At least the cars bothered to went around and not over her, that's a major improvement..... The morale and worth of human life in china completely broke down during mao's cultural revolution where neighbors/friends report&kill each other, students torture teachers etc.. The country's morale compass never recovered from that, even if it made great economic progress. WARNING: VERY DISTURBING: <object width="480" height="360"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/1D5Skqxb_6g?version=3&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/1D5Skqxb_6g?version=3&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="360" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object>
I don't think the cultural revolution explanation is right. I hear it often, but it doesn't jive with my memories. I remember being involved in a (bike) accident in the mid-80s, and not only did a random stranger stop to drive me to the hospital, another random stranger pushed my damaged bike to the ER, probably would have taken him 30-45 minutes. (And a bike, by the way, was worth about a months salary back then). I think the break down is more recent. Post-Tiananmen, as the worship of money/wealth dominated all else.
the modernization definitely made it worse as the cities transformed from close knit neighborhoods to large faceless highrises and everyone became money crazy. but there is absolutely no doubt the cultural revolution is the underlying cause that made the society lose faith/jaded/untrustworthy/selfish etc.. before then the entire country was tight communities where neighbors eat together, hangout daily, took care of their communities, and helped strangers. There was a large sense of patriotism and excitement about rebuilding the new china. Then mao in fear of losing power to the more popular and educated leaders in his government, launched the cultural revolution as a way to dispose of them. Where most books are banned(except propaganda), and all educated/wealthy citizens are considered anti-government and publicly humiliated/beat/mentally tortured, many committed suicide. You are encouraged to rat out your friends/teachers etc.. True story, one of my mom's high school classmates back then wrote "big cat small cat" in the bathroom wall, then the other students found out and said it's anti-government because "cat pronounce the same as mao in chinese", the girl later went insane due to all the private/public humilation/mental torture from other students aka red guards (who ruled the country). It's the cultural revolution that made chinese lose faith in society and humanity. I think it will take at least 2 more decades for the new generations who has no memory of this tragedy and more open to western cultures to overcome the current indifference and value of human life. Tiananmen was a big deal in the west news media, but it really didnt have the major/long lasting impact in china many westerners believed. It was the cultural revolution.
It is a gross error of logic and common sense to generalize about a population of 1,300,000,000 based on the observation of a few over such a brief window of time. I'm reading Taleb's Black Swan now, and he describes how we are all subject to these gross errors in judgement. The visceral tragedy of the video further contributes to shutting down any logical reaction to the vid. (I'm just guessing - as a father I couldn't even stomach watching it, and have no interest.) Anway, we've seen videos like this in the West as well. Film long enough and you'll see everything eventually.