"Oh my goodness, are you okay? Do you need me to call an ambulance?"

My mom was taking a walk in Beijing's streets in early May and she saw a young man pressing onto his bleeding head with his hands. He was sitting under a pole that had a traffic sign in the wrong place: it was protruding onto the sidewalk, at the perfect height to be level with most adults' faces. My mom asked this man what happened. It turns out, he was (like so many of today's generation) looking at his phone on his way to work when he ran into the sign. Not looking where he was going, his head hit the sharp corner of the sign, and it resulted in a deep cut. He was bleeding a lot, but no one stopped to help him as he sat down to try and steady himself. No one stopped to help him, even though he was there for 20 minutes before my mom walked by. No one stopped to help him, even though it was 7:30 a.m., meaning it was China's standard rush hour as millions of people passed him on their way to work.

It's standard in China for people to be impersonal toward strangers. It's kind of chilling, actually. No one says hi or nods their heads at strangers on the streets; in America, this would be a standard greeting, even if you'd never seen this person before. People will avoid eye contact with a passerby in China; no one makes small talk in subways, buses, and even chatting is rare between a taxi driver and his passenger. If a news station tries to stop someone in the streets for an interview, the station will most likely be rejected; if they try to interview a child, the parent of that child will take the child by the hand and lead him away while glaring at the interviewer. It's just that people in China have their guards up 24/7; they don't take down their walls for people that aren't familiar.

I've tried to come up with a reason for this distance between strangers. It might be because of how crowded China is already; it would be difficult to stop and say hi to everyone. Or it could be that it's just China's culture. With family, you are open and familiar, but there's still a certain courtesy toward elders. Since that's the case with friends and family, you wouldn't show it with strangers. I think the biggest reason is concern for safety. With that many people in China, jobs are hard to find and money is hard to make. There are more criminals than there would be if China was less populated; there are people who would take advantage of someone giving out personal information to their own use--that's probably why so many people are wary of strangers. By nature of its large population, China has all sorts of people--the kind that would post your information online, the kind that would stalk you--the possibilities are endless. Out of securing your own safety and well-being, people tend to keep their personal information to themselves; saying hi to strangers would be one step closer to becoming familiar enough to give out that type of information.

This has caused China's so-called "bystander effect," where you don't really take the time to help strangers on the street. In social psychology, the bystander effect is when onlookers of a crime (or something of that sort) don't stop to help the victim. It can be caused by not knowing the victim personally, not having the skills needed to help, or just following the crowd. Studies have shown that as the number of bystanders goes up, the possibility of someone reaching out to help goes down in an inverse relationship. China's vast population, particularly during rush hour on the streets, probably caused many people to walk right by the bleeding young man. The fact that the person in front of you didn't stop to help, added onto your rushing to get to work, will probably cause you to do the same.

However, my mom stopped. She asked the man if he needed help, and he did. He had already called his family and an ambulance, but the nearest hospital was a little ways away and rush hour traffic would slow it down. My mom ran to the nearest medicine shop (luckily, it was on the same street) and bought a large band-aid wrap and Yunnan Baiyao, which is a Chinese powder medicine to help stop bleeding. She applied pressure to his wound to slow the blood flow. As she was helping the man, another person came up to help. This was the owner of the car wash store, and the young man had gotten hurt right in front of that store. My mom's aid to the man inspired the shop owner to come out and help as well; had she not stopped to help, the bystander effect would have caused the shop owner to remain indifferent as well (like he had been for 20 minutes already before my mom arrived).

It's things like this that make the world a better place. Little acts of humanity and kindness can save a life. Even with the distance between people in China, even with the bystander effect that's psychologically engrained into our brains, my mom could overcome these barriers and help out a fellow human being--and inspire others to do so too.