Under the Rubble

On Tuesday, I left Sichuan for good. 

I mean, I'll be back - Chengdu will always be home to me.  But for me, my leaving marks the end of something significant.  The end of this long, sometimes painful gap year, to be sure, but also the end of my earthquake experiences.  

I am back in the states, trying to readjust to American life and, it seems to me, trying to readjust to real life.  To normal life.  To life without aftershocks, without fear of more quakes, without nightmares of collapsing buildings, without feelings of guilt for moving on with my life.  But maybe that fear and those nightmares and that guilt - especially that guilt - will remain with me always.

It's surreal though; something that loomed large in the national and public conscious of China means nothing here, in the states.  Yes, people donated money.  Yes, people cared, for a while.  Yes, it was in the news.  But people didn't live it.  People didn't tune in to the television for days after May 12th and just sit, staring, gaping, at the footage on the screen.  People didn't flock outdoors and out of Chengdu in an exodus of almost biblical proportions.  

No, here life goes on as it always has and, perhaps, always will.  And the truth is, I would like to go on as well.  That's why I'm back in the US, after all, so that I can more easily sever the ties of the past, of this gap year, and start college and continue with the rest of my life.  

And on the surface, I'm succeeding.  But underneath it all, it is extremely hard for me.  I don't know why it is proving so extremely difficult, because I haven't lost any family.  I wasn't buried in the rubble.  I didn't even do that much as a volunteer; I didn't carry corpses or attend to crying children or dig through debris.  And yet I feel so physically and emotionally drained, so afraid still, so - guilty.

I guess the irony is that whenever someone commented on how life-changing this experience must have been to me, I always denied it.  I didn't feel that different.  I didn't do anything that significant.  But now that I look back on it, I think that it must have been.  It's just that whatever change that has taken place has been so subtle and...underwhelming that it didn't feel life-changing at all. 

You would think that after an 8.0 earthquake and 18291 aftershocks (as of July 17th), nothing short of a(nother) 8.0 could shake me up.  And the truth is, most of the time, the aftershocks are too small to be felt.  And when they are big enough to be noticeable, chances are, I won't have noticed.

But sometimes, like seven minutes ago at 12.41 am, they are big enough to rock my bed and shake the glass hanging lights and my mirror and I notice. I definitely notice.

And suddenly I'm holding my breath, freezing again, as I wait for it to pass - or to turn into something much bigger.  Because on the 12th of May, it started small as well.  But the tremors escalated until they became the violent devestation that I have written so much about.

So, while the terror and panic in Chengdu has all but disappeared, I am still...afraid.  It must be some sort of joke; when I should have been afraid, terrified even, and panicking on May 12th, I couldn't muster up quite the same level of fear as my fellow civilians...and now, it's my turn.

Oh the irony.  老天爷 must be having a good laugh at my expense.

*老天爷 (Lao tian ye) is, in Chinese tradition, the Grandfather/Lord of the Skies.

Last week (or was it the week before? ) my mother and I went to see the earthquake exhibit at Chengdu's Musuem of Science and Technology.  It was very well done, extremely moving and informative, and rather surreal to see places that I have seen, places that I have stood and sat, depicted in such an official manner.

But though official, the photos were anything but cold. 

In fact, seeing those images made me cry, something that even seeing the real things failed to do.  Maybe it was seeing those collapsed buildings and sad human beings immortalised in image that finally made it all real to me.  Because before that, the magnitude of the destruction was such that it could seem surreal, a ghoulish fantasy imagined in my own head.  But seeing the images surrounded by the curious, solemn visitors, confirmed that yes, it was all real.  I cried, then, for the reality.  Or maybe because when I was in front of the real thing, I was, except for that time in Hanwang, busy.  I didn't have time to stop and think and feel; there was too much to do.  That was what kept the grief at bay. 

That is not to say that while volunteering, I was robotic.  I laughed and I smiled and I grimaced and I frowned.  I listened and I encouraged and I gave out candy and patted children on the head and placed my hand on soldiers' shoulders.  But I did not cry.  Crying would have made it too much to bear.  I would have fallen apart then and there.

