I think I was reacting mostly to Steve's post more than anything. I guess the point I need to make is small communities are less likely to encounter such behavior, probably due to the fact that there are just fewer people involved.

On September 6, the Chinese Health Ministry issued a 41-page set of guidelines that was two years in the making, which called "Technical Guidelines on Intervention When an Old Person Has Fallen Down". In this guideline, it is recommended not hurry to help the fallen elderly immediately, but to offer different aids based on differing situations.

By early afternoon on September 7, "Ministry of Health" had become the second-most popular trending topic among the 200 million users of Sina. The online discussion often was contemptuous, especially about the length of the state guidelines for helping the elderly and their inapplicability to real-life circumstances.

Shui Yinhe, a freelance journalist, tweeted on Sina Weibo:

What a guideline. If the senior citizen falls, he should be accompanied by their family members to the hospital. But if we can't get in touch with them, what can we do? Let them wait to die?

Where others saw the Ministry of Health's incompetence, some saw humor. The topic of the guidelines became a platform for the spontaneous gallows humor that is characteristic of China's microblogging masses.

A Sina Weibo user who goes by "Textbook" took the popular approach of offering some of his own guidelines:

1. Call 120 [the Chinese emergency number]. 2. Look around to see if there's a watchdog or wait for more people to come, and then help the elderly person. 3. Take photos using your cell phone in case tragedy happens ... 4. If you are in areas outside the mainland, you don't have to do any of this and you can act normally.

New Zealand is a small country of only about 4 million people. I genuinely 100% believe that no where in our country would it happen.

How could they bear to just pass a little girl like that? Reports revealed that the girl died due to head injuries suffered in the accident. I just don't see how any human could just walk past it, and consider their own errands to be more important than the life of a small child.

To begin with, when you're walking in a tight crowd, it's really hard to: (a) see where you're stepping; (b) avoid any obstacles; and (c) stop. This is especially true during rush hour. Depending on the speed and density of the crowd, it may be physically impossible to go back and help the child. As for the car that ran over her, well, it's even harder for them. From what I remember, traffic in Chinese cities is brutal. There are cars tailgating, squeezing in between lanes, and honking at each other. Changing lanes requires a LOT of skill and patience. It would be virtually impossible to avoid the child on the ground, let alone open your car door (sometimes it's so bad that you don't even have room to open your door), leave, pick up the child, and come back to your car (at which point the cars behind you will be honking loudly enough to wake the dead).

People are selfish; we're willing to help others as long as we don't have to compromise ourselves.

Instead of complaining about people not helping the little girl, perhaps we should look at the cause of the problem. Why was the girl there in the first place? That way, measures can be put into place to prevent other children from being in her situation. Otherwise, we could help them until the end of time, and there would still be more of them.

Sure, they did nothing to cause the ACCIDENT, but the fact they did nothing after the accident had been caused, yes that contributed to her DEATH.

And I hope this isn't turning entirely political, and I hope we're not forgetting the fact that a little girl was hit and killed. Horrible.

The distraught parents have avoided voicing their feelings over the incident, saying they wanted only to focus on Yueyue's recovery, but her grandfather, named as Mr Wang, admitted to a local newspaper that he "hated those cold-blooded passers-by".

He added that he had recognised at least one of the passersby. "I wanted to beat him, but at last I held myself back," he was quoted as saying in the Southern Metropolis Daily.

"Although saving people constantly brings 'trouble,' nonetheless, ignoring the dying or even helping with evil acts by negligence is ripping apart society's ethical baseline and dissolving any sense of conscience deep in the souls of the public," wrote a senior columnist, Li Hongbing.

They are only in danger of facing a lawsuit, but really, that should be not enough to make someone not help another in need.

What this shows is the disturbing nature of the situation... and where their priorities are.

Some unsecured creditors (including banks) hire debt collection agencies that at times use aggressive debt collection techniques. Some of these agencies resort to harassment, coercion, and the public humiliation of the debtor—and in some instances even arson—in demanding repayment.

For large debts, creditors generally consider the Hong Kong, China legal system for debt collection to be effective and efficient. However, given the high costs involved in debt collection, the same cannot be claimed when speaking of the collection of smaller debts. The fact that many individuals and even some companies rely on debt collection companies that use high pressure (and at times illegal) debt collection techniques demonstrates some dissatisfaction with the effectiveness and/or cost efficiency of the appropriate legal channels.