The biggest ongoing problem in these outlying towns has been landslides. Winding roads have been covered over and over in the aftershocks and had to be repeatedly cleared. Even now there are areas partially covered with boulders, or huge cracks in the road where a huge boulder hit.

It is a beautiful area, especially this time of year. But now the green mountains have huge patches of brown where landslides have buried and uprooted trees.

In one town we came across some old men watching the construction of prefab houses. There were both retired, both over seventy. They said they had been sitting outside when the earthquake struck. “The ground shook so violently, we couldn’t stand up,” they told me, emphasizes with hand gestures. We just watched all the buildings collapse. “We were very fortunate here, since everyone was outside no one was hurt.” They wanted to make sure I understand how grateful they were to the government. “Without the government right now we would have nothing, no food or water or shelter. The soldiers arrived within hours on May 12th. We are very lucky to have the soldiers here.”

While people wait for the construction of prefab houses to finished, they too live in tents.

Along the road there is a temple, a tourist destination famous as the birthplace of the Sichuan dish ‘Kung Pao Chicken.’

Schools have been relocated to tents or surviving buildings. Unlike most of the earthquake zone, kids in the Dujiangyan area are back in school.

Thanks to Fire and Peng Xin for their help translating.

We asked her how she is now, after the earthquake. She is not well, she tells us. Her morale is low, her mood depressed. “I have no hope in life. I just live.” She put her hand over her mouth and her laugh was soft and charming. “Why?” we ask, “Do you have enough food, enough water? Do you have a tent?” Many people in the earthquake zone are still short on these necessities, but this camp in Loushui is well supplied; there is running water and young people recruited by Taiwanese organization Tzuchi wear yellow vests and help distribute hot meals. “I cannot eat – nothing tastes anymore.” She thinks, “And there is no place to play. We used to play Majiang.” The Mi sisters both chime in, “We loved playing Majiang.” The memory makes everyone smile.

My translator also found it difficult to communicate with Mingxiu. She understood what the old woman said, but some of it didn’t quite make sense. Sometimes the three old women spoke at once and my translator couldn’t keep up. Later she tells me Mingxiu took her hand and confided, “I have a bad sense of direction. I can’t even call myself a cab. My sense of direction is very bad.”

I ask more questions, do you have children? “I have three sons,” she tells me “Five children. Three sons, two daughters.” “Where do they llive?” I ask her. “In Loushui with you?” She shakes her head. “I haven’t heard from them since the earthquake. My youngest daughter lives in Mianzhu, the other three live in Shifang.” Two nearby towns, both heavily damaged in the earthquake. Still, there were towns much harder hit - most of the population of Mianzhu and Shifang survived. “Before the earthquake they visited me ever one or two months.” One of the Mi sisters adds that one of her sons lives with her.

At the time I thought there must be some mistake in translation. Almost a month and a half later enough of the chaos had dissipated that this surprised me. But after we finished talking she led me to the tent where she now lives, and we met her son. He confirmed that he had no word from his four siblings since the earthquake. He had white hair himself. He had been sitting on the bed inside the tent. He looked distraught, much more distressed than the faces I see outside. It made me believe that much of the public suffering photographed in the week following the earthquake must simply have moved inside. The only place privacy still exists in the camp is in the stifling heat inside the tents. Even on the day we visited, when it rained off and on and the temperature was pleasant, no one remained in the tents in the daylight.

As we leave, my translator asks how to write her name but she shook her head. She can recognize the characters of her name “bright beautiful,” but she doesn’t know any other characters. “I never went to school,” she explains. She grew up in Loushui. She farmed in a nearby field until she married. They she moved into her house and lived there for seventy years. “That is why I am not well,” she says. She had great affection for her house, she said, her things. “Now everything is gone.”

Mi Zhongying

She volunteers her May 12th story without prompting. “I was visiting the dentist when the earthquake happened. I was in the dentist chair and when the earth began to shake, the dentist scooped me up and carried me outside.” She laughed at this and surprised me with a full mouth of white teeth – most rural Chinese her age have terrible teeth. “He put me next to a tree and told me to hold on to it. He said he had to go back inside because his daughter was on the third floor. Then he ran back into the building.” She stood there with her arms hugging the trunk of the big tree until a young man on the road shouted at her. “‘Daye, Come away from the building!’ he shouted. ‘It isn’t safe.’ I tried to walk, but it was difficult to stand up. I only got three steps – at most five steps – and then the building totally collapsed behind me.” She seemed proud of these exploits. I asked about the dentist and his daughter, were they alright? Zhongxiu consulted her sister. “They are alright now,” she says, “but they were still in the building when it collapsed.”

She tells me that like many of the older residents she has lived in Loushui all her life. Neither she or her sister went to school when they were children. “There was an earthquake here before, in 1976,” she notes, “but it wasn’t like this. My house didn’t fall down. I lived in the same house since I married at 18.” I asked if she’d been to Chengdu – only two hours away by car - and she said that she and her sister had gone together when they were in their forties. “We went into the city together and we saw a banana for the first time. We asked what it was, and they told us it was a fruit. It was 2 mao (less than 5 cents today) so we only bought one and shared it. But when we tasted it we found it too strange.” They smile at this; in the years since, bananas have become commonplace in Loushui. “We couldn’t eat it. We both spit out the banana and the Chengdu residents all laughed at us.” The memory of the trip delights them both.

