Well I didn't personally think anything of the joke, but some people might have been offended by it. Making jokes about people dying isn't necessarily bad but it is pretty risky and more often than not you are going to get people that don't like it. It's usually one of those topics that you really need to know the people you're talking to before going for jokes like that, if you're with a group of friends or like-minded people then it's more likely to be well received that putting it out in the open for everyone.

Yes cultures differ widely, and those differences should be respected, but there's a point where I can not possibly agree.  

In the west, there has been lots of things that haven't been good.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem_witch_trials

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_United_States

To this day, lots of terrible things have occured in our culture.  And lots of things continue to happen in our world/our culture.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_trafficking_in_the_United_States

Doesn't mean we are going to say "well, that's part of our culture, we can't judge."  We are still going to look down on these things, because people are getting hurt.  The daughter was being asked to be saved.  This is from the article.  

"The kids were swimming in the beach when suddenly, the 20-year-old girl started drowning and screaming for help."

Would someone just say "well, it's part of our culture, we can't help you."

+1. This story is so stupid and the death was easily preventable. You can't claim ethnocentrism when a life is at risk, I'm sorry. Just like I refuse to believe I'm being ethnocentric when I disagree with female genital mutilation. In some cultures they think it's cool to cut a 2nd vagina so they can keep their women "pure" by fucking a man-made hole instead. I don't give a fuck if the Queen endorsed it that is the most fucked up shit I have ever heard, and saying that it is ok because "it is in their culture" is not an excuse. Might as well extend that logic to saying it's ok to stone a woman to death because she was raped and is thus unpure. FUCK THAT AND FUCK THAT SHITTY EXCUSE FOR LOGIC.

Sorry if I blew it a little out of proportion but this story is rage-inducing and I will never believe the "differenct culture" excuse when someone's well-being is at risk in such a manner.

I vehemently disagree with that man's sense of "honor", but I won't subscribe to a "he wanted her to die" theory without further evidence, I think he simply couldn't swim (and hindered the people who were able and willing to help her .. so fucked up *sigh*)