Outrage Over Video of Blocked Fire Engine in China

Blackwater

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Beijing. A short film showing car drivers in Beijing refusing to give way to a fire engine has gone viral online and renewed concern over increasingly selfish behavior patterns in fast-developing China.

The amateur video — filmed on Thursday in an area of Beijing where a noodle restaurant was on fire — has been viewed by hundreds of thousands of netizens and has been widely featured in newspapers and on television.

It shows a fire engine attempting to get through traffic — sirens and flashing lights on — but none of the cars make way and some even pull over in front of the vehicle, blocking its way.

Later, other cars blocking the road refuse to make way by doing a u-turn when they clearly have the opportunity to do so, and the fire engine stays stuck in traffic — a scene not unusual in Beijing.

The video, which has already been viewed more than 1.2 million times on 北京簋街消防车遭抢行 实拍外国如何给消防让路 - 东直门簋街着火,首堵不但不让行,还往里并! - 视频 - 优酷视频 - 在线观看, has sparked strong indignation and concern over the "selfishness" of China's drivers.

"The 5,000 years of history and civilization of our heavenly dynasty," one netizen named Kuandiangeiwo wrote ironically.

"If one person doesn't give way it's a moral shortcoming, but if two people don't make way it's the sorrow of the community," another said.

Online users have even posted videos filmed in Germany or Russia showing cars pulling over on roads and highways to make way for emergency vehicles, in a bid to illustrate what happens in other countries.

There has been much soul-searching in China about a perceived rise in selfish behavior after footage from a security camera showing people ignoring a toddler lying in the road unconscious and bleeding shocked the country.

The two-year-old Yue Yue later died in hospital, and the incident in October sparked strong condemnation and concern that China's rapid development and urbanization has seen people lose their sense of shared values.

Agence France-Presse
 

Blackwater

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What else you can expect from ur 50000 yrs old civilisation now, when u r in bed with pak ( nasal) ta kharab honi ha lolllllllllllllllllllll:rofl::rofl::laugh::laugh::taunt::taunt:
 

Godless-Kafir

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Its probably CCP propaganda to educate its people. Nothing new.
 
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satish007

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Blackwater, we all suck, both China and India use poison milk to kill own child. what else we can not do? you guys also have long history but also ruled by white men,until now both India and China still have to or try to get tons of weapons to beat each other because whitemen's border line. whitemen will enjoy our fire and I doubt if there will be any fire Engine to save us from war fire.
 

Ray

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Blackwater, we all suck, both China and India use poison milk to kill own child. what else we can not do? you guys also have long history but also ruled by white men,until now both India and China still have to or try to get tons of weapons to beat each other because whitemen's border line. whitemen will enjoy our fire and I doubt if there will be any fire Engine to save us from war fire.
The issue is not about milk. That is cause my individual greed for profiteering.

It is about common civic sense. Applicable and expected of citizens! Individuals, to be precise.
 

satish007

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The issue is not about milk. That is cause my individual greed for profiteering.

It is about common civic sense. Applicable and expected of citizens! Individuals, to be precise.
OK, agree, both India and China suck and Chinese don't even have common civic sense. we are more worse than you guys.
Both of us stink and Chinese even have fleas, do you feel happy now?
 

Blackwater

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OK, agree, both India and China suck and Chinese don't even have common civic sense. we are more worse than you guys.
Both of us stink and Chinese even have fleas, do you feel happy now?
oye Satishhhhhhhhh,this thread is about china,Dont drag India,if u have anything to say about china than say otherwise pranthe khao
 

Ray

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OK, agree, both India and China suck and Chinese don't even have common civic sense. we are more worse than you guys.
Both of us stink and Chinese even have fleas, do you feel happy now?
It is not whether I am happy that China lacks civic sense.

China lacks many things in manners.

I am happy that in India, ambulances and fire engines are given the right of way and they don't even have to follow traffic rules!
 

Ray

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May 8, 2007: China has embarked on a campaign, especially in Beijing, the capital, to ensure cleanliness and etiquette in public places, ahead of the 2008 Olympics the country is hosting.

Jumping the queue, spitting, littering and clearing one�s throat loudly in public are some of the frequently observed practices among Chinese travellers, according to a guideline prepared and released in 2006 by the Spiritual Civilisation Steering Committee (SCSC) of the Chinese Communist Party, the official etiquette watchdog.

Posters have now appeared, telling travellers how to behave, in almost every train station, bus stop, hotel and scenic spot.

