看热闹

Coming home from work today, I immediately noticed that something was going on at my apartment complex. People outside were crowded around the front of my building, many others hung out of their windows, looking down. It looked like some kind of performance was going on. I walked over to see what the hubbub was all about. I pushed my way through....oh, FUCK.

Closed my eyes tight, but it was too late.

A dead body, face down, detached arm, covered in blood.

My eyes were earnestly searching for a group of old ladies dancing. They landed on something very very different. I looked away the second my brain processed what it was. I wanted to vomit.

It was pretty clear what happened. There was window debris everywhere. Someone very clearly fell, or threw themselves, out the window.

The crowd was just STANDING THERE, staring at the body. No family members crying. Nobody looking shocked or sad. No ambulance. No police. Just people dumbly standing there, enjoying the show.

I burst into my apartment- "Lara! Someone just fell out a window! We have to call the police!" I was more shocked to hear that when she came home at 5, it had already happened. It was now 7:15. That poor person was laying in the middle of the pavement for over two hours.

Chinese have a very bad habit of gawking at crisis. Under Chinese law (or if it's not law, in practice), anyone who involves themselves in an accident can be held liable for the injury. People don't want to stick their necks out when someone is hurt, or in trouble, because they might be blamed.

My friend Gabe once got hit by a car on his scooter (the car drove away). There he was, under his bike, bleeding and beat up in the middle of the road. Crowds of people just gathered and stared. Not a single person helped him as he pushed his totaled bike off and limped to the side of the road.

Last weekend, my friend Courtney saw a waiter and waitress fighting in a cafe. The waiter picked up a bottle of vodka and smashed it into the waitress' head. She was bleeding everywhere. Not a single person moved. They just started. Courtney jumped into action. She took care of the girl, called the police, tried to stop the bleeding with towels, hailed a taxi to take her to the hospital. Everyone else just sat there, criticizing her for getting involved. She was shocked. A man hits a woman with a glass bottle, she's bleeding out of her temple and nobody does ANYTHING?

Tonight, the police showed up right after I got home. They set up cones to keep people from getting too close. I went out to buy water at nine. The body, and the crowds, were still there. Our landlord told us that the person was a worker fixing a window on the 27th floor.

He must have fell out by accident. He probably was a migrant, here illegally. No ID, the police probably didn't know what to do. So they just left him there, Monday night entertainment for the entire neighborhood.

There is phrase in Chinese- 看热闹，kan re nao. It means to rubberneck, literally, stare at the commotion. Tonight, those three characters makes me want to throw up.