By Wu Huaiting

Sunday evening, an old man had a heart attack and fell to the ground in downtown Guangzhou, Guangdong Province. The scene attracted a crowd for more than half an hour, but no one offered help until a foreigner saw the situation and gave some emergency treatment. It was already too late and the elderly person passed away, ZJTV reported Monday.

In a country where the spirit of Lei Feng, China's selfless hero and role model, has been promoted for decades, we are ashamed of the indifference among the Chinese onlookers.

Some may argue that the lack of action from the Chinese onlookers is understandable: The numerous stories of people getting extorted for their good deeds have taught the Chinese public to be cautious about helping others. A one-time kind-hearted move of getting the old guy up from the floor might get you into endless troubles, including bullying and financial loss.

To some extent, the immoral capitalization on people's kindness has destroyed the legacy of Lei Feng. The trust between people has become so low that even the police in Wuhan, Central China's biggest city, had to warn residents not to answer any questions when approached by strangers to avoid fraud.

The Peng Yu case in Nanjing in 2006, in which Peng helped an injured old woman to the hospital and was later ruled by the local court as being partially liable for her injury, was particularly shocking to the nation and destroyed many people's faith in offering help to strangers. If even a country's legal system goes against doing good deeds, why should we be bothered?

But when Chinese society's fear of fraud goes to the extreme of seeing a person dying without even performing the easy and harmless act of calling an ambulance, it reflects a more serious problem and widespread moral erosion.

The focus on economic development and personal gains in the past few decades has resulted in a fundamental change of Chinese people's values and moral standards.

I bet many of the younger generations growing up in a money-driven society don't even know the name Lei Feng. And even if they do, they may ridicule him for his "silly" philosophy of helping others without considering the cost and risk.

Just for this reason, we may need to create a more up-to-date exemplar to wake the conscience of the Chinese people. Since many Chinese worship Western countries and look up to Western people, maybe this time we should have an expat model. The ex-pat in the news report can easily serve as one.

Following the pattern of "Learn from Lei Feng," who "treated people with the warmth of the spring," we should learn from the expat his firm faith in human kindness and honesty, his humane affection toward the Chinese people and the country, his commitment to help others under social pressure, and his heroic spirit of being ready to face fraud without caring for his personal safety.