We drove through what was left of the town and parked next to a huge empty space filled with bricks. I learned later that it had been a five-story office building and 13 of the 20 people inside during the earthquake died, buried under rubble. Across from the bricks was the entrance to the park turned into a tent city.

“I was riding my bike when the earthquake happened,” she tells me. She dropped her bike to the ground when the earth started shaking and staggered over to cling to a nearby truck. “It was very difficult to walk. I had to hold onto the truck to stay standing.” She was across the street from a five-story building and she watched it crumbled and collapse in a cloud of dust. “It took about 10 seconds and the building was gone,” she said, “no more than 20 seconds.” Twenty-one people were in that building and thirteen died, buried in the rubble. “I know several people who were on the fifth floor, who managed to run down the stairs and get out. Even they don’t know how they escaped.”

As we talk, she calls to her eight-year old daughter inside the tent – “come say hello” - but the little girl won’t come, “She’s just shy.” Like most parents, when the ground stilled on May 12th, her first thought was for her daughter. After the earthquake, she ran towards her daughter’s primary school but the road was filled with huge piles of debris and riddle with cracks and she could not make it through. She retraced her steps, found her husband, and asked him to find her elderly mother. Then she once again headed towards the school.

She had to climb over rubble to make it to the school. There were people running everywhere, she said, and the air was filled with dust. She found the primary school still standing but leaning dangerously to one side. She rushed into her daughter’s classroom on the ground floor and saw a window had broken scattering shards of glass over her daughter’s desk. A few students came into the classroom to retrieve their bags and she told them they had to leave, they couldn’t be in the building, it wasn’t safe.

Outside Li Yen found her daughter’s teacher who said all his students had made it outside safely. “She should be in the playground,” the teacher told her. “So then I knew she was safe.” “Then you found her?” I prompted. “No,” she smiled and looked inside her tent where her daughter sat on the bed riffling through papers. “She found me. She was scared, but she saw me and ran over.” My translator searched for words, “Once she learned her daughter was safe, suddenly she couldn’t see anything. She was at sea.” I tried to imagine the chaos that must have filled the playground.

I asked how she and her daughter were now. She called for the girl once again, but the girl still wouldn’t come and burst into tired tears. Li Yen went inside with a lollipop I offered. The girl wiped her tears away and unwrapped the candy. Li Yen came back outside and apologized. “Is she alright?” I felt guilty. “She’s fine, she’s just shy.” Inside the tent the girl had quieted and was scribbling something with a crayon, the lollipop tucked in one of her cheeks. “And she is tired, sometimes we have trouble sleeping,” Li Yen continues.

“We are worried about her schooling. Summer vacation is coming soon, but she doesn’t want vacation, she wants to make up for her missed classes.” Li Yen tells me she and her husband are very busy working for the government and they don’t have time to take care of their daughter full time. They want to send her to school in Deyang. “But she is scared to go. The school in Deyang has three floors and her class would be on the second floor. She won’t go upstairs anymore.”

The whole village met the bus with smiles, waves and clapping. We walked through a corridor of clapping and smiling people through the gate and into the park.

First the volunteers lunched.

Then for three hours they played with the kids. There were various craft tables, letter writing stations, face paining. Until the drizzle became rain, there were also sports outdoors, in small opening in the center of the camp

Thanks very much to BingBing, my wonderful translator, and to Peng Xin for his advice.

In the meanwhile, some Beijing oddities:

I went to the Beijing Aquarium last Sunday. It is impressively modern - clean glass, nice tanks - especially compared to dirty and depressing zoo across the way. But still the English signage in the aquarium needs some work. My favorite sign, however, was not Chinglish but Chinese with smiley faces. Really, emoticons in an official placard?

AIM speak infiltrates museum signs…

And at the food court in a mall - food courts here are generally pretty decent - I was served “pineapple chicken” topped with colored jimmies. While strange use of western ingredients is not at all uncommon, still it was quite amusing. The dish tasted (and looked) like balls of fried cardboard and sweetened canned pineapples soaked in sugar and covered in sprinkles.

Sprinkles on chicken.

Using a spade they stuck long flexible bamboo poles in holes in the ground, and then secured them in an arch with plastic zipties.

Once the structure was complete, they pulled a huge tarp over the structure and fixed both sides to the ground by weighing the tarp down with stones dropped into a trench dug on either side.

Villagers standing around the almost completed tent.

The first tent took about six hours to build, but the second went up in less than half that time.

Liu Tingfeng leaning on her makeshift crutch

Liu Tingfeng supports herself by leaning on the wooden handle of a twisted spade. One of her ankles, tightly bound by an ace bandage, twists awkwardly inwards. A pink plastic sandal dangles from the useless foot. When our aid truck arrives in the tiny village Bandao Cun, she limps from her house towards our truck, lingering towards the back of the crowd that gathers. When I approach her, she takes my hand forcefully and draws me over to offer her thanks in heavily accented Sichuanese.

