Human Life with a dollar value.
Some times a flash back with come to me as I go about my daily routines since I came back to Vancouver, the following news from the tube has stayed in my mind ever since.
Binge drinking among young adults is not only a North America phenomenon, rather it is universal.
I forgot what city, what university did it happen, it happened just the same. The end result was tragic, bitter sweet for the family who lost their daughter.
It happened one weekend in the ladies dormitory of a university, as the news commentator introduced this particular segment with a few seconds of video footage from the CCTV from the university security department.
It happened on the fifth floor or fourth floor of the ladies building, and it was Friday night. The camera showed a young lady existed from one of the rooms, running towards a window at the end of the hall way corridor. No sooner a second young woman rushed out from the same room, chased after her. There was no sound, just the images of two girls rushing past the camera lens. The TV viewers could make out that the first person climbed over a barricade or a window sill, and then disappeared from the picture. The second person rushed back towards the room, presumably called for help.
As the news commentator continued relating this tragic news in the back ground, the screen switched to an interview with the deceased young woman’s father. Of course he was heart broken, distraught, upset and visibly shaken. In the end of the interview, the dad let it be known that the university in which his daughter was studying in had offer the grieving family a compensation sum of about $ 70.000.00 RMB as a settlement, and the family has accepted.
In China, apparently it is fairly common practice, public security authorities has traditionally play the role as a mediator rather than letting the case go to court, allowing a natural justified outcome and decision to stand, so that no similar tragedy would ever happened again. May be there is a huge back log in the court system. But the lost of a young life in a country actively promotes small families, the feeling of losing one’s son and daughter must be awfully painful.
When I caught this news on the tube, it was either a Monday or Tuesday. The young lady died on the previous weekend. Her family already settled with the university.
Somewhere along the line, the systems failed the young woman. No amount of money is ever going to bring her back! It is blood money.