  
The exhibit photo and my own, seen from the front and back of the building (Hanwang)

EDIT: First noticeable aftershock in weeks. Relatively big, lasted at least 15 seconds, moveable shaking of mirror pane, clothing, and lights... 

I've gotten rather negligent with my blogging lately, as I took a citybreak to Hong Kong this weekend. There's a lot to update on so in congested form:

• As of last Thursday, roads into Sanjiang (from my previous post, Going in...) were cleared again, so supplies were no longer so direly needed (which is partly why I ended up in HK this weekend.)
• The earthquake exhibit in Chengdu's Science and Technology Musuem, which I visited last week, will continue until July 20th. The exhibit is excellent, by the way, and I'll have more regarding that in a later post.
• I have managed to hook up the foreign and Chinese volunteer efforts that I have been involved in; we got supplies to take into Sanjiang, they got contact numbers from the Chinese team's last visit to Qingchuan. Result: a summer camp in Qingchuan starts tomorrow.
• At a dinner with volunteers last week, I found out, firsthand from one of the organizers, that there are plans for a travelling cultural performance to thank China and the world for its help. It's still in initial planning mode, but it's going to be big. Andy Lau, top Cantopop/Chinese cinema star has been contacted.
• The latest official numbers (according to the Xinhua website) are: 69167 deaths, 374176 injured, and 18379 still missing.
• And check out the online memorial here 

Ever since the earthquake of May 12th, the Chinese people has been riveted by individual stories of courage, strength, and the human spirit.  The 9-year-old who, after escaping his collapsed school, went back in and carried two more students out on his back.  The teenager whose first words were, after being pulled out of the rubble, "Uncle, I want a Coca-Cola - a cold one."  The "Police Mommy", who saved several infants that would have died without her breast milk.

But a new kind of hero has emerged - and this time, they aren't even human.

Two pigs, in seperate places and times, were rescued after being trapped under their collapsed pig pens.  The first, nicknamed "The Strong Pig", survived 36 days under the rubble and the second, now known as "The Pig as Strong as Steel", survived 49 days!

The Strong Pig (SP) survived by drinking rain water and eating charcoal, while The Pig as Strong as Steel (PSS) survived on a diet of grass and rainwater.  Both were around 150 kg (approx. 330 lbs)at the time of the quake, and both lost a significant amount of their body weight.  SP had withered down to 1/3 of its original weight, while PSS was 50 kg lighter.

These two Pigs of Wenchuan have become the hot topic of conversation in their respective communities.  Not only have they helped to lighten the mood, they have also become a symbol of the will to survive.

(Original reporting, with photos, here and here.)

The other day, as I was passing through the elevator lobby, a commercial for earthquake relief began to play on TV, and the security guard sighed, "It's already been more than a month, and they're still going on about 抗震救灾 'Anti-Earthquake Disaster Relief'!"

His, unfortunately, has become a common reaction.  For Chengdu'ers, for the Chinese at large, and for the rest of the world, the Wenchuan Earthquake is being relegated to the domain of memory.

And I mean, that's a good thing.  People are recovering.  Life is going on.  But not everyone can so easily move on, or so easily forget.  Their ruined houses and schools, their passed away relatives, their lack of access to electricity and water make it impossible.

And I suppose that it's for them that I'm still in this.  Though my home and school still stands, though none of my relatives have died, though I still have water and electricity, I can't forget or move on quite so easily.  I think that that is just a part of who I am.  Whether with my on-again off-again boyfriend or with old friendships that have gradually grown apart or with natural disasters such as this, I have problems letting go.  But in this case, my inability to move on is, at the least, turning into something productive.

And so it is that this week, I am going into 三江 (Sanjiang) again to deliver more supplies.  That stretch of road pictured in the last post, at which we waited three hours for it to be cleared out, is once again buried under countless kilos of earth.  That leaves the people of Sanjiang cut off, again, from basic medical and life supplies.  The plan is to leave Chengdu Friday afternoon, driving as far as we can, with our van filled with medicine, basic hygiene necesities like soap, shampoo, sanitary pads, food etc.  Then we will load everything from the car onto our backs and begin the 15 kilometre hike into Sanjiang.  At 8 kilometres or so, our group will split into two.  Two will continue the 7 kilometres more to Sanjiang, dropping off supplies to communities on the way, and the remaining two will set up a refilling station at kilometre 8, providing food, water, etc, for those coming down, namely the refugees leaving the disaster-stricken (again!) area and the soldiers that must make the daily hikes in and out of Sanjiang.