She was born only 30 kilometers up the road, and moved into her house in Bandao Cun when she was married at 16. Now, at 65 she still works in the fields along side her son and grandson, helping to grow rice, corn, and soybeans.

On May 12th at 2:28, she was feeding her chickens. When the ground began to shake, their house crumbled and one of the walls collapsed on her foot. Her son and grandson were in the fields, at the time and came running home when the ground finally stopped shaking. I ask her how long the earthquake lasted and she shakes her head. “I’m not sure,” she says, “it seemed a long time.” She remembers one other earthquake in 1976, but it was not serious

I ask her if a doctor looked at her food. “Yes, yes, a doctor looked” she assures me. “When?” “Three days ago.” June 6. Almost three weeks after the earthquake. I notice she still does not put any weight on it. To my untrained eye it looks unnaturally twisted, likely broken. I ask her what the doctor said, will it heal soon? But she only says that it is not so bad now, better than before, patting my hand to assuage my concern.

Liu Tingfeng

Wang Yuzhen

Standing in the rubble of her house in Bandao Cun, Wangyuzhen watches me speak with her neighbors. When I turn to leave, she calls out. Would I like to see her house? Of course, I say. She is a tiny woman with a beautiful smile. She too was in the fields when the earthquake stuck. None of her family members were hurt. But they were badly frightened and her son, daughter and grandson all left for Shenzhen soon after the earthquake. She and her husband remain. She tells me she has always lived in this village. As a little girl, she grew up only 200meters away. When she married, she moved in with the man who grew up in the house that now lies in rubble at her feet.

The ruins of Wang Yuzhen’s house

I ask what happened after the earthquake. Soldiers arrived at the end of the second day, she tells me. Lines of young soldiers marched towards their villages, carrying nothing with them. “At first they were only here to rescue trapped people. They didn’t have food or water, they didn’t even have shovels. They just dug people out with their hands.” For three days, she and her neighbors tell me, they had no food and no clean water to drink. They drank the muddy water straight from the rice paddies since they had no pots to boil it in.

On the fifteenth, food and water arrived, but even then there was not enough for everyone. “The people near the road got food first,” she says, “so it was a little longer till I got food.” I must have look concerned because she took my hand to assure me. “We are ok now, though, enough food, enough water.” She points at a TV, somehow undamaged, that sits on a broken wall near her tent. “Still no power though,” she laughs, “We can’t watch TV!”

The tent where Wang Yuzhen and her husband now live

Gao Caohui seeks to tell her story

Caohui leads the way to her home

Gao Caohui says on May 12th, looking around at totally destruction in the wake of the earthquake, her first thought was for Jiang Linfeng, her nine-year-old grandson, her daughter’s boy.
Together the two women walked an hour down the road to the boy’s primary school. Brilliant green rice paddies lined the road, the rice plants still evenly spaced in meticulous straight rows. All the houses they pass are rubble; the road is riddled with cracks and debris from falling buildings.

When they reached the primary school, they found a mountain of bricks, cement, metal beams, chairs, broken chalkboards, and torn schoolbooks. The two women searched everywhere, calling his name, climbing thought the rubble, ducking though collapsed window frames. Finally, miraculously, they found him. The third story stairway had collapsed on his back. It took them an hour clawing and digging through the rubble to free him. They carried him to the road and waved at passing cars until one stopped and agreed to take them to the hospital.

The ruins of Gao Caohui’s house

Gao Caohui gestures inside her tent

Though she has seemed eager to tell her story, I worry I am intruding. When I begin once again to thank her for telling her story, she interrupts me. She is so grateful that we have come, she says. She thanks us for caring about her country, her town, her family, for coming from so far away to see her and in such hot weather. “The weather is nothing,” I say helplessly. She wishes she could invite me to stay in her home. “Before,” she says, “when we had a house, I would have invited you to stay for a few days with us.” I tell her I will try to come back when things are better.

Inside the tent five family members must share

BEIJING, June 6 — A draft law in Liaoning province makes it an obligation for adult children to contact or visit their parents regularly. It is the first legislation of its kind in the country. The province’s standing committee of the people’s congress recently released the draft - Regulation on Protection of Rights and Interests of the Aged - to seek public opinion. It is expected to become law by the end of the year.

An article says if children do not live with their parents, they should “often send greetings or go home to visit them.” Government employees, who fail to do so, will face sanctions by their respective agencies

You can read the whole article here.

Yan Guangbing

When our two cars full of foreign volunteers pull up across the street he stands to greet us and grins. We introduce ourselves “We are glad you have come to see us! It heartens us to have foreigners come all the way to see us.” He quizzes us on our nationalities: American, French, British, Irish…When we ask how he is, he wave his hand dismissively “No problem,” he says, “I’m fine. See my dog?” He gestures behind him to the to the massive pile of rubble. “He was trapped under there for four days before the soldiers helped dig him out!” “Four day!” We are impressed.

The remains of Yan’s House

“Is that your house?” He laughs. “It used to be!” Someone asks what his dogs name is. “Maozi!” The scruffy perks up his ears at his name and he wanders out into the blinding sunshine to sniff at his admirers. Maozi the wonder dog, we dub him.

Maozi

Zhang Xinmu also lives in Luoshui. She is ten years old.

