Just Jie Yang now.

I believe I have read the most interesting article in my two years of receiving possibly the most unstimulating magazine (for me), called Ya Zhou Zhou Kan. Well, while I may be a student and supposed to read and analyze the articles found in this magazine, this was the first and only article I understood upon reading the first time. It told about a most curious incident in which a man in China, helping a senior lady who fell down, then got sued for 130000+ yuan. That’s about 18k+ dollars?

This is what is said by a prominent blogger in China. You can read an English version on Global Voices Online.

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 先看事情的大致经过：2006年11月20日，彭宇在南京市某公共汽车站好心扶一名跌倒在地的老人起来，并送其去医院检查。不想，受伤的徐老太太及家人得知胫骨骨折，要花费数万元医药费时，一口咬定是彭宇撞了人，要其承担数万元医疗费。被拒绝后，老人向南京市鼓楼区法院起诉，要求彭宇赔偿各项损失13万多元。此案惟一的目击证人陈先生当庭陈述，他看到的情况是：老太太手里拎着保温瓶，向第三辆公交车跑去。她跑到第二辆车的车尾时，不知为什么就跌倒了。这时，他看到从第二辆车后门下车的彭宇走了几步，上前帮忙，然后自己也上前帮忙，并打电话叫老人的儿女过来，整个过程大约半个小时。徐老太太曾在法庭上称不认识陈先生。当时不是他帮助的自己，陈先生非常气愤，提出自己当时曾用自己的手机帮老太太打电话，手机里有通话记录可以证明。

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Okay if you can’t understand Chinese, here is what it means. A man helps an old lady who fell at a bus stop, sent her to hospital, realised she fractured her leg, then the miserly old lady refuses to pay for the mending of her bones, so she says the man did it. Cool. Ya Zhou Zhou Kan says that there was a witness, but the court refused to acknowledge the testimonial, and when some media group questioned the police officers who were at the scene to record down the first accounts, the police members eventually broke down during the intense questioning and said that the son of this old lady, whoi is a police officer (I think he was pretty high rank) got them to do so.

But the court says, since the old lady was the first to get off the bus, it was likely that the poor guy knocked the lady, and that’s why he was so willing to help in the first place.

The guy got fined 45000 yuan or so, which is about 6000 bucks.

Cool. All he did was to help an old lady up.

So next time, I am gonna fall down, wait for someone to help me up, then sue him/her for making me fall. Much easier way to get quick cash. Obviously, I’ll do it in China.

It kinda makes me link this case to the case where the guy in America sues a laundry shop for ruining his suit. He sued them for more than 50k bucks, if I remember correctly, because of the “satisfaction guranteed” sign in front of their shop. If I remember correctly once more, I think he lost the case (Thank God!) and was made to pay all the legal fees. Which was quite a big sum.

Moral of the story? Don’t do good deeds in another part of the world when overseas. Plus, justice may be not that far-reaching and served as it should be after all.