Wish me luck.

Days before the landslide that covered this entire area, volunteers made their way in on foot, June 25 

Got back Thursday from the epicentre - in one piece, surprisingly.  I got hit in the face, on the bridge of my nose to be more specific, by a flying rock, but other than that small bruise/boo-boo, I'm OK.

I remember way back when on May 13th (12th?) that Prime Minister Wen Jiabao declared that he wanted all roads to Wenchuan cleared and ready for use within 24 hours.

Of course he didn't realize it at the time, but his request was asking for the impossible. 

A month and a half later, a lot of progress has been made, but roads are still not entirely cleared or ready for use.  Continuing aftershocks and rainstorms send more dirt and rocks crashing down onto cleared roads, and suddenly workers must start all over again.

On Wednesday, our small team of volunteers headed first into三江 (Sanjiang/Three Streams) before heading into Yingxiu,.  The road into 三江had been cleared only two days before.  For the month and a half before that, the People's Liberation Army had to bring supplies in by foot, creating roads where there were none, climbing over mountains of fallen sediment. (I think that makes us the first group of volunteers to enter the village.)

The photo above was taken on s such a road, where to one side was the fallen half of a mountain with small rocks constantly making the downward slide, and where to the other was a rain-flush river rushing by hundreds of feet below us. 

As you can see in the photo, the roads were muddy. This particular car got stuck in the mud, and it took all of the passengers in the truck behind it, as well as our volunteer group (wearing the orange hat) to get it out of the mud.

But even that was nothing.  On the road to Yingxiu, we had to wait for three hours as workers cleared the road.  And we weren't the only one - at least fourty cars and trucks were lined up on each side waiting to be allowed through.  These included official government and military vehicles as well.  For once, they had to wait along with the rest of us.

More reports from the front line to come.

Yesterday I went to Pingwu, one of the worst-hit earthquake areas, to deliver medical supplies. Although I have looooots of stories, this post isn't going to be about them.  This post is about all of the selfless soldiers of the People's Liberation Army.

I have never been a particular fan of army boys.  Not that I had anything against them or anything, I just personally did not find them as swoon-worthy as some of my fellow gals evidently did.  But now... I am definitely a huge fan of our 解放军哥哥. 

It's the latest fangirl craze, it seems.  Sorry to disappoint Andy Lau...my heart belongs to the People's Liberation Army.  A search for 解放军哥哥 (which translates into PLA Big Brother - though not at all in an incestuous way, calling someone little sister/big brother is a term of endearment) will probably turn up with the picture etc of this soldier. The title of the post is, "Searching for all information on the most adorable soldier!!" I haven't read all ten pages of fangirl comments, but I'll keep looking. I too, am curious. Is he smiling? Laughing? Crying? Overwhelmed by sadness? Who is he? Whatever the answer, a manly man holding, and being moved by, a tiny baby is the key to any woman/fangirl's heart.

Anyways, this is one "craze" on which I have wholeheartedly jumped on the bandwagon.  These guys deserve our respect, compassion, and admiration.  They come from all around China - some from areas also hard-hit by the quake - and many of them are just teenagers, far from home and all that is familiar.  They work selflessly and continuously, while volunteers go home, while the nation's attention gradually turn to other issues, while the aftershocks and the landslides and the threats of flooding and disease loom over their heads.  The disaster victims' reality has become their reality, and thus they are no longer mere rescuers of disaster victims; they too have become victims.

So this post is, in short, to thank these brave soldiers.  Whatever your politics may be, whatever you may think of China, you cannot look into the eyes of one of these men's (boy's?) without being moved.

