For the folks of Chengdu, life was beginning to get back to normal, when the media announced last Monday (19th) that there would be an aftershock of magnitude 6 or 7 in the next few days. This drove the hysteria levels way off the Richter scale! Most of the students in our building opted to sleep outside and the phone networks were jammed with anxious people trying to tell their friends about this news. As I guessed, it never came! However, our classes were cancelled for the whole week, as were a lot of other classes. Chinese paranoia really does drive people crazy! The Dutch students in our school, were send back to Holland by their school at home (1 guy decided to stay in Chengdu), and a group of newly-arrived (some arrived the day before the quake) American exchange students have been flown to Beijing to study in Tsinghua University instead of in ours. I think this is over-reaction on a massive scale. Chengdu is FINE!


Besides those happenings, we have been busy collecting money and buying stuff for our basic hygiene/relief kits (above). We reckon we have pulled in over 30,000 RMB (3000 euro), partly from collections here but mostly from donations from friends at home – thanks to all of you! A week ago, we made 100 kits, the second time, 300 and today we doubled that with 600 kits! I think we have become a lot more efficient with buying stuff and getting the kits prepared. Depending on funds that we are still waiting on, we should be able to do it once more!

A friend of mine, Adam Dean (a photographer who I knew from my time in Dalian), came to Chengdu to take picture of the earthquake. He went to the real disaster zone in Beichuan the first day, but I went with him the second day – to Dujiangyan and Mianyang. What did I notice? Well, the smell of disinfectant was pungent in the air in Dujiangyan. We visited what used to be a Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital – now just a pile of rubble:


We also visited the sites of 2 schools.

Notice in the above picture, the blackboards on the 3 upper floors.


The second of the schools (above) was one in which a lot of students died after the building collapsed. The ground was white with lime powder, maybe used to diffuse the smell of the many dead bodies that were dug from the rubble. When we went there, the salvage work had been done and there were no bodies. However there were some press there; pestering poor kids about what happened that fateful day.

Notice anything in common between the 3 pictures? Well, the schools had completely collapsed, however, surrounding buildings seemed quite ok. Seems like a lot of these buildings were cheaply and badly constructed, more than likely by corrupt government officials. Tofu engineering, as the Chinese call it. It is awful to think that this type of thing can happen. I was talking to some Chinese teachers about it today. They did say that this issue has come out in the media, and that the government will be making investigations. It will be interesting to see the findings.


All that aside, from what I hear from Chinese and foreign media (and my friend, the photographer), and from what I saw in the Refugee Camp in Mianyang stadium (above), the government is doing a very good job in the relief campaign. As some American classmates pointed out, it’s a lot better than the US response to Hurricane Katrina. The conditions in that camp seemed quite good, with lots of facilities including tent schools, toilets, food, and medical facilities. Also, I was watching Chinese TV tonight and saw the huge amounts of money donate by Chinese companies 0 most in the region of 3 to 4 million euro per company – and this was just in Shandong province. Just shows that there is plenty of money in China to support the earthquake victims and rebuild their lives.

Our oral Chinese teacher mentioned this, and I also heard it on TV: they feel that the Chinese government focused too much on the growth of the economy and not on human beings. They feel the earthquake is a huge wake-up call for China. I think it will change a lot of people’s attitudes towards life, including my own. I think one good thing that has come out of this terrible disaster is that people are really showing their care and support for our fellow human beings – a very positive step in the development of society.