In China's Jiangsu Province, a bus transporting a Japanese school was attacked by a man with a knife.
A Chinese woman named Ms. Hu, who could not be identified as the driver or conductor, tried to stop the man by pulling him and even holding him from behind.
In the process, the man stabbed her in several places.
The mother and child who were attacked were injured but did not survive.
Ms. Hu was taken to the hospital, but she did not recover and died on the 26th.
Because the bus was a shuttle bus for a Japanese school, Mr. Hu of course knew that the mother and child were Japanese.
She risked her own life to save the Japanese father and son.
I cannot praise her enough for her courage and kindness.
The mother and child who were attacked just happened to be Japanese, but I am sure that Ms. Hu would have done the same thing no matter who they were, even if they were also Chinese.
That is the kind of person she is.
Even if the Japanese embassy had expressed its condolences and raised the flag at half mast, it would not bring back Mr. Hu's life forever.
I am sure that Mr. Hu himself did not expect to lose his life in a spur-of-the-moment action.
Although China has relinquished its position as the world's number one country, it still has a population of 1.4 billion people.
While there are gentle, respectable people like Mr. Hu, there are also many who do evil things, such as murder and theft.
This month, in Jilin Province, there was a stabbing incident in which four American university faculty members were injured.
Regarding the bus incident, there were a whopping 759 social networking posts praising the criminal act in the name of patriotism.
There are a lot of people out there with bad ideas.
People who are truly strong, people who are truly courageous, and people who are truly kind.
It doesn't matter what race or country you are from.
In 2001, Lee Soo-hyun, a Korean exchange student, and a Japanese man jumped onto the tracks at Shin-Okubo Station on the Yamanote Line to rescue a drunken man who had fallen off the train.
Believing in the possibility that they might be rescued, they must have acted on the spur of the moment.
We should not think of their actions as reckless.
Let us praise their courage and kindness and join Mr. Hu in praying for their souls!