I understand why you feel sympathy for his lack of character or ability to cope. I shouldn’t say I feel no sympathy exclusively, perhaps it is more-so overshadowed by disgust in his selfishness and lack of respect or appreciation for the value of life.

I full agree with you when you said that suicide isn’t going to solve anything and will bring more problems to his family. I assume that what you meant by more problems is that his loved ones will be terribly sad, and usually, they would go on a road of self-blame, like, if only we had done this, if only we had not said that, if only ….the list goes on. But the fact remains that the suicide victim wasn’t thinking rationally. If he could think about how his family would suffer, then he was rational and wouldn’t do it in the first place.

As for serial killers, if they break the law, they are guilty as far as the law is concerned. Even the act of suicide is murder and the suicide victim has broken the law by killing someone (himself), although I am not sure if this is the case under Chinese law. Nevertheless, for both serial killers and suicide victims, I would use the reasons of external enovironmental conditioning and genetics to explain why people behave in the way they do. This is not to say that they are not wrong to commit such acts, but rather it helps at least me to understand their actions and to be a little more sympathetic. This is the approach which counsellors adopt when trying to help people with suicidal tendencies, and in the other case, when rehabilitating “criminals”

And yes, people have been talked out of committing suicides before…provided whoever talked the would-be suicide victim out of it is a trained professional, or he somehow said the right thing. But as I said, no amount of yelling by any number of people to simply tell him to not jump will make his see the light of day. You’ve got to say something which must make sense to him. I find it hard to agree with your statement that “Problem is here that no one really wanted to help, but just watched.” I think that they simply did not know how to help and what to do, other than yelling. But they meant well anyway.

And yes, you are right. Some people had been talked out of jumping before and that is why I said if I were there, I would surely try to talk him out of it. I am not sure if I will press the right buttons, but I will try.