Zhang Xinmu

She was hanging outside the gate of the adhoc government center set up after the earthquake. I ask her where she lives and she points to the tent next door. I follow her there. “This is my father.” She says. I ask how they are and they both smile. “We are fine,” her father replies. He sell kitchen equipment. I ask if that is what he did before the earthquake. “We did it before, we do it now. People still need to cook.” They thank me when I take their picture.

Zhang Xinmu and her father

Special thanks to Peng Xin for all the excellent translations of signs to follow

I thought we would be stopped on the way in, but no one stopped us. My guess is that the only orders the army guys in front had were: “stand in front of the hospital.” They were fufilling their job admirably.

Nor did the patients or doctors seem annoyed to have us there. People have a very differnt sense of privacy here and they were eager to share stories.

The entrance to the hospital

A doctor takes this farmers blood pressure by hand

Everyone in the hospital had IVs but for the most part, no other obvious injuries. Don’t be overly concerned though, in China they LOVE IVs. Headache? IV. Broken leg? IV!

Hospital Patients

One of the nurses took us to the red cross tents set up in back. Each red cross tent had four beds and she said the doctors and nurses slept two to the bed. The nurse said they were fine but they the patients had no beds because the tents are so hot that no one sick can handle sleeping there.

Nurses sleep in red cross tents

The army has established tent villages all over the countryside. In order to avoid a massive refugee crisis in Chengdu, they are only giving survivors their compensation if they stay in the area of their village. Compensation involves 2jin of rice and 10yuan everyday (about a 2.2 pounds of rice and 1.3US dollars) plus 5,000Yuan for any family member who died in the quake.

Army tent villages. One villager we met says four families shares his tent

The sign says: “The security post of the police department of Shifang City”

Many building were so utterly destroyed it looked like a bomb had gone off.

The (now upside down) sign reads: “The education committee of Changji village, Mianzhu City”

Clothing Stores

The sign reads “Good Friends, Antenna, Stereo Speakers”, it used to be a commercial banner advertising sound equipment

Perhaps it is true that a doorway is the strongest part of a building, many places, doorways were all that remained.

There was just more and more and more. On and on. These people wake up to this everyday.

]]> http://www.fiferis.com/?feed=rss2&p=99 http://www.fiferis.com/?p=94 http://www.fiferis.com/?p=94#comments Tue, 03 Jun 2008 11:53:09 +0000 admin http://www.fiferis.com/?p=94 The Danwei Office: I will miss you while in Sichuan

The first trip to the Great Wall

]]> http://www.fiferis.com/?feed=rss2&p=94 http://www.fiferis.com/?p=92 http://www.fiferis.com/?p=92#comments Tue, 03 Jun 2008 10:23:57 +0000 admin http://www.fiferis.com/?p=92 So I am leaving for Chengdu, Sichuan tomorrow. I will be hooking up with a newly formed aid organization called ‘Sichuan Quake Relief‘ run by Chengdu expats and help them while at the same time conducting interviews of earthquake survivors and aid workers. Then I’ll write up profiles of some of the people I meet and send them back to Beijing for Danwei to publish.

Thats the theory anyway. I’m sure when I get there it will be chaos.

I’ll be in periodic contact over the internet so I’ll keep you all updated as I can.

]]> http://www.fiferis.com/?feed=rss2&p=92 http://www.fiferis.com/?p=87 http://www.fiferis.com/?p=87#comments Tue, 03 Jun 2008 10:22:08 +0000 admin http://www.fiferis.com/?p=87 Sunday we (that is, Danwei) went on a hike to the Great Wall with WNYC’s On The Media. The first adventure was the traffic jam we encountered. On The Media shot the following video. Jeremy narrates. I think he says it best at the very beginning: There is NO way to explain this…

On our way back from the hike we bought some beautiful, fragrant honey from some beekeepers. Let me tell you, standing still amidst the sound of thousands of bees takes great mental effort, even though the bees utterly ignore you.

Bee Houses

Buying Fresh Honey

Check out the On The Media blog describing the day here.

Finally, walking to dinner last night I saw this billboard instructing the public on how to wash their hands. When I joked with my Chinese friend that this was the “official communist government hand washing technique,” he said, “Oh no, this is the scientific technique, the communist government technique would involve saying ‘Long Life, Love Country’ or something equivalent three times while you rubbed your hands.” I differ to his superior knowledge of China.

Washing your hands, the scientific method

]]> http://www.fiferis.com/?feed=rss2&p=87 http://www.fiferis.com/?p=80 http://www.fiferis.com/?p=80#comments Fri, 30 May 2008 05:46:07 +0000 admin http://www.fiferis.com/?p=80 Some updates:

Everyday we hear more news about forced evacuations because of fears of flooding due to damaged dams. China has an incredible number of dams and many of them are in rural, western provinces like Sichuan. But as this picture makes clear, its not just damaged dams that is the problem. Massive landslides have also blocked rivers.

Aerial shot of landslide.
Since roads to these areas either don’t exist or are ruined by the earthquake, they are flying in heavy equipment. I don’t see how this kind of equipment will help given that there aren’t any flat surfaces to drive them around on. But I’m sure engineers know more than me.

