As a guest lecturer at the China University of Political Science and Law, I'm teaching about local government, media and volunteerism. Discussion in class took an interesting turn when discussing Maslow's hierarchy of needs and volunteerism. While the university requires them to volunteer, their experience has been mixed. Sometimes when sent to volunteer in a rural school, they found other students from a different university there as well, so they outnumbered the kids at the school. Others felt that they were asked to teach children without having had any training on how to do it.

But the most thoughtful discussion came when talking about altruism and being willing to help others.

China has had a rash of sad incidents when a good Samaritan stopped to help someone—only to have that person turn around and accuse them of harm. A judge ruled in favor of an old woman who was helped after falling down when she accused the man who helped her of assaulting her. "Why else would he have helped her if he had not hurt her?" the judge asked. Parents now warn their students going away to university not to help anyone who has fallen down.

Another tragic video made big news when it showed a small child hit by a car—and no one doing anything to help for a very long time, leaving the child lie where hit. An old woman finally did help, but the child died.

Volunteer efforts are just beginning here and missing from those stories, it will take some big shifts in public opinion before they become mainstream.

My students are now busy in small groups brainstorming plans for a multimedia campaign to convince people not to litter. I look forward to hearing about their campaigns.