Notwithstanding grumbling by many tourists, Chinese officials are keen on correcting the embarrassing habits of the Chinese travellers ahead of the Olympics Games, which is now just about 450 days away.
China launches cleanliness campaign in Beijing ahead of the 2008 Olympics.
 

Tronic

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I am happy that in India, ambulances and fire engines are given the right of way and they don't even have to follow traffic rules!
I'm not sure about fire engines, but I have seen several examples, almost daily in Punjab, aswell as in Harayana and Rajasthan, where the ambulances are not being given the right of way! The ambulances get helplessly sidelined in traffic, and instead of giving them way, people keep cutting the ambulances off. Drives me furious at times!
 
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Ray

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Personal and Public Hygiene



Sun Yatsen (1866-1925), considered the founding father of modern China, was convinced that "competent governance of the body's natural functions" was a "necessary condition for competent government" (Fitzgerald, 2006, p. 153). As long as Chinese were "lacking in personal culture," he wrote, they would not be respected. Sun and his contemporaries called for an end to the practice of growing fingernails to an unseemly length (for the purpose of indicating that they were men of leisure or, at the very least, not manual laborers), advocated the regular brushing of teeth and criticized the practice of passing gas, burping, hawking and spitting at will. Keeping oneself tidy became part of a new style of personal self-management that was considered essential to show the world that the Chinese people had awakened. For any foreigner who has spent any length of time in China, it would appear that Sun's message was lost on a few. Certainly, public hygiene is not in China what most of us had grown accustomed to in our native countries.

Most Chinese believe that expelling bodily gases and fluids is essential for good health and, related, that a failure to clear the throat of sputum can result in respiratory illness. For this reason, it will not be unusual for you to witness many instances of public spitting and urination, the blowing of the nose without the use of tissue paper (expelling mucous by pressing against one of the nostrils and blowing hard through the one open nostril), as well as coughing and sneezing without covering one's mouth and face. Although these practices have fallen into general disfavor with most educated and middle-class Chinese, they are certainly not limited only to poor, uneducated farmers and workers.

Related to the philosophy of ridding oneself of bodily waste when the need arises, Chinese babies are not diapered the way Western infants and toddlers are: They are dressed in crotchless pants and are eventually taught to squat where they stand when they need to urinate or defecate (and, in fact, Chinese toilets—in all public areas and in very old apartment buildings—are simply composed of porcelain covered holes in the ground that one squats over).1 It is not unheard of to witness a mother hurrying her baby out of a restaurant with stretched arms while the infant leaves a trail of urine behind.

Recently, while I was buying some fruit at a local street market, a little girl—who was about four-years old—smiled at me as she lowered her pants, squatted and urinated, and then grinned widely and innocently as the trail of her urine trickled down past me, just inches from my feet as well as the street vendor's boxes of produce. I personally felt there was something very endearing about that, in a sweet and innocent sort of way, but I can easily imagine how others might be put off by such an occurrence.



In preparation for the 2008 Olympic Games, Beijing made a concerted effort to eliminate many of these behaviors via numerous public service announcements on television and on billboards admonishing citizens not to spit or queue-jump. The 11th of each month was officially designated as "Queuing Day" and passengers were told to stand in line while they waited for buses. Related, all banks in China have now implemented a customer service number system (first-come, first-served) to prevent their customers from pushing ahead of one another and it seems to have worked well—not just in preventing queue-jumping in the banks but, in a more general sense, by conveying that waiting your turn should be practiced in all such situations regardless of what one's social position is relative to others. From February through August 2008, the city had distributed 2.8 million pamphlets to local households addressing numerous issues related to daily etiquette and public hygiene, and social etiquette courses were offered to all civil servants as well as 870,000 people working in the service sector, such as cab drivers, wait staff, and bus conductors (China.org.cn, 2008a). By all accounts, these efforts were quite successful.

Nevertheless, and particularly in the aftermath of the 2008 Olympic Games, China still has some improvements to make in regard to public hygiene. With the exception of Western food chains, most public bathrooms in China lack hot water, soap, a functioning hand-dryer (or paper toweling), and even toilet paper. Foreigners are well-advised to carry several packs of tissue paper on their person in the event they need to use a public toilet in China (although most Westerners never do get used to squatting over Chinese toilets and will do whatever they can to wait until they return to their own apartments). And although there are numerous laws on the books governing public health and safety, they are difficult to enforce with a population of 1.3 billion people. Consequently, eating at small, family-owned and streetside restaurants is ill-advised.