A helicopter flying in heavy equipment

In other news, more proof that celebrities are dumb:

Recently at the Cannes film festival Sharon Stone said on camera:
“You know it was very interesting because first, you know I’m unhappy about the way the Chinese treating the Tibetan because I think anyone should not be unkind to anyone else…I’ve been concerned about how should we deal with the Olympics, because they are not being nice to the Dalai Lama, who is a good friend of mine.” “And then all this earthquake and all this stuff happened, and I thought, is that karma — when you’re not nice that the bad things happen to you?”
Of course it made its way to YouTube where Chinese people saw it and FLIPPED OUT. There are loads of forums with people ranting how Stone ought to be “stoned” and calls for boycotting Dior - a company she models for. The comments made front page news in mainstream media.

Now, granted its an incredibly insensitive thing to say. But I find the response much more interesting than the comment. I think the main problem with censorship is that it gives undo credence to things that people say that get disseminated. People say ridiculously stupid things all the time. The idea of free speech is that if a sentiment clearly doesn’t have credence and the person speaking has no influence over anything (ie Sharon Stone over earthquakes/relief efforts) then you just ignore them. Our whole country is pretty much convinced Tom Cruise is crazy (at least, I hope we are) but it doesn’t stop us from going to his films.

Anyway, she apologized which ALSO made headline news in mainstream media.

Sharon Stone feels (justifiably) bad

Finally, Dad brought to my attention this fascinating story: BBC reports “One of South America’s few remaining uncontacted indigenous tribes has been spotted and photographed on the border between Brazil and Peru.” The Brazilian government flew over their huts and took pictures:

Brazilian tribe brandishes bows at helicopter

First, as dad points out, the irony of seeing these pictures on the internet is rich. Second, can you imagine how totally confused these people must have been? Well no, I suppose we can’t.

Brazil and China photos from BBC, Stone picture from Xinhua

]]> http://www.fiferis.com/?feed=rss2&p=80 http://www.fiferis.com/?p=79 http://www.fiferis.com/?p=79#comments Thu, 29 May 2008 10:17:29 +0000 admin http://www.fiferis.com/?p=79 Computer fixed! Apple in China took four days (and they had to send it to Shanghai) and it was all covered under warranty. Not at all bad considering the horror stories I’ve heard about Apple repairs in China. My Chinese coworkers said it probably was faster because I was a foreigner, which makes me feel a little bad. Not that bad though…

But they did destroy all my data. Oh well.

Outside work in the diplomatic compound:

Maybe this is where my data went - down the rabbit hole…

]]> http://www.fiferis.com/?feed=rss2&p=79 http://www.fiferis.com/?p=71 http://www.fiferis.com/?p=71#comments Mon, 26 May 2008 07:01:35 +0000 admin http://www.fiferis.com/?p=71
Me

My computer has died and needs a new harddrive. The incredibly difficult to find apple service center in Beijing says they will fix it and have it back to me next week. We’ll see. Until then, please stand by. That is, assuming anyone other than my parents actually read this blog.

]]> http://www.fiferis.com/?feed=rss2&p=71 http://www.fiferis.com/?p=68 http://www.fiferis.com/?p=68#comments Fri, 23 May 2008 15:58:36 +0000 admin http://www.fiferis.com/?p=68 I speculated on how many people in China really observed the moment of silence on Monday. This graph is a dramatic testament to how widespread the observation was. The following graph charts the number of google searches performed on in China on Monday from 1-4pm. I think it speaks for itself.

As usual, I’m stealing this information from Danwei…

]]> http://www.fiferis.com/?feed=rss2&p=68 http://www.fiferis.com/?p=65 http://www.fiferis.com/?p=65#comments Thu, 22 May 2008 13:32:06 +0000 admin http://www.fiferis.com/?p=65 My job at Danwei is in an office in a diplomatic compound. This sign is outside our building.


The sign says “please cherish greenery patches”
While I know its just another example of funny translation, I think its a great sentiment!

]]> http://www.fiferis.com/?feed=rss2&p=65 http://www.fiferis.com/?p=63 http://www.fiferis.com/?p=63#comments Thu, 22 May 2008 13:26:49 +0000 admin http://www.fiferis.com/?p=63 Here are some updated numbers:
51,151- confirmed dead
247,645 - injured
32,361 - missing
6,375 - pulled out alive from debris
5million - people without homes
$3billion - cash and goods received in donations

Earthquake coverage continues to dominate all the media here in China. I read the English version of The People’s Daily today and the articles continue to be upbeat but not obfuscating. Meanwhile, the numbers only continue to grow - deaths, people displaced, and the incredible monetary outpouring. The Chinese are the worlds undisputed masters at producing absurdly large statistics.

Yesterday, the New York Times published an interesting article by Jim Yardley and David Barboz called “Many Hands, Not Held by China, Aid in Quake.” You can read the original article here.

“An unexpected mobilization, prompted partly by unusually vigorous and dramatic coverage of the disaster in the state-run news media, has come from outside official channels. Thousands of Chinese have streamed into the quake region or donated record sums of money in a striking and unscripted public response.

