Queens, N.Y. was chased and stabbed to death by an assailant over the course of half an hour while 38 of her neighbors watched from their windows and did nothing to help.
Psychologists, Hing tells me, have dubbed this phenomenon the 'bystander problem'?the one factor that would predict Good Samaritan behavior was how many witnesses there were to a tragic event: The more bystanders, the less likely someone will step up to help.
