Humane lessons from Korean tragedy

A close neighbor is better than a kinsman afar. Unfortunately, this Chinese adage, which people have believed in for centuries, was forgotten by some irrational Chinese netizens after a South Korean ferry met with an accident on Wednesday. The multi-story ferry carrying 477 people, a majority of them high school students, on an overnight trip to Jejudo Island, sank off South Korea's southern coast, leaving about 290 people missing - possibly trapped inside the vessel.

Chinese have always believed that a tragedy is a tragedy. Following that spirit, many Chinese netizens hope that the missing passengers will be rescued alive.

But some netizens, setting aside all human values, have asked: Why didn't the almighty "Korean wave demigods" Kim Soo-hyun and Lee Min-ho rush to save the passengers? Worse, some others have said South Korea deserved it - in a response to a South Korean TV anchor's irresponsible remarks on last July's Asiana Airlines crash-landing in San Francisco (in which two Chinese passengers died) and South Korea's "grabbing" of China's cultural heritages. Such remarks have sparked a heated online debate, with many netizens criticizing their irresponsible counterparts for their cold-blooded comments.