…
Blood drives, cake sales, charity fund-raisers and art auctions have already been held. Other people have dropped everything and raced to the scene. Forty members of a private car club in Chengdu, Sichuan’s provincial capital, made multiple trips transporting more than 100 injured people out of the devastated city of Shifang. Others have filled their cars or sport utility vehicles with supplies and driven hundreds of miles to Sichuan’s mountains.”

He points out that the Chinese government tends to mistrust public activism and grassroots movements. The article raises the question whether the unprecedented and unorchestrated response to the earthquake will change the dynamic - or a a sign of an already changing dynamic - between the Chinese government and the Chinese people.

A good example of this is the candle light vigil held in People’s Square in Shanghai on May 19. It was organized by regular citizens who were trying to get 100,000 people together. I’m not sure how many people showed up but I’m sure there were a lot of them. There is almost nothing you can gather a hundred thousand normal citizens to say in China without seriously pissing off authorities, but “we have sympathy for earthquake victims” is one of them. Possibly the only one.

Monday’s candlelight vigil in Shanghai’s People Square

]]> http://www.fiferis.com/?feed=rss2&p=63 http://www.fiferis.com/?p=59 http://www.fiferis.com/?p=59#comments Tue, 20 May 2008 16:07:34 +0000 admin http://www.fiferis.com/?p=59 One of the articles in TimeOut Beijing this week was about a networking event. So they wanted to come up with an interesting graphic to illustrate the event. Toby, one of the editors, though he might try to build a tower of business cards. I volunteered.

Those of you who know me well know how obsessive I can get about this kind of meticulous, useless, crafty project. Joyce is even worse. Anyway. I got to build a business card tower and call it work! Best day ever.

An Hour and a Half at TimeOut Beijing

]]> http://www.fiferis.com/?feed=rss2&p=59 http://www.fiferis.com/?p=57 http://www.fiferis.com/?p=57#comments Tue, 20 May 2008 15:58:56 +0000 admin http://www.fiferis.com/?p=57 Today, at the same construction site where I took the picture of the spool of cable, I took this picture.

It looked to me like they were concerned with the bobcat driving on the road. So they had these four pieces of plywood. The bobcat drove on top of two of them and then the construction guys ran around behind, picked up the other two pieces of wood, and then set them in front. One guy stood in front directing, trying to make sure the bobcat treads stayed on the wood. So that way this tank-like machine drove down the highway without hitting the concrete. Clever. Awfully funny to watch. I bet there are some of the same guys in this picture I had in the last picture.

I’m certain they have an awfully different way of doing this in the US….

]]> http://www.fiferis.com/?feed=rss2&p=57 http://www.fiferis.com/?p=53 http://www.fiferis.com/?p=53#comments Tue, 20 May 2008 02:58:01 +0000 admin http://www.fiferis.com/?p=53 Some figures (according to Xinhua - state run media)

34,073 - the official death toll
245,108 - injured people
10.83billion RMB ($1.55B) - relief money donated to the quake
145 - major aftershocks
5million - people displaced

SO: Yesterday the government declared an official three days of mourning for the Sichuan Earthquake victims.

What exactly does that mean here?

Well, for one the covers of the newspapers were all printed in only black and white. It was a dramatic decision. Papers here look a lot life papers at home - the front pages are generally the most colourful. And just like western papers, in times of dramatic news the papers tend to print extra large photos. Over the last week, huge pictures of the earthquake have dominated front pages of all the newspapers. Here are some examples of front pages today:

Beijing Times
Headline: “Mourning Day”

Yangzi Evening Post
Headline: “Sorrow”

What made it dramatic was that ALL the major newspapers participated.

Flags all over the country were apparently hung at half-mast. I didn’t run across any.

Then we got to work and were having a lot of difficulty getting anything done. Apparently when our Chinese staff called around for information they ran into dead ends everywhere. People couldn’t get commissions today. My (British) editors were pretty mad – they felt like people were using it as an excuse not to get anything done. Like kids on a snow day.

Then, at 2:28 we had our moment of silence. Outside, all the cars on the road honked their horns (which, yes, is the opposite of silence, but here we embrace contradiction.) Not honked, droned. At first it sounded like a New York traffic jam, but even the most obnoxious drivers don’t hold down their horns for a whole minute. After a while the noise became really creepy. Everyone in my office stood up at their desks and bent their heads in silence One minute is much longer than you think under those circumstances.

I think there are moments of silence declared in the US sometimes but here you really got the sense that the whole country actually stopped. That all the people in all the office buildings around me, and in Shanghai, in Hong Kong, in Kunming over 1,500miles away. Everyone stopped. Just imagine if that is even close to true – that’s one fifth of the world standing in silence.

Finally, no entertainment. Apparently if I wanted to I couldn’t go to karaoke tonight. Karaoke, or KTV, is huge here. There are giant mega-plexes like “Party World” where groups of friends can rent a private room to drink and sing in. Its lots of fun. But not tonight. “Entertaining” TV programming has also been suspended for the night. And some of the bars are apparently “music free.” I bittorrented and watched Charlie Wilson’s War. I guess that’s against the ‘having fun’ ban.

