Students from Wat Sutthiwararam School helped prevent a Chinese man from committing suicide after he gave them an overly generous donation while they were busking in Bangkok on Monday night.

JS100 reported that the nine young people were members of the secondary school's student committee.

They had gathered under the King Taksin Bridge, over the Chao Phraya River, and were playing music to raise funds for the school's Suthi Music Awards, an annual contest where students display their musical talents. 

A Chinese man in his 30s drew the band's interest when he first gave them 1,000 yuan (about 4,750 baht), and later returned to place another banknote, this one worth 500 yuan (2,375 baht), in their box.

Believing the donations to be far too generous, the students followed him to return the money, Sitthichart Maliwan, one of the students, was quoted as saying.

The Chinese man responded by giving them his mobile phone, saying he did not need anything anymore because his father and grandfather had both died.

Believing the man's response signalled an intention to commit suicide from the bridge above them, the students rushed to surround him.

They spent hours trying to console the man, in Chinese, and persuade him not to end his life. Other people who could speak Chinese showed up to help them, until police from Yannawa station arrived and managed to calm the man.

Police told them the man had also shown an intention to commit suicide on Monday, but they had talked him out of it. 

The students received much praise online as the story spread.