National outpouring and Earthquake curses

On Monday, May 19th, one week after the Sichuan earthquake struck, the first of three national days of mourning begun at 2:28 pm. I was at Chengdu’s Sports University, and stood behind a small assembly of university staff, lined up in rows, heads solemnly bowed, facing the Chinese flag atop one of the campus’ administrative buildings. As had been planned, emergency sirens, joined by car horns, filled the air in mournful chorus.

That evening, a large informal gathering took place at Tianfu Square, Chengdu’s answer to Tiananmen. As is common practice in Chinese urban centers, it is—as its name infers—a giant concrete square, headed by a statue of a waving Mao and dotted with fountains and large wire coil-shaped lights. From the outside, it looked like people had organized a giant vigil of sorts, with candlelights glowing both in hands and a number of gently ascending helium baskets. But upon entering the square, we could immediately see that the gathering was far less organized, and far more raucous.

Long chains of spontaneous marchers weaved through, filled mostly with students and young adults. Many were quite fashionably dressed in heels and colorful dresses; others wore more casual garb. They pumped their fists in the air as they chanted passionately, their voices heavy with emotion.

“Zhongguo Jiayou!” (“Go China!”) they chanted, followed by “Sichuan Chungsi!” (“Go Sichuan!” in Sichuanese).

Meanwhile, others set up small memorials of candle arrangements and flowers, on the ground and in existing flowerbeds. Wherever they were set up, a huge crowd of interested watchers surrounded the small vigil in concentric circles, digital cameras and phones snapping and filming away.

Perhaps most interesting were the wax clean-ups. I have never seen anyone scrape wax off of the floor—in a public square no less--as vigorously as these small half dozen-sized groups of citizens who took it upon themselves to clean off any candle wax left on the ground, from a memorial or otherwise. When asked why they were cleaning the floor, two young women replied: “Because we saw other people doing it.”

They used their hands, and often credit cards, to get beneath the wax, which was collected into small piles and quickly thrown out. This, in a country in which it is not uncommon to see children take dumps on the sidewalks (though sometimes newspaper is placed out beneath them first); where spitting is an unofficial national pastime. If this surge of national pride means less filthy streets, I think many will welcome such change. Somehow, though, one can’t help but feel that broader changes than street sanitation may result from all of this year’s events.


My group, finally managing to reunite due to limited cell phone service, decided a patio drink at one of the city’s riverside bars would be nice on this, a pleasant spring evening. It took a phone call to remind us that all bars were closed during the three days of mourning, and then a security guard at our apartment door later than evening, to inform us of the government’s (ill-founded) prediction of another major earthquake. In the ensuing pandemonium of traffic and blankets, we slept beneath a large One Child Policy statue.


Many Chinese see the earthquake as linked to a series of cursed events, often using numbers and local superstitions as proof. 2008 is seen by some as a cursed year, just as 1998, 1988 and 1978—the year of Mao’s death—were before it. From May 12th to August 8th—the start of the Olympic ceremony—are 88 days. The day of the earthquake, May 12th, as well as the Lhasa riots, April 13th, in sum total eight. When I asked my tutor why eight might be construed as cursed when it is also commonly linked to prosperity—the two words are similar sounding in Chinese—she wasn’t sure.

Even those ever-present, stuffed doll-ready Olympic mascots have been tied to the curse. Of the five, Jingjing the panda represents the earthquake, as pandas are found here in Sichuan. The Tibetan antelope mascot represents the recent Tibetan unrest, the kite mascot represents the city of Shandong, where a recent train crash occurred and the flame-red mascot represents recent tumult surrounding the torch relay. The only remaining mascot is Beibei, a sturgeon fish, linked alternatively to the Yangtze and to Beijing and the Games themselves.

Earthquake Diary

Earthquake Diary

Less than an hour’s drive from here is Dujiangyuan, the small town--previously famous only for its ancient irrigation system--that has become the focus of headlines the world over.

Here in Chengdu, only four days after what has been dubbed “The Great Sichuan Earthquake”, life has essentially returned to normalcy. Though most schools remain closed, some universities have resumed classes, and many shops and businesses have already restarted.

The earthquake at this point, for many Chengdu residents, is a psychological game of probability and worst possible scenario. Against the background of everyday life is the constant preying on the nerves of the possibility of another large quake. Jitters kick in with each successive apartment-jiggling tremor, lasting perhaps a few seconds but strong enough to remind us of what can—and has already—happened. The questions residents ask one another: “Is it alright to sleep inside tonight?”, “Should we still stay together at all times by this point?” are pondered over unrelenting waves of rumours and prophecy.