Images and much of my information stolen from
Danwei.org

]]> http://www.fiferis.com/?feed=rss2&p=53 http://www.fiferis.com/?p=51 http://www.fiferis.com/?p=51#comments Mon, 19 May 2008 10:26:11 +0000 admin http://www.fiferis.com/?p=51 Walk out of my apartment complex, turn right, and you come across this:

Its a steam pipe vent. Or at least, it is built over a steam pipe. That is, instead of the grate you see in Boston or NYC, here there are toadstools. The steam comes out the bottom of the mushroom head. And this isn’t the only one. In fact, you see them all over Beijing.

Now, my favorite part of this is imagining how on earth these ever got built! Who in the city government came up with this? He must have had to propose it to some kind of board of city planners. And when they approved i then they had to get some factory somewhere to make them and paint them, and then of course loads of guys to install them. I wonder if there was a special toadstool-installing team. I wonder what the budget for decorative-toadstools-to-cover-steam-grates was….

]]> http://www.fiferis.com/?feed=rss2&p=51 http://www.fiferis.com/?p=46 http://www.fiferis.com/?p=46#comments Fri, 16 May 2008 07:16:41 +0000 admin http://www.fiferis.com/?p=46

Its a heartbreaking time to be working in media in China. The reports of the earthquake damage and mounting causalities are incredibly upsetting. Everyone seems to know someone who knows someone lost in Sichuan. I was just there with dad in November; the epicenter is right near the famous panda reserve we visited outside of Chengdu. Its a beautiful, populous area thats still extremely remote.

Parents begging rescue workers to help them excavate their apartment where they left their son and his grandparents minutes before the earthquake hit

Everyone in Beijing - especially those of us who felt the earthquake - feel both lucky and helpless. The Chinese news stations are covering the tragedy CNN-style, 24 hours a day. The government run media certainly is emphasizing hope and showing lots of footage of heroic rescue effort, at the same time the Chinese media has not shied away from showing immensely upsetting graphic pictures of bodies, of crying people, of suffering. Its a totally new way of reporting in China - the people are used to the government covering up the worst part of crises.

I don’t know anyone - literally ANYONE - who has not already donated money to help with the rescue effort. Offices like TimeOut started their own drives. Government run places have suggested donations amounts for different levels of workers. In Sichuan companies are letting all their employees leave work for two weeks to help with the rescue efforts.

Former Kindergarten

There has been a lot of attention given to all the schools that collapsed. I’m sure there will be lots coming out about how shoddily these schools are constructed. But I’m not sure I can condemn the planners. Most of these small towns didn’t have schools even fifteen years ago. Kids in small towns can’t commute to school - roads are bad and parents certainly don’t have cars. Kids in these towns either walked hours to school every Monday and returned home on Friday or, more often, simply did not attend school. So there has been a HUGE movement in China to try to build more schools. I’ve seen it myself traveling around rural China: in a little village of traditionally built houses the only new structure is the concrete school. These schools go up in months, weeks even. I’m absolutely certain they don’t meet earthquake code, that there is a long list of things wrong with their construction. I’m also sure that if building codes had been enforced these schools wouldn’t exist. Of course, it doesn’t help a child to get an education if they die in an earthquake. On the other hand, there are millions of children in badly constructed schools around the country who are, as I sit here typing, getting an education they would not otherwise get. I don’t know the right answer - I’m not saying that losing this many kids is an acceptable price to pay for all the rest to get an education. There is nothing acceptable about this situation.

If you want to watch some of what China is watching:

This video showing soldier constructing pontoon boats to try to get access to more remote areas hit by the earthquake.

http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/JF-w9P9FKPc/

This is a image compilation for the earthquake. Rather characteristically, someone put some pretty cheesy music behind it. But its one of the most viewed videos on the Chinese youtube, tudou.com, which means millions of people are watching it. Its called “Wenchuan, Don’t Cry”

http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/lRpvOrI2mRI/

Finally, here’s another video of a girl in a hospital after she was rescued from a school that collapsed. You don’t have to know Chinese to know what they are saying. The girl thought she was dead, she says, everyone was screaming. She was trapped. Three hours later, her father found her. Her grandfather is still missing. She thanks her father, and he starts to cry, and she tells him not to cry, and then she cries herself. Everyone is else is dead, she says, I died too.

http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/E5FDrxSf9iI/

I don’t know. I don’t know if watching people suffering like this does anyone any good. I just hope they can tell that the rest of the country is suffering with them.

Images stolen from BBC.com and Nytimes.com

]]> http://www.fiferis.com/?feed=rss2&p=46 http://www.fiferis.com/?p=44 http://www.fiferis.com/?p=44#comments Thu, 15 May 2008 09:14:44 +0000 admin http://www.fiferis.com/?p=44 I was biking to work today and these constructions workers were rolling this giant contraption across the street. No idea what it is. The only thing I can think of is a fire hose but they’d sure have to think of a better way to move it around if they want to put out fires. Then again they are wearing construction helmets, so perhaps some kind of construction equipment? Dad? Guesses? Anyway, it was an awfully odd thing to have to dodge during the morning commute.

They all laughed at me when I stopped to take their picture.