As our caravan of cars was still waiting for permission from Red Cross Command to enter Qingping, these People's Liberation Army soldiers were headig out after having dug for hours.  All of our feelings of uselessness, all of the menial chatter died away as they passd.  Someone started clapping, and soon the ghost town was filled with applause. (May 16)

On my second trip into Hanwang, I saw these soldiers taking a break from their long hours.  It was a rare moment of levity, as they cracked jokes and watched the few females with interest - though not in this picture (oh heart of mine, why dost thou pound so quickly?). Note the Chinese flag and the sign behind them, common to restaurants and stores, which translates "Welcome and please enjoy our services".  (June 8/9?)

In hard-hit Nanba Village, a soldier walks past an uninhabitable building.  There's something about this photo that seems full to me of desperation.  The soldier was walking away from a group of 12+ other PLAs; they were still digging through the rubble.  For what though? Bodies? Goods? Or were they just getting rid of the debris?  They say that to reconstruct, they must first get rid of all ruins and ruined buildings - this one behind the soldier presumably included.  So much to do...there's something dejected, almost, in his walk. (June 21)

An officer signs our little book of donated goods, while some of his men look on.  These soldiers, from 济南， 山东 / Jinan, Shandong Province at first refused to take the gloves, face masks, and medicine that we offered them.  But with some convincing, they accepted our goods.  Many soldiers like these had been working without face masks or wearing the same one-time-only face mask for days on end.  Hopefully, with the 400+ face masks that we've left them, we have changed that... (June 21)

For more of my pictures of these brave, handsome soldiers, check out photobucket or for more of my photos on the quake in general, flickr.  Please don't reprint these photos, or any others on my blog, without giving due credit.

I love rain.  Really.  I do.

I love that on rainy days, I have to balance my umbrella with one hand and control my bike with the other.  Sometimes, that task proves to be a tad too difficult, and I get hit by cars.

Like this morning.

But really.  I love rainy days.  I love the cold sheets of icy rain that pelt my legs despite all my attempts at keeping them dry.  I love the BMWs and Mercedes whose owners, the nouveau rich, splash by at The Fast and the Furious speeds, drenching we less fortunate souls stuck on two wheels or, even worse, two legs.  And I love getting hit by cars.  Really.  I do.

To be completely fair, I shouldn't have been there, in the middle of the road.  But in my defense, I was trying to cross said road, and I checked to make sure that there were no cars coming from either direction.  And it wasn't as if I randomly swerved into position.  I was definiltey there, making my slow, careful crossing.  So you would think that any driver would slow down at the piteous sight of me slowly making my way across the street.

Which, of course, my attacker did not do.  Forward he charged, and I tried to move out of his way, but it was too late.  At least it was not a head-on collision, because neither I nor my bike would have survived that.

But hey, no sweat.  I love getting knocked to the rain-flooded street, with my bike falling on top of me.  I love wearing bright blue badges of pain on my knee.  I love darting back into the road, dodging cars, to pick up the pieces of my bike's broken bell, and finding with terror that my brake is now in a distinctly different position than before the incident, and that my pedal is now curved instead of straight.  It's all part of the glamour of rainy days.

Because that's what rainy days are: glamourous, romantic, full of puddle stomping and dancing and swirling and catching raindrops on your tongue... and getting hit by cars.  It's about wearing wellingtons and cute raincoats, flowers blooming, grey mist, sitting in front of a roaring fire in your private library with a cup of tea and reading English classics.

Oh and I almost forgot.  Rainy days are also about quake lakes, and the glamour and romance of being washed away by one of them.  Though 27 of the 34 are no longer imminent threats (as of June 18th), well, if our rainy little friends keep being as friendly with Sichuan as they are today, we might get to hear the rumbling waters rush towards us at The Fast and the Furious speeds, and then feel our bodies carried away, light as feathers, with the violently playful current.

Yep.  Rainy Days.  I love them.  I really do.

In the days before the earthquake, my father and I were barely speaking.

On the morning of May 12th, he got on a plane to Dalian - as much, I suspect, for business reasons as to escape our unbearable silences. I welcomed the trip.  Some time by myself, I thought, was exactly what I needed.

So at 2.28, I was - as I had hoped - alone.  But in the three minutes that the earth trembled and the countless hours afterwards that I remained trembling, being alone was the last thing that I wanted.  So when the airport reopened and my father took the first flight he could home, the cold silences were replacd by a sincere warmth that neither of us could have hoped for in the days prior.

