A FIRST-YEAR Nanyang Technological University (NTU) student is suffering from leukaemia and his parents cannot afford his chemotherapy sessions.

So someone starts a donation drive to raise money to help the ailing student.

Instead of rallying to help, several Singaporean netizens pour scorn on the student on a local online forum.

The reason: The student is not Singaporean, but a Chinese national.

One netizen even set up a poll asking fellow users to vote if they should support the donation drive.

The result: Close to 80 per cent of 120 users who responded so far said they would not donate.

It began with a mass e-mail by Lim Si Wei, the students' services executive of the NTU students' union, appealing for donations for Mr Li Bingbing, 18, who was diagnosed with blood cancer two weeks ago.

The e-mail made its rounds on the Internet over the past week.

CAN'T AFFORD TREATMENT

It stated that his parents, a power plant worker and a housewife, cannot afford his chemotherapy sessions, which are estimated to cost at least $150,000.

The family's monthly household income is said to be about $900.

The NTU students' union decided to help their fellow student.

The e-mail found its way onto popular Internet forum hardwarezone.com, and there was an outpouring of controversial comments regarding Chinese nationals in Singapore.

Forum user 'gaul_ads' called such students 'thick-skinned'.

'They've already used our money for a scholarship. Do they still want to use our money for an operation? It's ridiculous,' he said.

Another forum user named 'moonlight' wrote: 'Just order them to book the first flight out of Singapore. They can just settle their problems somewhere else.'

Some forum users adopted a business-like stance.

'He just comes here to study and uses Singapore as a 'stepping stone'. After that, he'll go back,' a forum user called 'shawntyg' said. 'I won't donate. I admit I'm selfish. But isn't he too?'

These forum users, however, said that they would readily donate if the person in need had been a Singaporean.

'We will help and donate to sick, old and poor Singaporeans.

'But Ah Tiongs can forget about it. They are good in exploiting and leeching,' a forum user called 'danny' said.

'Ah Tiong' is a common Hokkien term for Chinese nationals here, not unlike 'ang moh' for Caucasians.

However, not all the forum posts were negative.

A forum user with the nickname 'diablo80' provided a more humanitarian response: 'Be it a Singaporean or foreigner, if someone in need is in front of us, how can we leave him alone?'

Miss Patricia Choy, 18, who also posted on the forum thread, wondered if the student had medical insurance.

'We should donate to someone in need regardless of his nationality.

'However, it's hard to make sure foreigners would not take advantage of the kindness and goodwill of Singaporeans,' she said.

According to the circulated e-mail, Mr Li was diagnosed with leukaemia on 29 Feb.

It said that 50 per cent of his bone marrow had been infected.

The e-mail said that he may require another $180,000 for a bone marrow transplant if his condition did not stabilise after chemotherapy.

The NTU students' union has organised a campus-wide donation drive, from yesterday to today, to 'help defray part of his medical costs'.

'This drive was organised with no incentives whatsoever other than to help a friend,' a student from the union, who declined to be named, said.

Miss Menal Prakash, a fourth-year NTU computer engineering student, said she had seen students queueing up to donate in the canteen yesterday afternoon.

A spokesman for NTU's Student Affairs Office verified that it had approved the donation drive and said this wasn't the first time one had been held.

She said: 'To the school's administration, every student is the same. If someone is in need of help, we'll try our best to help.

'It's fine if people don't want to donate, because these donation drives are always voluntary.

'But it's not right if it's solely because the student is not from Singapore.'

Undergraduates contacted by The New Paper also had more charitable responses.

Miss Richa Ahuja said: 'I think I would donate if I could. It doesn't matter to me whether he's a scholar or where he's from.'

Mr Ben Teo, 21, agreed: 'It's someone's life we're talking about. Of course, I'll donate if they approached me.'

The New Paper could not reach Mr Li for comment.

But some Singaporeans were indignant about the forum users on his behalf.

Miss Ahuja said: 'I think they're absolutely heartless.'

Miss Prakash, however, thought that donating was a 'very personal thing'.

'It's up to the individual. I don't think I'd judge them,' she said.

Miss Su Xiaoting, 18, who suffered from lymphoma in secondary school but has since made a full recovery, felt the benefits of such donations went beyond just money.

'Such help is an indication of moral support from friends and strangers,' she said.

Personal and family friends had donated money to her. 'It was a tangible way of showing that they were there for me and wanted to help me,' she said.

Mr Eugene Seow, executive director of Touch Community Services, had this question: 'Is this student not a fellow human being that we would like to help?

'Foreigners in our land are a benefit to our nation whether they come as workers or people with talents and expertise. We should treat them as people here to contribute.

'Our treatment or attitude to them reflects our attitude towards society as a whole,' he said.

Charissa Yong, Aditi Shivaramakrishnan and Teo Chin Ghee, newsroom interns

This article was first published in The New Paper on Mar 12, 2008.