An Incident in Shanghai
A woman jumps off a building in Shanghai and
dies. Sadly, these things happen. Even more sadly, something else happened in this case.
Here is the fairly dry and clinical account at EastDay:
- 12:30pm. A female climbed out on the
six floor of a commercial building and stood on the ledge.
- 13:20pm. The police set up a police
line and stopped all vehicular traffic. The female was pacing back and
forth, and speaking on the mobile phone. Several times, she looked
desperate after hanging up the telephone and began banging on the wall with
her fist. The police sent in their expert, but the woman motioned for
him to back off.
- 14:00pm. At the woman's request, the
police roped off a larger area so that the specators (of which there were
several thousand) were kept farther away. After a few more telephone
calls, the woman sat down and cried, swinging her legs on the outside the
ledge.
- 15:00pm. The woman received a bottle
of mineral water from the expert.
- 17:10pm. Several familiy members were
brought in to talk to the woman, but she would not come back inside. A
militia and a firefighter positioned themselves on the ledge above her,
secured with ropes and ready to come down and rescue her.
- 17:40pm. The firefighters brought in
one large air cushion and a small one as well. They removed the bamboo
fence underneath the ledge and move thed air cushions
in place.
- 18:30pm. The woman sat on the ledge,
alternating between crying and laughing, and refused to communicate with the
expert.
- 21:50pm. The firefighters brought in a
firetruck with a ladder. The ladder has moved to two meters from the
woman, and two firefighters were perched on top of the ladder.
Suddenly, the woman rushed out and fell down to the shocked horror of the
spectators. The woman was taken to the hospital, where she was
pronounced dead due to injuries sustained during the fall.
At the peak, there were several thousand
spectators. The reporter took some notes. The reporter noted that
whenever the crowd started yelling, the woman became more distressed and
unstable. Here is the first item:
At the front of the police line, a group of
female students were yakking away. Occasionally, they yelled upwards:
"Hurry up and jump!" A middle-aged man could not help himself
and said to them, "Girls, stop yelling! If it is a family member of
yours up there, you would not be yelling. Would you?" The
girls were surprised, and did not say anything more.
Here is the second item:
Among the people who were yelling, some were
doing it for no good reason. A group of young men were laughing.
Whenever the female went near the edge, they would cheer out loud. A
blue-eyed, blonde foreigner especially stood out in the crowd because of his
height. He elatedly used his strong voice to yell out loudly in badly
pronounced Chinese: "Jump down (跳下来)!"
The aforementioned acts are committed by
specific individuals, and should not reflect on any race, nationality, gender,
age, religion, etc. For the record, I have not translated the acts of good
consideration and kindness recorded by the reporter. Question: what would you say to the foreigner?