Ours wasn't the only relationship shook around and changed by the quake.  A Chinese website, 北方网's June 2nd headline read, "The Earthquake Causes Huge Changes - Divorce Rates at a Five Year Low".  One couple, as reported by the New York Times, had marital problems pre-quake, but being buried together gave them time enough to work out their differences.  They promised each other that if they both survived, they would start over.  Both of them were, in the end (or the beginning?) pulled out alive from the debris.

Of course, the earthquake's effect was not, obviously, quite as rose-tinted as these examples might suggest.  Numerous anecdotal reports (if you read Chinese, here and here) tell of couples who, as a unit, could not survive its devestation. 

The first link tells of a woman whose husband who, out of Sichuan for work, showed no concern for her nor his parents, who were turned into 灾民, disaster victims.  He sent three text messages after the quake, one of which contained only: "Busy." The wife, understandably, was furious. In Chinese, the word 亲人, relative, could be best translated as "loved ones," someone that is close.  As she said, "What is a relative? A relative is someone that, when something bad happens, you think of first, that you want to be close to."  She concluded that her goals for the future were to get a divorce and to adpot an earthquake orphan.  Together, she said, she and the orphan, who shared the victim's terror, could learn to be strong together.

The second link tells the all-too-common tale of the husband that, on May 12th at 2.28, rushed out of the house in fear for his life, leaving his wife to fend for herself.  This particular husband, at least, remembered his wife when he had reached the bottom of the apartment stairs.  But the damage was done.  Though he later got on his knees and begged forgiveness, according to his wife, Ms. Zhang, "In dire moments, you see just how much your love is worth."

I always joke that it took an earthquake to get my father and I to speak again, but fun and games aside, Ms. Zhang's words ring true.  Despite everything that he may or may not have done, in my moment of loneliness and fear, in that most dire moment, I saw just what our love was worth.

For graduating Chinese high school students, these past few days have been the culmination of their years of hard work: the 高考, or secondary school exit exam, began on June 6th.

For the students of Sichuan and, more specifically, the hardest hit earthquake zones, the exam has been doubly significant.  That they could take place at all, amidst continuing aftershocks, fears of flooding and landslides, and other less-than-ideal conditions, is a testament to the students' strength and determination.

In fact, in the Sichuan test's essay section, the topic was particularly appropriate.  Students were asked to write 800 words on "坚强", or strength.

Though my response will be far short of the required 800 words (not to mention in the wrong language), here's my take:

Strength is...

• 11-year-old Zhang Jiwan, who trekked for 12 hours through roadless, mountainous terrain to bring his sister, whom he carried on his back, out of Beichuan to safety.
• a mother's love. 21-year-old Yang Xiao Ying of Wenchuan was, when I met her, almost completely paralyzed from her waist down when her house collapsed on her. Her infant, however, got by with a couple of scrapes because she had used her body to protect her child. Another mother continued breast-feeding her infant daughter while buried under the debris; when finally dug out, dead, by rescue workers, the note on her cell phone said: "Remember that your mother loves you."
• The Chinese soldiers, some of them with affected family of their own, who have worked selflessly and relentlessly for the past month to rescue and rebuild.  An untold number (according to accounts of refugees and witnesses, MUCH higher than the official count）have sacrificed their lives in the effort.
• a teacher's responsibility. When Tan Qianqiu, 51 (what a poetic name, Qianqiu means Thousand Autumns!) was finally pulled out of his fallen school, it was too late to rescue him.  He was found with his arms spread out, keeping four students out of harms' way.  The four students all survived.
• Dujiangyan, the irrigation project built 2300 years ago (and still in use today,) which has survived the earthquake with only small cracks.
• The unbreakable spirit of 四川人，the Sichuanese people.  Despite everything that they have lost, what remains with them is their generosity, graciousness, optimism, and sense of humor.  I cannot count the times that upon entering a disaster zone as a volunteer, I have been offered rather than able to offer water and food, nor the number of jokes that have arisen about the quake. (What's worse than an earthquake? An earthquake prediction. What's worse than an earthquake prediction? An earthquake prediction that's wrong.)
• In our hearts.  The motto of the earthquake and relief work has unofficially became: 万众一心，众志成城 which roughly translates:

10,000 hearts beating as one
The will of the people like a ctiy's wall will protect us.