Text messaging—as with increasingly organized, rapidly mobilized protests—is the key instrument of viral rumors. They continue to spread, almost invariably warning of the “next big one.”

“My uncle works for the government’s earthquake bureau and he said there will be a big earthquake at 2:00 and 10:00 P.M.” one of them read. And, with people as shaken up and fearful as they are, they continue to react accordingly. They brace themselves for round two of the original quake, at whatever time it is supposed to strike, then, according to the next rumour, the following one, and again, a few hours after that, ad infinitum. To date, these wild speculative flurries have proven completely untrue, but not enough for those who cry wolf to stop calling.

Let’s hope the wolf does never come again, given how hungry for lives the first one was.

On Wednesday the water was turned off in parts of the city, due it appears to the leaking of toxic chemicals into Chengdu’s water supply. The rumour mill immediately kicked in, whispering that it would be off for a week. Within minutes, shops all over the city sold out of water as rampant hording began. A trip to the supermarket displayed bare beverage aisles a la past decades of patchy Soviet goods provision. With water no longer available, shoppers filled their carts with soda and orange juice: surely not the best way to combat dehydration in the event of a water crisis.

The rumours, yet again, proved to be unfounded.

Outside, from university campuses to parks and fields to any possible suitable space, makeshift villages of canvas have formed. Many have pitched hastily bought tents; others have made ingenious use of tarpaulin and rope, as thousands continue to sleep outside for fear of their home collapsing. Walking around camps earlier on there was a certain sense of adventure in the air. A friend described the evening of the quake as “like being at a music festival.” With work and school on hold, people found themselves on “emergency holiday,” and wasted no time in doing as the Sichuanese do so well: breaking out card decks and Mahjong tiles for some camp-out leisure and conversation.

But more recently, as days of sleeping outside with limited access to amenities lengthen, a sense of lethargic desperation has crept in. Some have begun to return to their apartments and dorms, but others have still been denied entry by cautious authorities and landlords. Others, stripped down to shorts and sandals, beneath canvas shade and supplies of instant noodles, choose the relative peace of mind of remaining outside, weathering the uncomfortable humidity of late Spring.

Meanwhile, the relief effort carries on, with fundraiser benefits, donation drives, volunteer sign-ups and the like. At a benefit event on Thursday evening, foreigners donned “I love China” t-shirts—perhaps to demonstrate their equal concerns for victims and the desire to take active part in the relief work--as they bid on wine auctions and filled in volunteer forms with relevant technical skills. In addition to the Red Cross and other NGOs heavily involved in the rescue effort are individual, self-motivated efforts, such as that of some of the Israeli students living in Chengdu.

I caught up with one of them, a Krav Maga instructor who I previously interviewed for a magazine article, who has been personally involved in the rescuing. When two Israeli travelers went missing and the country was considering sending its own rescue team for them, Eliran and a friend traveled out to the town where the women were supposed to have been traveling. They found the girls, in shock and attempting to walk back--a delusional idea--and took them back to Chengdu for surgery. One of the women had her broken jaw operated on and another lost a few fingers. It turns out that a restaurant had collapsed while they were inside.

My Chinese teacher has gone to a hospital in Deyang to help out with providing care and basic assistance to the many victims. Less direct in form but equally valuable are the many people who are dropping off blankets, sleeping bags and non-perishables at desperately under-stocked hospitals and field sites.

Despite all of these efforts, it’s difficult not to feel increasingly skeptical of the chances of pulling out more survivors from the rubble, this long after the initial quake. The death toll, well over 20,000 people at this point, is estimated to reach 50,000 people by the government.

On Rising Chinese Nationalism

Here in Chengdu, signals of China’s rising nationalism are everywhere.

In Sichuan University, Chinese flags hang from the windows of college dorms. Until recently, this was something one rarely ever saw.

A middle school student of mine told me he and his classmates want to plaster “Made in China” across their chests, as a symbol of pride, an inversion of the label commonly found on consumer goods available overseas. Another student of mine, who works for Nokia in Chengdu, told me that before the recent Tibet flare-up, many young Chinese didn’t feel particularly nationalistic, until they realized, following the Western coverage of Tibet and the torch relay, that there were “so many unfriendly nations” against China.

