I felt ashamed. And I appreciated his act. I would not have acted the same way if I had been the passer-by. Like most of my compatriots, I would refrain from meddling in other people's business for such a minor affair.

That was not the only time I saw foreigners act so earnestly in correcting other people's wrongdoing. In 2004, I went to Germany on a business trip. One day I was driving on a country road and was attracted by the pastoral scenery. I stopped my car at the roadside and took out a camera to shoot some pictures. After a while, a car passed me but soon stopped about a dozen yards in front of me. Then, to my great surprise, the car reversed to where I stood. A man got out and said to me sternly: "It is illegal to stop a car here. And it's dangerous to do so." In China, in a similar situation nobody would act that way.

Westerners live in a mainly law-abiding environment. They have a strong sense of civic duty, so they frown at any behavior blatantly violating rules and will express their repugnance at such behavior. Too many Chinese people, however, seem to have become inured to petty violations of the country's rules and regulations.

Though the existence of people who violate the rules is unavoidable in any society; what is really worrying is the customary indifference toward, and even tolerance of, such behavior in China. Minor offenses against social order are also found in Western countries, but the mainstream attitude there is to repudiate them.

Political and ideological differences aside, we should learn from Westerners in this regard.

In fact, we Chinese were once intolerant of the aforesaid social annoyances; we were once very harsh against rule violators. It used to be the case that when a rat ran across a street, everybody would yell 'kill it!" And the authorities encouraged citizens to "struggle against bad people and bad things".

But times have changed. We have abandoned the struggle doctrine but we also lost any sense of repulsion at unruly and anti-social conduct.

We have learned from Westerners their respect of human dignity and freedom. But we also need to learn from them a sense that we should safeguard social order and justice.

The author is assistant editor-in-chief of China Daily. He can be reached at liushinan@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 06/15/2011 page8)