Giant Mysterious Rolling Object

]]> http://www.fiferis.com/?feed=rss2&p=44 http://www.fiferis.com/?p=43 http://www.fiferis.com/?p=43#comments Thu, 15 May 2008 03:15:08 +0000 admin http://www.fiferis.com/?p=43 I’m reading “The Island of the Day Before” by Umberto Eco. A great title, and thus far a good book too.

In the book, a cultured and impious Parisian has this to say to the young protagonist. The year is 1638.

“You should drink coffee.”
“Coffee?”
“I swear that in a short while it will be the fashion. It is a panacea. I will procure you some. It dries the cold humors, dispels wind, strengthens the liver, it is the sovereign cure for hydropsy and scabies, it restores the heart, relieves bellyache. Its steam, in fact, is recommended for fluxions of the eyes, buzzing in the ears, catarrh, rheum or heaviness of the nose, as you will.”

I’m not sure what most of that means, but I heartily agree.

]]> http://www.fiferis.com/?feed=rss2&p=43 http://www.fiferis.com/?p=41 http://www.fiferis.com/?p=41#comments Wed, 14 May 2008 14:33:04 +0000 admin http://www.fiferis.com/?p=41 I got internet in my apartment! I could not be more pleased.

Also, I’m excited to have gotten so many responses. I love that, as Ship (my uncle) has highlighted, I have all kinds of people from all different parts of my life all reading the same blog. Anyway, its delightful to get comments.

Picture of the day:

An “Adult Only” store and some old men playing Chinese chess next door.

]]> http://www.fiferis.com/?feed=rss2&p=41 http://www.fiferis.com/?p=39 http://www.fiferis.com/?p=39#comments Wed, 14 May 2008 14:18:06 +0000 admin http://www.fiferis.com/?p=39 We all had the strangest experience today. I’m working on the six floor of our office building in downtown and suddenly I feel like I’m having a fainting attack. Like my inner ear has gone completely wacko and I’m thinking, I just got this job and I’m going to faint in the middle of the office and it’s going to be pretty embarrassing. And then the guy across from me said something about an earthquake, and the guy next to me said (in his British accent - all have British accents) that he thought he was going “wobbly.”

Anyway, there was an earthquake. Nothing shook or rattled, nothing fell. What was strangest was that every instinct in me told me that it was ME not the room that was moving. By the time we realized what was going on it was over. Anyway, we didn’t really know what to do. I looked outside and saw a lot of people gathering in front of the building. Should we evacuate, we wondered. My boss said “Well, I think we’d be in just as much trouble out there as we will in here.” (which is quite true.)And he decided to stay. I decided to go get a coffee (I was a little nervous, but mostly just following the crowd curiously.)

So everyone flooded outside and immediately got on their phones. I’m not sure who they were all calling, but calling someone was certainly my first instinct too. I guess we wanted to see what was going on. People stood around for a while and then headed back to the office.

Beijing, gathered on the streets, wondering what to do after the earthquake.

Of course when I got back inside I tried to see if there was any news about an earthquake. I was rather pleased to note that the danwei.org, my other job, was the very first site to have any information up. The first thing we heard was the a 7.8 hit Sichuan. I guess you all have heard the rest in the news.

]]> http://www.fiferis.com/?feed=rss2&p=39 http://www.fiferis.com/?p=37 http://www.fiferis.com/?p=37#comments Wed, 14 May 2008 03:45:38 +0000 admin http://www.fiferis.com/?p=37 I slept in this morning and then got on the phone with my dad. Finally I looked out the window and saw the most dramatic fire - or at least smoke - that I have ever seen. The picture doesn’t at all do it justice - I wish I could have taken a video. This column of black smoke was boiling into the sky, writhing and dancing like a live animal. It was quite exciting. Then, half an hour later (just as I began to hear fire truck sirens) the smoke slowed and then dissipated and there was nothing left to see. An exciting show first thing in the morning.

Living Column of Smoke

]]> http://www.fiferis.com/?feed=rss2&p=37 http://www.fiferis.com/?p=35 http://www.fiferis.com/?p=35#comments Wed, 14 May 2008 03:33:46 +0000 admin http://www.fiferis.com/?p=35 Still living in the courtyard hotel. I came across this guy when walking around Hohai lake. He’s writing with water. I’m not sure what he’s writing - I can’t even really read Chinese when it is right side up! At least two of you read Chinese - can you tell what it says?
He had a brush that was obviously specifically designed for this purpose. The characters are beautifully painted. What a creative afternoon activity. I thought it was awfully avanguard of him given that his ‘art’ will disappear within the hour.

Public Water Calligraphy

]]> http://www.fiferis.com/?feed=rss2&p=35 http://www.fiferis.com/?p=33 http://www.fiferis.com/?p=33#comments Wed, 14 May 2008 01:40:45 +0000 admin http://www.fiferis.com/?p=33 The plane ride here was totally easy - I got three whole seats on the New York-Beijing leg. I got up from my seat and went to an empty row before all the passengers were even on the plane. People were pretty annoyed at me since they had the same idea but were politely waiting for everyone to get on first. Oh well. I got to sleep!

I’m staying in a little family run courtyard hotel until I find myself an apartment.

At the foot of my bed there is a dresser with this stuck on it. It amuses me.

]]> http://www.fiferis.com/?feed=rss2&p=33