Rising Chinese nationalism is a common motif of Western foreign correspondents, up there alongside food and product safety scares and Tibet. They often talk about how nationalism has replaced Marxism as the country’s ideology, and of its rising potency as a force for democratic liberalization and a subsequent weakening of the Party. They also describe a sort of intense furor, one that infers future aggression in its relations with outsiders, such as through the country’s foreign policy.

The Olympics in China is, as one might imagine, a huge deal. I’ve never lived in a country during the Olympics and it’s to be expected that they would make a fuss over it, but the Olympics logo can be seen plastered on everything from ice-cream wrappers to television cartoons starring the Olympic mascots. For China, its government and its people, the Olympics is their coming-out party of sorts, in which it announces to the world its place as a global superpower, celebrating its rapid rise from poverty to prominence.

In addition, perhaps more so than people in other countries, Chinese take criticism of their own nation personally. A colleague of mine estimates that 80 percent of Chinese genuinely, passionately love their country, far more I would say than those from many Western countries. This is instilled at a young age in school, when students learn the “We Love China” pledge and reasons are plastered up on classroom walls. To me such nationalism is similar in zeal to the sort taught in American schools, both of which are far heavier than the comparatively cynical Australia.

So, in a situation such as this, where the Olympics has involved such enormous investment of national pride and international “face”, this more recent burst of negative press in the Western media was taken as a serious insult. The biggest case in point: when a Chinese wheelchair-bound athlete carrying the Olympic torch was attacked by protesters in France.

Following this, a nationwide boycotting of the French supermarket chain Carrefour took place on May 1st, a national holiday in China. According to a local, people stood outside the store encouraging potential patrons to shop elsewhere, and pictures were posted online of empty supermarket aisles.

Some might wonder what’s the big deal they’re making? It’s not like they were attacked and had thousands of people die, such as with 9-11, right?

Though true, I think that gives a severely reductive, almost mathematical explanation to a much more complex force. Nationalism is inherently emotive, and in China, it feels to many people like much of the world, not just a group of fundamental Muslims or a terrorist organization, are out to get them. In such circumstances, considering how ethnically homogenous and often ethnocentric (all non-Chinese are often lumped together in discussion as “waiguoren” – “foreigners”) China can be, it’s no wonder the tides of opinion towards the outside turns so quickly.
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I’ve not heard of any actual incidents of violence. One widely reported story of an American volunteer being attacked outside a Carrefour was later found to be false, when the alleged victim wrote into the newsblog himself, in order to correct the sensationalist version of the incident being reported.

But what does seem more common is for Caucasians in China to be treated much more wearily: whilst shopping, a British friend overheard a sales assistant say “I can’t believe that Frenchman has the nerve to show his face here,” and “I’m going to kill that Frenchman” from a man when in a public bathroom. He hasn’t been attacked, however, and does not fear it occurring. Outside my apartment complex, a Caucasian and a Chinese man were involved in a crowd-drawing shouting match, before the police took the Caucasian man away--to where I’m unsure.

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From discussions with locals and following online discussions, I think the major issue that irks young, educated Chinese about foreign relations is the ignorance and faux-sympathy of Westerners towards China. They’re agitated by the way may Westerners smugly hold that Chinese citizens are controlled by state media, mere blind pawns being drummed into a nationalistic fervor by their evil leaders. More so than anything else, it is this stripping of any sort of individual agency, as if they were passive machines, that outrages them.

They remind me that whilst they read both Chinese (state-run but also independent blogs and independent media) and Western (English-language) outside media, most Westerners do not read Chinese media (many are incapable of doing so).

They talk about how many of them have studied, traveled to and are reasonably knowledgeable about the West, but how little Westerners know about China, beyond the negative coverage they read about human rights and trade deficits.

One student said she used to believe that Western media was more trustworthy and balanced as a source of news, but following the Tibet coverage, her opinion was greatly lowered. Now she considers it not much different from Chinese media.

These young professionals are the more intellectually nuanced and well informed of Chinese society. Surely, other segments of the population are less thought-out and more non-discriminatingly angry and weary of the West at present. Much, one might notice, like it is in the United States or other Western nations.

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Interesting articles:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0501/p09s02-coop.html

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/JE07Ad02.html

http://ieas.berkeley.edu/shorenstein/1996.10.html

http://shanghaiist.com/2008/04/24/volunteer_in_ch.php