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China's quake homeless endure with stoicism
Mianzhu, China (AFP) June 12, 2008 His home destroyed and future uncertain, 51-year-old welder Jiang Cheng would seem to be at his lowest ebb as he swelters in a camp for those displaced by China's earthquake. But Jiang and thousands like him are taking the ordeal in their stride, in a testament to the legendary stoicism of China's masses. Many, too, are thankful for the help of the nation's ruling Communist Party. "We will get past this with the help of the government and party. You'll see," Jiang said, squatting outside his government-issued tent on a hot morning to escape the 40-degree Celsius (101-degree Fahrenheit) heat within. "Just look at what they've done for us already," he added, waving a sweaty hand at the camp on a football pitch in quake-scarred Mianzhu city. One month after the earthquake in Sichuan province left nearly 90,000 people dead or missing, thousands of survivors who lost homes and loved ones now face a hot, humid summer in the makeshift camps. They have surrendered their privacy in communal showers and toilets and make do with makeshift schools, kitchens and hospitals, yet many are still counting their blessings. Zhou Zhensong, 64, now lives in a camp in a vacant lot in the city of Dujiangyan with his wife He Xiafeng, 58, after their home collapsed. Their 30-year-old son and seven-year-old grandson both died. They will now have to relay largely on his meagre pension in their old age. But though He bursts into tears repeatedly over their dead loved ones, they resist self-pity. "With the current situation, we shouldn't ask for too much, and what the government has provided is really helping us affected people," Zhou said. "From the bottom of my heart, as a survivor, I am thankful." The earthquake destroyed millions of buildings and China has mounted a huge effort to shelter and feed the estimated 15 million displaced. As the wait begins for more permanent accommodation, the camps have become poignant facsimiles of normal life for their traumatised populations. "Hold it higher or I'll cut your ear off," displaced hair stylist Liang Wen told her "customer" Ma Zhengyi, who held an umbrella against the sun during a haircut. The outdoor free "barber shop" consisted of a metal chair and a propped-up mirror. "Earthquake or not, people still need haircuts, right?" she told AFP, drawing laughs from a crowd. Like others, the Mianzhu camp has a kitchen providing free meals and a small "supermarket". In a makeshift "hospital" on a tennis court, patients connected to intravenous drips sat chatting on beds. Nearby, displaced students huddled over metal desks in a tent "school" reciting random English phrases in unison, "What time is it? Is there a problem? Leave me alone." The camps hark back to the era of communist founder Mao Zedong when calamities, both natural and man-made, were accepted stoically as a part of life, best endured with the support of one's "work unit". China's rapid and massive disaster response so far has been praised worldwide, but no more effusively than by the quake's victims. A ubiquitous sight in the quake zone is a white t-shirt reading "I Love China" worn by man, woman and child alike. The scenes stand in sharp contrast to other recent disasters, including neighbouring Mynamar's heavily criticised cyclone response, and the thousands stranded for days by a sluggish US reaction to the Katrina disaster. At a tent camp in Dujiangyan, some found comfort in comparing Sichuan's pain to a 1976 earthquake in the northern Chinese city of Tangshan that killed at least 240,000, the deadliest earthquake in modern times. Xiang Qian, a medical doctor, admitted tough times were ahead as he sat outside his tent reading a Chinese copy of "The Pickwick Papers" borrowed from the Dujiangyan camp's "library". The camp also has ping pong tables, children's play tents and nightly movies -- when there is electricity. "We will have to eat bitterness for a while," said Xiang, who notes that his Chinese name is a homonym for "move forward". "But the sun rises again each day." Community Email This Article Comment On This Article Share This Article With Planet Earth
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All schools in China to be inspected for quake-resistance
Beijing (AFP) June 11, 2008China has asked all schools to check the quake resistance of their buildings, an official said Wednesday, after thousands of children died in the Sichuan earthquake. |
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