STILL WONDER WHY THEY BUY OUR BONDS AND NOT THEIR OWN (via Robert Schwartz):

On a Bridge of Sighs, the Suicidal Meet a Staying Hand (JIM YARDLEY, 9/21/04, NY Times)

The view from where Chen Si stood on the landmark Yangtze River Bridge captured the frantic, thrumming energy of China. Honking trucks and buses poured over the span as hundreds of barges slid along the dark brown water below. The sweeping downtown skyline rose in the distance.

But Mr. Chen watched the people. He noticed a man standing alone, seemingly pensive, and walked toward him in short, quick steps. He watched people unloading from city buses and gauged the slump of their shoulders as they trudged along the sidewalk at the edge of the bridge.

For hours on this recent Sunday morning, Mr. Chen watched and waited for that unknowable, unthinkable moment when one of the thousands of people who cross the bridge every day might try to jump off. Mr. Chen comes almost every weekend, bringing along a thermos of tea. He has become the bridge's self-appointed guardian angel.

"If I save one person," Mr. Chen said, "one is a lot."

By his own count, Mr. Chen, who is in his mid-30's, has stopped 42 people from jumping since he began his patrols a year ago. He has talked them down and wrestled them down. He will hike up his pant leg to show a
deep laceration from one tussle. He also has watched five people slip out of his grasp and fall to their deaths in the Yangtze.

It is a job that has required him to become a detective looking for clues in the souls of strangers. He stands on the southern end of the bridge, wearing sunglasses and a cap to block the boiling sun. He does not smile or talk much. He watches people, particularly the solitary figures staring down on the coffee-colored water.

"It is very easy to recognize," he said of potential jumpers. "A person walks without spirit."

Mr. Chen says he comes to the bridge because someone needs to - suicide is now the leading cause of death for Chinese aged 15 to 34.