In October 2011, when a young child was run over by a van in the Chinese city of Foshan in southeastern Guangdong province, many China critics leaped on that one isolated example in a country about the size of the US in area with more than four times the population to stereotype all Chinese as insensitive monsters. I wrote about the incident in Litigation Nation Virus Spreading West to East.
Now, in 2012, we have an example of heroism from a Chinese man in Guangzhou, China where he risked his life to save a Chinese toddler.
The UK’s Daily Mail reported, “Chinese toddler dangling over 40 foot drop plucked by rescuer who scaled side of building to save him.” The Daily Mail ran four photos of the incident, which clearly show the danger to the hero and the child (click on link to see dramatic photos).
My question is, “Will the same China critics that used the Foshan incident to crucify China and the Chinese for apathy spend the same amount of time and effort to laud this hero as a positive role model?”
In fact, this hero risked his life and did not act alone. The Daily Mail said, “Within minutes of the terrified toddler being spotted, a crowd had assembled at street level with a large yellow blanket at the ready to catch him if he fell.”
I suspect that most China critics will claim this was a fluke instead of giving credit where credit is due. However, there is evidence that others also are willing to risk life and limb. For example, in July 2011, Wu Juping, 31, saved a two-year-old girl that fell out of a 10th floor window and Juping suffered a broken arm for her act of heroism. Source: China Daily
The truth is that the Chinese are just as diverse as most people in the world. For example, a recent study of human nature revealed that it is normal (for most of humanity) to lie and cheat—not just the Chinese as many China critics claim.
In The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone—Especially Ourselves, Dan Ariely, a behavioral economist at Duke University said, “Our behavior is driven by two opposing motivations. On the one hand, we want to view ourselves as honest, honorable people. On the other hand, we want to benefit from cheating and get as much money as possible. Human behavior is the balance between those two forces.” Source: The Daily Ticker at Yahoo Finance
Moreover, if dishonesty is part of human nature, it stands to reason that people will be subconciously dishonest when they demonize something they fear or do not understanding, which means critics will filter the facts to fit personal beliefs—known as Cherry Picking and turn to the Ad Hominem Fallacy to slander an entire nation. Source: Discovering Intellectual Dishonesty
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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.
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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse 
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