0:00 Society has ruined people. An elderly man can lie there for half a day and nobody dares to help him. I don't dare to help either. I'm afraid I'll get accused and have to pay. There's nothing we could do. Society has changed. Recently, the question of whether people should still dare to help elderly strangers who collapse in public has once again drawn attention after the 19,000 UN incident in Hyong, Hunan Province. On August 17th, an elderly man in Chingong County, Hyang, Hunan Province, went to a Maang shop. After sitting down on a chair outside the entrance, he suddenly felt unwell. The shop owner, Shiao Ia, noticed something was wrong and stepped forward to help him. Others called emergency services and the man was taken
0:46 to a hospital and he later died. According to the shop owner's family, after the man's death, his relatives demanded 100,000 UN in compensation from the shop. After two rounds of mediation, the owner eventually paid 19,000 UN as quote unquote humanitarian compensation payment. If helping someone could ultimately bring a dispute or even a compensation claim, who would still dare help the next time? After the 19,000 incident, many shop owners have already removed the chairs outside their stores. It's not because they're being stingy. They're truly discouraged. A simple act of kindness now comes with fear of unexpected consequences. When being cautious becomes more important than being kind.
1:32 All of us are affected. >> What kind of society has this become? It's really frightening. I used to put these chairs outside so anyone who was tired could sit down for a while. But now don't sit here anymore. With that 19,000 situation, there are better things to spend money on than this. >> Some shop owners have even placed a disclaimer on every chair outside their stores. Their sign reads, "Sats reserved for people waiting in line. No 19,000 UN liability." To be honest, I'm still a little scared as a business owner. I thought about some ways to protect myself. Everyone, take a look. Do you think doing this can help avoid some responsibility? Tell me,
2:19 what has happened to society now? Some business owners have even started asking elderly people to leave when they see them preparing to sit on chairs outside their stores. >> You can't sit here. You can't sit here. There's no 19,000 UN, okay? I can't afford to pay 19,000. Even I want to can't afford it. I only make a few thousand a year repairing motorcycles. You can't say here, sir. Please, please don't. Hey, why won't you listen? On August 27th, the case took another turn. A follow-up investigation found that the elderly man died from a sudden illness. Police ruled out external injury and criminal involvement. People involved in the mediation also said there was no evidence showing that the shop owner was at fault. Hung authorities confirmed
3:06 that day that the man's family had returned the full 19,000 UN. Can good people still afford to do good deeds? A few days ago, after watching the video about the 19,000 UN incident, I started wondering if even such a huge wave of public attention online cannot protect this person who stepped in to help and he still has to pay 19,000 in humanitarian compensation, will you and I still help elderly people who suddenly become unwell in the future? One commenter wrote, "People absolutely should not help fallen elderly people anymore. Even if there are surveillance cameras, you still should never help." Another user said, "The elderly people living in rural areas have already been affected by this incident."
3:53 >> To the person and the family who took the 19,000 yen, please return the money and publicly apologize in a video. What you have done has had such a far-reaching and harmful impact. Even remote rural areas in my hometown of Yibbin, Suchuan Province, have been affected. I have two elderly family members living in the countryside, both in their 70s and 80s. In the past, when they wanted to go into town or attend a market, they could simply call a nearby motorcycle or three- wheeled vehicle driver they knew, and Ten Yuen would get them there. But ever since this incident, no one wants to take them anymore. When they need to go into town, they can't even find a vehicle willing to take them. No one dares to carry them anymore. There's so many elderly people living in rural areas. What are they supposed to do? How can they even go
4:38 out? This fear of helping others is no longer limited to elderly people. A young woman said that she fell and was injured inside her neighborhood. More than 10 people stopped to check on her, but none of them dared to reach out and help. >> I accidentally fell outside just now, right inside our residential complex. Let me show everyone. Both my legs are bleeding. I was lying there on the ground and couldn't get up for a while. I fell forward like this and I think my arm is bleeding too. I was in so much pain that I called out, "Can someone help me? Can someone help me? Can someone help me get up?" More than 10 people in the neighborhood gathered around. They were all worried and showed concern, but not a single person reached out to help me up. I know people often see those news stories about elderly
5:25 people uh falling and demanding money from others. People don't dare to get involved in other people's problems. And when they see someone fall, they don't dare to help. There have been so many stories about elderly men and women falling down and accusing others of causing it. Right? Today, I experienced it myself. One commenter wrote, "The reason is that the cost of breaking the law is too low. If false accusations were proven and resulted in criminal penalties, and the person had to pay back the full amount they demanded, who would still dare to cross that line?" Another user put it more bluntly. Calling the police is already the most you can do. Helping someone is absolutely something you cannot risk. In recent years, stage accidents, known in China as penchi, have evolved far beyond