In addition, it is an excellent idea to get into the habit of thoroughly washing your hands upon returning to your apartment, especially if you have handled money or ridden inside any public transportation. Bank notes are ideal breeding grounds for bacteria, especially older bills that are worn and torn in that they provide various nooks and crannies for germs to hide, including fecal matter. A 2003 study reported by CNN revealed that old bank notes from China had 178,000 different types of bacteria and were home to 9,500 organisms from the e-coli family (Brown, 2003). Handling money is like shaking hands with everyone who has ever handled that note. Finally, aside from its cultural significance, there is a sound health reason that the Chinese remove their shoes upon entering their apartments and that is custom you will probably want to adopt as well.

Oral hygiene had never historically been much of a priority in China (because when you are starving, the condition of your teeth is not foremost in your mind), but one can now see more and more Chinese children with braces on their teeth and the number of store front dental clinics is growing.

Personal and Public Hygiene in China
 

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I'm not sure about fire engines, but I have seen several examples, almost daily in Punjab, aswell as in Harayana and Rajasthan, where the ambulances are not being given the right of way! The ambulances get helplessly sidelined in traffic, and instead of giving them way, people keep cutting the ambulances off. Drives me furious at times!
In Calcutta, they are given right of way and also in Mumbai.
 

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I'm not sure about fire engines, but I have seen several examples, almost daily in Punjab, aswell as in Harayana and Rajasthan, where the ambulances are not being given the right of way! The ambulances get helplessly sidelined in traffic, and instead of giving them way, people keep cutting the ambulances off. Drives me furious at times!
This is something that I have also observed in Delhi regularly. I just feel like getting out and shooting these drivers who are insensitive to the emergency vehicles.
 

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North India is an unique part of India.

Very colourful and different.
 

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In Calcutta, they are given right of way and also in Mumbai.
Sir, sadly my experience in Calcutta has been otherwise. ( Just for record I stayed in Calcutta from 1978 till 1996).

Only the convoys with red flashing beacons of the leaders were the ones which used to sail smoothly.
 

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Sir, sadly my experience in Calcutta has been otherwise. ( Just for record I stayed in Calcutta from 1978 till 1996).

Only the convoys with red flashing beacons of the leaders were the ones which used to sail smoothly.
I drive around every day and I have seen the ambulances being given the right of way and also going against the traffic.

It is better to given them the way rather than have a headache with the loud howling of the siren.

Giving way does not mean that all vehicles move off to the side because in a two lane traffic, that is jam packed, moving to the side is also difficult, but the effort is to let the ambulance go as far as it can and like that out to its destination!

No red beacon does not allow free run. It is the intimidation of the escort vehicle breathing down the neck that does apart from the fact that the escort vehicle has policemen, who out of sheer cussedness, can take your car number down and you get a ticket and pay the fine!
 
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I'm not sure about fire engines, but I have seen several examples, almost daily in Punjab, aswell as in Harayana and Rajasthan, where the ambulances are not being given the right of way! The ambulances get helplessly sidelined in traffic, and instead of giving them way, people keep cutting the ambulances off. Drives me furious at times!
In Calcutta, they are given right of way and also in Mumbai.
I can tell you that in Bangalore, they are usually given right of way - drivers generally allow the ambulance to pass by. I have seen this happening 3-4 times in the last few months itself.
 

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Giving way does not mean that all vehicles move off to the side because in a two lane traffic moving to the side is also difficult, but the effort is to let the ambulance go as far as it can and like that out to its destination!
Exactly! Its not as though people pull onto the footpath or something, but I have seen that in general, people try to make some space.
 

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Only the convoys with red flashing beacons of the leaders were the ones which used to sail smoothly.
From my experience, that too is also only the case because red beacons are usually driven by cops who are a-holes, and they usually start tailing you really close while constantly honking and beaming their headlights. If that doesn't work, they have their pilot jeeps pull up in front of you and the mounted policemen wave you off to the side.
 

Ray

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I can tell you about Bangalore in the 1974 -75 days.

I was riding pillion with a friend and the scooter slid on an oil patch in front of ASC Centre South.

We were thrown on the road and my friends was bleeding and he passed out.

All the traffic stopped! Yes, all the traffic stopped.

There were a whole lot of chaps who came to help.

They took us to the AF Hospital nearby and got us admitted and one pickup truck brought the scooter there and gave me the key.

So, that shows civic sense.

And the flip side.

We were in a queue to see an English movie.

Everyone was in line.

Some North Indians :balle: from the institute where I was an instructor, broke the like to buy the tickets first before those in the line.

They were told to get into line, but in their usual dadagiri style they wanted it first.

I had to intervene and tell them to get into line or be ready to face disciplinary action!

So, it all depends on the cultural background!
 
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