It's interesting to see people view his actions as some kind of cultural curiosity. People are not that different from one another. The firefighters who responded to Chernobyl knew what they risking. The firefighters who responded to the WTC knew the dangers of entering the towers. There are stories of people, logically or illogically, rightly or wrongly, taking risks to put others first. It's not a cultural or racial thing it's a human thing.
No one knows what was going through his mind, he may have just made an error of judgement. I so often read in these forums comments that suggest Asians think markedly differently to those in the west. There are some differences no doubt, but they are not as great as some people here think they are.