6:11 elderly people falling and blaming those who try to help. The simplest version used to be someone deliberately falling onto a vehicle. In the surveillance footage, a three- wheeled vehicle was driving normally on the road. The driver saw an elderly man ahead in the lane and honked to warn him to move aside. But after hearing the horn, the man suddenly turned around and deliberately staged a fall, throwing himself onto the vehicle. He even placed his head near the wheel. While crying out in pain, he grabbed onto the wheel and refused to let go, forcing the driver to leave the vehicle and sit by the roadside barrier. After seeing so many cases like this, some drivers now do not even dare to move forward when they see an elderly person standing in front of their vehicle. This video shows a driver being forced to stop by an elderly man standing in the
6:56 middle of the road. The man then walked towards the vehicle, causing the driver to panic and reverse. The driver backed up a long distance and still did not dare to move forward. One commenter pointed out that spot was a blind spot for surveillance cameras. He was very calculating. He must have been advised by someone experienced to stand there. Another user found the location of the alleged stage accident unusual. Trying to pull this off right outside a traffic police station. That's unbelievable. But what truly turned the question of whether to help or not into a source of widespread fear in Chinese society were the cases where elderly people fell, blame those who helped them, and accused those who acted out of kindness of causing the accident. The case that had the biggest impact was the
7:41 2006 Nanjing Pang Yu case. In 2007, a court in the first trial ordered Pang Yu to pay 40% of the compensation. A line from the case later spread widely. If you weren't the one who hit her, why did you help her? More than a decade later, similar incidents have not disappeared. In May 2024, Mr. Yang and Nanjing was riding past an intersection when he saw an elderly person lying on the ground with blood on his face after falling. Many people were standing by, but no one dared to step forward. Mr. Young decided to help, but before reaching out, he first turned on his bicycle camera, but after the elderly man was helped up, he and his family accused Mr. Young of being responsible for the accident. A police investigation later confirmed that the elderly man had fallen while
8:27 riding a bicycle after drinking, and Mr. Yang had nothing to do with the incident. In August 2024, 17-year-old Mang from Fuo, Jangi Province, saw an elderly person fall by the roadside. He stopped, helped the person up, and contacted the family, but the elderly person then accused Mang of hitting him, and even pushed and slapped him multiple times. The location happened to be a surveillance blind spot. Police later found nearby footage, proving that the elderly person had fallen on his own. He was later placed under administrative detention for assault. In September 2025, Yin from Chandu, Hunan Province, saw an elderly person pushing a cart fall down and step forward to help, but the person's family called the police and demanded more than 30,000 yen in
9:12 compensation to prove that he had not hit anyone. Yin and his relatives spent more than 10 days searching for nearby surveillance footage. They eventually found video showing that the two sides had never collided. As a result, more and more people have adopted a new approach to helping those who fall gather evidence first, then lend a hand. One user shared her experience of seeing someone fall on the street. She did not dare to help directly herself, but instead stood nearby and recorded the video to protect those willing to lend a hand. >> I'll record it for you. I'll record it. He was going to get a haircut. He was just going up ahead to get a haircut. I'll film this. help move him to a shaded area away from the sun. These two people, one woman and a driver, who just got out of the car, I'll record
9:58 everything. If anything happens, I'll testify for you. >> One person even asked before reaching out, "Did you fall by yourself?" >> How did you fall? You fell by yourself, right? >> I fell by myself. Hurry and help me up. I'm pretty heavy. >> I'll help you. Are you okay now? I'll record a video just in case. It's true that you saved me. It used to take only a helping hand to lift someone up. Later, people needed witnesses. Eventually, they need surveillance cameras, phones, and dash cams. Cameras gradually became a substitute for the trust that had disappeared between strangers. These stage accidents or pangqi have become increasingly common in recent years. At the same time, making a living has become harder for ordinary people. China now has more than
10:45 200 million people in flexible employment with ride hailing, food delivery, and various gig jobs becoming sources of income for many. Financial hardship is certainly not a reason to break the law. But as earning a normal living becomes increasingly difficult, some people have started thinking about faster ways to make money. As a result, stage accidents have evolved. It used to be people deliberately falling onto vehicles. Now vehicles are deliberately crashing into other vehicles. In 2024, Guanzo courts handled one such case. A ride hailing driver surnamed Guan who had seven years of driving experience accumulated 41 insurance claims over a period of 1 and 1/2 years. During the period when accidents occurred most frequently, he was involved in almost one crash every week. Even more