I always knew that on entering the earthquake zone, I might very well come face to face with death, but it never occured to me that death would come in the form of an adorable ball of fluff.

I spent the day in Hanwang, where cityfolk once flocked to escape the sweltering summer heat.  The tourists still come, don't get me wrong, but this time to gawk at ruined buildings.  Though I hate to think of myself as one of them - I always thought myself, even in more convential "tours", somehow superior to the typical tourist - the truth was that I was in Hanwang for more or less the same reasons as they. 

My uncle, a worker at the Dongqi Steam Turbine Factory, Hanwang's major employer, was on hand to give us a private tour of the ruined - and abandoned city.  He was an excellent guide; not only was his job - and that of his father´s - at Donqi and Hanwang, but he had also grown up around the city.  He kept my father and I entertained with amusing anecdotes about the day-to-day life of the Dongqi workers, who still worked in Hanwang, as well more somtber stories about the deaths and missing persons and other details of the quake.  My uncle amazes me; even after losing his apartment (as well as his parents' flat) to the earthquake, even working under the constant fear of landslides and floods, he manages to be the happiest, most cheerful person I know. 乐观, "le guan", that's the Chinese word for it.

Anyways, part of our guided tour was the Coal Miners' housing development. After brandishing his ID card a few times, he managed to convince the man standing guard at the entrance that we were residents returning for our things. And so we entered, and I saw death.

I couldn't move. 

At first, I suppose shock and horror held me in place.  Lying on the ground like some discarded belonging, was the corpse of a weeks-old kitten.  Its delicate body, small enough to fit in the palm of my head, was, other than the filth in its fur, all-white.  Behind its head was a dark red stain. 

Then, I was transfixed for I heard mewing.  Now the Coal Miners' apartments, in various stages of falling apart, had been abandoned since May 12th, when its residents hastily ran out, leaving behind shoes and desks and books strewn around the road and clothing still hanging - and swaying - in the wind.  The buildings were cracked, and debris was everywhere.  The already eerie silence was made even eerier by the sudden mewing that seemed sourceless - unless it came from the corpse of this cat.

Luckily, no ghost kitties today.  Out of an uprooted cardboard box crawled the scrawniest, most pathetic-looking feline I have ever seen.  The same age as its dead brother, its orange fur was matted and dirty, its left eye glued shut, and its every movement slow, arduous, painful.  Even its kittenly fluff could not hide the bones portruding from its body.  And it wouldn't stop mewing.

The kitten that haunts me 

"There's a kitten!" I yelled. "And it's alive!" My dad and uncle were a little ways ahead of me, but they immediately hurried back towards the poor animal and the helpless human.

"Don't touch it!" My uncle commanded.  I was looking around for something to wrap it up in, but again I remained motionless. "How do you think it survived all of these days on its own?" He asked. "There are so many dogs and cats in the streets , and no one has the patience or ability to deal with them. Their owners are dead.  They're eating corpses to survive!"

I hesitated. I didn't want to rescue a cat that would later infect all of Chengdu with some strange disease.  But on the other hand, I couldn't leave it behind...

"人家想救小孩，你还要救只猫 !" He shook his head incomprehensibly.  How could I worry about saving kittens when others worried about saving children? he had thought. 

And so I left.

I should have taken that cat.

I should have played the EWW card (emotional western woman - you always see her in movies and increasingly, real life).  I should have been Tessa Quayle and, despite everyone´s thinking me insane, nursed the kitten back to health.

Maybe it wouldn't have been akin to saving a child, but there were no children to be saved - and there was that cat.  Instead I left, trying to justify myself with the thought that it most likely was diseased, that it might not have survived and in my attempts at curing it, I could be infecting myself and others of scary sicknesses.  So to avoid those what-if scenarios, I left it behind to fend for itself.

I left it behind to die.

The only time that I could have saved a life, I chose not to.  Now that's something that will haunt me.