?Help?

Have you ever had an opportunity to help someone who has just had a fall, or have injured themselves in  your presence?

Before moving to Singapore we had an 8 hour cultural training class and one of the topics in that training was what to expect if you have an accident while in Singapore.

  We were told that we should not expect people on the street to stop and help us if we are in an accident so make sure we have the emergency numbers in our phones.  That's comforting right?

My boys were out to their language lessons and on the way home it was raining.  As they were approaching the bus stop they saw the bus they needed coming so they decided to run in order to catch the bus, as they rounded the corner they hit a wet spot of grass and BAM down one of them went with a scream out from pain. 

There was an elderly woman in front of them who heard and saw the whole thing, in Singapore an elderly woman who is Chinese is referred to as an "auntie".  When she witnessed the fall her response was......well....rude really.

  This "auntie" proceeded to turn and look at my son lying on the ground bleeding and in pain, did she help?  Did she have any concern for the well being of the person who just fell?  No, her response was to shake her head and finger at him and cluck her tongue at him before she moved on.  ???? 

Several people did indeed stop to see if they could help, offered to call someone on the cell phone etc.. but they were teenagers, not the "older" adult generation of people.

So we let that digest for a bit, this "auntie" was not thinking she was being rude, she in fact was disgusted that a child was "being careless enough to fall".  I have witnessed this a few times, a little boy about the age of 3 or so, running towards an escalator, falls, cuts his lip and gets yelled at by dad for not being careful, he too got a clucking of the tongue. 

Since my fall two weeks ago, my arm has been splinted drawing immediate attention to the fact that there is an injury.  People have been very concerned, very kind to ask what happened but as they find out that I injured my hand due to a fall they shake their head and say "you must be careful so you don't fall".   Then they will offer some kind of well meaning advice, like avoid cold drinks, don't eat vinegar, don't take pain medicine etc....

So what is it about a fall that invokes this kind of reaction in part of the population here?  If you witnessed someone fall, would you cluck at them and move on or would you help them?  Just where does the clucking come from, it is obviously deep inside that person as it is an immediate reaction to the situation.  I find the human race fascinating and although I hope we do not have any more personal experience with falls and the reactions of people to falls I do hope to study a bit more what is behind the lack of compassion and the lack of ? help?.