Frente de Mexicanos en Canada

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Journey to My Home: China and Hong Kong 2008 (Part Three)

In Memory of May 12^th Wenchuan Earthquake

Lee Siu Hin

June 21^st 2008

Dalian, China

I am currently at northern Chinese city of Dalian, China.

It’s been over month since the May 12^th Wenchuan earthquake, the largest earthquake in China for over 80 years that devastated millions of people, and killed nearly 70,000 people so far.

Western media and always bias against the disaster at non-western countries, it portraits people always people are desperately helpless refugees incapable to save themselves, just crying all the time without proper clothing, with words such as; ”poor” “remote” “helpless” “refugees” between western media lines and suggest the only savior/hopes for these victims are waiting western aids from western European people.

But I want to tell you the different stories of the Wenchuan….

The Wenchuan county, is locate at western Sichuan providence, one of the most historical regions in China, the completely destroyed city of Beichuan (who you frequently saw on the news picture), neighboring Wenchuan, is the center of Qiang and ethnic group, and the capital of Aba Tibetan Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, Qiang is very historical ethnic group formed date back China’s mythical period of 4,000-5,000 years ago. The region is also the center of ethnic Tibetans with many Tibetan Buddhist temples.

Wenchuan and Beichuan regions are famous its speculator mountain views, like Colorado in the U.S. it’s a very popular Chinese tourist destination. Wenchuan is also the home of wild Panda and the World famous Panda reserve and research center (it’s the same region where the animated movie “Kong Fu Panda” portrait). The region has strong industrial base and also a important area for China’s military industries, between the mountains there’s many aerospace and military factories.

The earthquake destroyed much of the economic and industrial base of the region, however, it doesn’t means that there’s no help.

There’s two very popular and powerful words created after the May 12^th earthquake:

“(We have) many people with strong will, (we will) fight against earthquake disaster and organize relief.”

“(we have) many (natural) disasters, (but we’ll able to build) better country (future).”

These few short words had shown the heart and minds of China and the Chinese nationalism. It’s simply a propaganda words—but a reflections of one of the key elements of cultural-social-political history of our country, that we frequently facing floods, earthquakes, wars, droughts and diseases—instead to accept this is god’s giving destiny to us, we need to fight against our fate for our own survival and to better a better future….

Within few hours after the earthquake, China organized massive rescue efforts with hundreds of thousands of soldiers, rescue workers and volunteers pour into the region with 24 hours, with quick and massive efforts to support and rebuild the area.

The Chinese TVs airs few hours per day--includes prime-time hours, for daily earthquake reports, the heroic stories of rescue workers, as well as the effort of rebuilding from earthquake. If you’re in China, you can feel the massive daily national mobilization to aid the earthquake: 46 billion Yuan (USD $6.6 Billion)—includes several thousand dollars from us--had been donated from people so far, thousands of soldiers, government and volunteer aid workers are continue helping victims building temporary shelters, offer medical cares and temporary schools for children.

I see Chinese bloggers asking, U.S. is the wealthiest country in the World with capable to launch two wars on the same time, but what they’d done in Katrina? At Post-September 11, and the current Midwestern flood?

It’s a good question every activists should think about what they mean when they’re “helping” other people.

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