11:30 coincidentally, most accidents happened when the vehicle in front was changing lanes or making a U-turn. as a vehicle behind Guan would fail to slow down or avoid the collision and he was often determined to bear no responsibility. A court investigation found that this was not simply bad luck but a business operation. Guan deliberately caused accidents to collect repair payments. He also worked with a regular repair shop using repair kickbacks, fake repairs, and vehicle downtime claims to demand additional money from other parties. In November 2024, the Guanzo Intermediate People's Court upheld the original verdict on appeal and sentenced him to 1 year and 10 months in prison for fraud. By 2026, this tactic had developed into organized operations. In January, Guanzo
12:17 police launched a crackdown, breaking up four groups that use vehicles such as ridehailing cars to deliberately create traffic accidents. 46 people were criminally detained. For today's ride hailing drivers, if they want to make more than 10,000 yen a month, there's only one way. Stage accidents. They specifically target honest drivers when they're changing lanes or making turns. When you're trying to merge, they speed up from behind and suddenly crash into you. Once traffic police arrive under traffic rules, you're automatically considered fully responsible. But that's already the most basic version of this scheme. You know what's even worse? You think paying for their repairs is the end of it. The real trick comes months later
13:02 when they come back demanding compensation for loss income while the vehicle is off the road. That loss can cost several hundred yen a day or even thousands if a repair takes several days. And the key point is insurance companies don't cover it. Every bit of that downtime loss has to come out of the vehicle owner's own pocket. What's more, these stage accident groups have now been exposed for working with some repair shops. A car that could be fixed in one day gets a repair order saying it took 3 to 5 days. Then once a court summon arrives, you're completely caught off guard. By June, Guanzo police announced that they had dismantled nine vehicle-reated stage accident groups since the beginning of the year when nearly 100 people criminally detained. Some people have even started acting out fake accidents directly on the road.
13:47 Because the debate over whether to help fallen strangers has continued for years, China later included protections for rescuers in the civil code. Arc 184 clearly states, "A person who voluntarily provides emergency assistance and accidentally causes harm to the person they are helping should not bear civil liability." The law has already made the rules clear. But why do so many people still feel afraid when they see someone lying on the ground? The law can define responsibility, but it's much harder to rebuild trust between people. So, how is this trust gradually broken? Modern history contains a painful chapter. In 1970, during China's cultural revolution, 16-year-old Zang Hong Bing in Guang County, Ani Province, wrote a report accusing his own mother, Funz Mo. All
14:33 she did was to privately criticize personality cults and call for the rehabilitation of Lu Xiaoi, a former top communist party leader who had fallen out of favor. Two months later, Fanz Mo was sentenced to death and executed for the crime of being a current counterrevolutionary. 10 years later, in 1980, a court retrial found that the original verdict was completely wrong and that she had been wrongfully killed. Fanz was officially rehabilitated. Decades later, Zang Hong Being publicly expressed remorse. During the cultural revolution, students reported on teachers, husbands and wives reported on each other, and children criticized their own parents. The most basic bonds between people, family ties, teacher student relationships, and marriages
15:19 could all be replaced by class struggle. What the cultural revolution attacked and destroyed was precisely the set of moral values that Chinese society had upheld for thousands of years. Menches, a major figure in Confucian philosophy, spoke of the heart of compassion. If a person saw a child about to fall into a well, they would instinctively feel alarm and concern, not because they wanted anything in return, but simply because they could not bear to see it happen. Traditional Chinese culture also valued ideas such as benevolence toward others, standing up for what's right, and knowing what was right and wrong even when no one was watching. Of course, ancient China also had fraudsters and people who set traps to extort money. The Great Ming code contained specific provisions against fraud and the unlawful acquisition of
16:06 wealth. Those who deliberately created schemes to deceive others and profit from them could also face punishment. For generations, Chinese people have used the saying, "People do not pick up lost items, and households do not need to lock their doors at night," to describe a place with good social values. Benevolence, righteousness, propriety wisdom trustworthiness a sense of shame, honesty, and the belief that good and evil would eventually receive their consequences. These were once familiar principles of how Chinese people should conduct themselves. But today, when people see an elderly person lying on the roadside, some who want to help may first look around to see whether there are surveillance cameras nearby. The person hesitating on the side of the road may not lack kindness. For someone earning only a few thousand yen a month, being faced with a dispute
16:53 that could cost tens of thousands of yen can understandably be frightening. After seeing repeated stories of people getting into trouble for trying to help, many are simply trying to protect themselves. Gradually, those who want to do good become more cautious, while those without a moral bottom line become increasingly bold. The things lost over these decades because of cultural breaks and forgotten traditions cannot be measured by 19,000 yen, 100,000 yen, or any other number. The value of benevolence righteousness honesty and conscience that Chinese people have talked about for thousands of years will not disappear so easily. Perhaps one day people will rediscover that those ancient principles of how to live as a decent person are never outdated.
