by marco
Sun May 18th, 2008 at 11:58:55 AM EST
A young American guy I know has been living in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, China, for the past three years and has been blogging about the earthquake from there. Here is his latest post, "
China handles business" (re-printed with his permission):
President Hu Jintao made it to Dujiangyan today and shook hands with Prime Minister Wen Jiabao.
Today I took a ride with a civil engineer and a security and infrastructure assessment expert around the northwest suburbs of Chengdu. We visited Chongzhou, Qingcheng Mountain and the outskirts of Dujiangyan.
The purpose of the trip was to give the security's expert's clients -- corporate clients -- an idea of the damage done in Chengdu and the economic impact on their businesses.
We saw hundreds of vehicles heading north out of Chengdu toward Dujiangyan -- a veritable rag tag fleet i.e. Battlestar Galactica -- loaded up with water, blankets, clothes and instant noodles. Many of these vehicles were turned back by police. Some of them dropped their supplies off, others were not able to.
The reasoning behind this was explained by the civil engineer, who has extensive experience in disaster areas such as Sudan and West Africa in the 1970s and 80s and more recently in Indonesia after the tsunami. A lot of times, well-meaning volunteers create more problems than they solve. Often with tragic consequences.
What all of us have seen here is in direct contrast with the situation we saw in New Orleans during and after the tsunami. The sense of social responsibility in China does not exist in our society. Any person who would actually dare to loot, pillage, shoot someone or rape during this time of crisis would be lynched by the neighborhood before the police even heard of it. But the point is, it would never happen here.
We saw the wave of nationalism that took over the nation following the Tibetan protests and the media wave that followed. This ability to unite is in full force again and the world is now seeing the flip-side of a united China -- determined instead of aggressive.
After the government and the people of China showed that they can mobilize quickly and efficiently, the western media flip-flopped from criticism of government efforts to praise for a China that has "finally learned" how to be civilized. It smacks of civilizational fear.
Anyway. In Qingcheng mountain everybody is living in tents, all houses and buildings have been damaged in some way or another, but its extraordinary that the vast majority of these buildings are still standing. I know that the areas farther north closer to the epicenter are decimated and in ruins, but near the outer edge of the earthquakes impact, almost all buildings -- although maybe shaken -- will house people again in the near future.
