By Xu Ming

A Chinese idiom goes "Pleasure lies in helping others." But today there are also risks, if you are not lucky enough.

On November 15, an old man fell down on a street in Handan, Hebei Province, and couldn't get up by himself. He lay there for as long as half an hour, watching stream of people pass by him and paid no attention to his situation, before taxi driver Wang Tiejun helped him up.

The first words the old man said after his feet were back on the ground was: "Thank you. I won't blackmail you."

Before you raise eyebrows, consider the context. This remark must have been a big relief to Wang, considering the butterfly effect of Peng Yu's case four years ago.

On November 20, 2006 in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, a young man named Peng Yu helped Mrs. Xu, an old woman who had fallen to the floor at a bus station, stand up and delivered her to hospital for check with her family. The result showed that she had fractured bones and needed to pay a huge amount of money to fix it. Then Xu and her family claimed that Peng was the one that knocked her down and demanded him to pay the consequent medical fee.

After Peng rejected the charge, Xu filed a suit with the court demanding compensation of more than 130, 000 yuan ($19,549). The judgment of the first trial demanded Peng to pay 45, 876 yuan. Peng later appealed against the judge's decision and finally he reached reconciliation with Xu in the second trial. The trial was closed, but reportedly Peng still had to pay money to Xu.

Peng wasn't alone. In August 2008, Li Kaiqiang, then a college student in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, was also involved in such a situation. He helped an old woman who fell off a bicycle. But she claimed that Li had hit her in the waist and asked for compensation.

Later they went to the court, but the judgment of the first trial said was that Li should pay Song more than 79,000 yuan as compensation. The second trial was opened this March, and is still being resolved.

Such things happen over and again. Especially after Peng Yu's case, there have been many occasions when people turned a blind eye to the elderly falling down on the ground. Even though some cases are still controversial, but the fear is already there. So maybe we should not blame those passers-by in Handan who chose not to help that old man.

In November 2008, a 64-year-old woman suddenly died when walking on a busy street in Anhui Province, after vomiting blood, and was left there for 18 hours before her family came over to get her body.

People's fear is obvious. Apparently they are scared away from being kind by the outcome of Peng Yu's case. No one wants to pay such a price to help others, and to go through the annoying and expensive legal proceedings. Most of all, they don't want to be blackmailed by those who deliberately make use of their kindness and even worse, end up wronged by the judge.

Today people need to find enough witnesses or take pictures to prove that they are doing a good deed before helping an elderly person up. But such a problem should not be left merely to personal ethics.

Helping others depends on whether people can trust the legal procedures and arbitration agencies and whether the legal authorities are sincerely and faithfully guaranteeing the justice and fairness.

They should not worry about being fitted up or the possible price they might have to pay in the consequent disputes before they step forward and lend a hand.

In the US, there are good Samaritan laws that protect those who volunteer to help others and make them immune from any responsibility for damages. China should establish a similar law, to save the endangered trust and humanity between strangers and across society.

Morality always takes time to accumulate. But it needs only one such case to wreck huge destruction. A legal system should help support and maintain morality, rather than run against it.

The author is a reporter with the Global Times. xuming@globaltimes.com.cn