Monday, May 12, 2008 was just like any other day. Except this was the day of my 19th birthday. As I turned on the TV first thing in the morning to CNN, one of the first news segments of the day was about the 7.9 magnitude earthquake that had just hit the mountainous region, WenChuan (汶川)county part of Sichuan (四川)province, located in the Southwestern part of China near Tibet.
I was literally shocked to the core upon hearing the news of such a tragic disaster. Almost immediately I began to bawl my eyes out as I heard about the escalating death toll of students trapped under the rubble and their parents desperately trying to find them amid the devastation, only to find the dead body of their child by the end of the day.
A feeling of utter helplessness overwhelmed me most of the day. I felt that I could not help the earthquake victims directly because I was all the way in New York and nowhere in China. In between classes I would constantly check on recent updates about the WenChuan earthquake online. The earthquake was all I could talk about with my peers and co-workers. I would inform other students about the earthquake and asked them if they had heard the news of the earthquake in China.
As the day let on, there was little time devoted to celebrating my birthday. The WenChuan earthquake had already become the fixation for my birthday. I decided to split the birthday money I received to help the earthquake effort by donating to The International Federation of the Red Cross and UNICEF.
Having stayed 3 years abroad in Shanghai at an international high school, I had developed the misconception of China becoming a developed country like the U.S. and Canada and that China was no longer a developing country. I had grown accustomed to the extravagance of the city and had forgotten how rural the countryside in China was. This tragic natural disaster made me realize that the superficial elegance I had seen in the cities of China was no remedy to cover up much of the poverty that was present in most of China.
Hi Lily,
ReplyDeleteI had a similar experience when there was an earthquake in Peru while I was in NYC. I understand how you felt but I think media and technology plays a key role in situations like this. When the earthquake hit Peru, communications went down and the internet connection was so slow that refreshing a site could take 10 or 15 minutes. Yet some connections back in Lima were available for people to update their facebook accounts. People also knew of their families through tweets. I think media in this case was extremely important for me to be in contact with my family. We can now check fb, twitter, and news on the phone at all times. That brings us closer to those who are physically far away.
This is another most memorable mediated experience for me. I was shocked when I looked at the news in the morning. When the earthquake had just happened, we did not get so much information from SiChuan, since the earthquake made SiChuan into chaos. It lost all the methods of communicating with the outside world. I went to some Chinese website for more information. This disaster had taken away so many people's lives. Some of the parents sacrifice their own lives in order to save their children, some of them rather to cut their arms or legs off to save lives, and some of the children were crying and terrifying. I guess they did not know what really happened to them. The city was dead. There were no ways that people can get in, beside the whirlybird. They dropped the foods and water to the people who still alive. Many people went to help SiChuan by their own wishes. The saving has been process 7 days, they tried their best to save people's lives. Even Though I was not in China, but I did donate money to help them. I just hope SiChuan can be recover as soon as possible.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, there were so many earthquakes happened in this year! They were in everywhere! I really hope there is not going to have any more earthquake. God Bless America!
I was just doing my morning routines when I found out about this news. Horrible, it was a devastating blow that I had. I do not have any families in China. However, I do have a few online friends who were studying there. They happened to be living around Sichuan region. When the disastrous event happened, connections were shut. I was worried sick. In my opinion, the media did not do enough to comfort the ones who are living in the US. The same clips were repeated with little hopeful updates per hour. It took my friends several weeks to be able to let us (in the US) know that they were alright. But, boy, it was such a long dreadful time to wait for a good news.
ReplyDeleteThis event reminded me of the tsunami that struck Indonesia a few years ago. None of my family was affected directly. However, it made me realize of how fragile developing nations are.
It's nice knowing that you spent some of your money to help out the revival process!