5-12-08

Today marked the beginning of three days of mourning for the deceased from the earthquake. At 2:28, the precise time of the quake last week, I was sitting in my office and then heard some car horns out side. Nothing unusual, until more and more cars began honking their horns. I went to the balcony and checked and saw cars, buses, bicyclists and pedestrians pause in the street for three minutes. Not all stopped and I'm sure many, like me, didn't get the notice about the mourning. For the next three days all Karaoke, discos and pool halls are closed and a message has gone out urging people to remain solemn for these three days. After I got off work today, I was surprised when I came home to find that all TV programming had stopped except for national news. All Hong Kong channels, Phoenix TV, and Star Channels were blocked or ceased broadcast to honor the dead. Even the some web pages are putting on a dark suit. Pictured is www.sina.com a web portal similar to Yahoo! that is usually littered with colorful headlines, floating banner adds and lots of pop ups. But today Sina has changed all of its web colors to black and gray. Even Google is showing respect, and using there powerful search engine to help out. The Chinese google site (www.google.cn) home page has a link to account numbers people can donate to as well as a site made by Google that lets people search for the names of family members effected by the earthquake.

As for me, I was safe in Guangzhou when the earthquake happened. I found out about half an hour later when someone told my colleague, a native of Sichuan, about it over the internet. When I saw via Facebook that friends as far apart as Kunming and Beijing felt it, I knew it must be pretty bad. However I don't think I was prepared for the actual devastation caused by it: an estimated 50,000 dead and nearly five million left homeless.

The images on TV all the time show the urgency of the rescue efforts, and some remarkable cases of people being saved. One young man was pulled out after 60 hours buried in rubble. He was barely conscious, but then the people crowded around him erupted in joy when he began moving his arms. He spoke softly, and the rescue workers leaned down to listen. "Uncle, uncle...please bring me a Coca cola...a cold one please."

But unfortunately stories like that are outnumbered by far more images of collapsed schools, countless homeless and the grief stricken.

Below the google banner, written in white on a black backdrop, it reads "让我们永远铭记这一刻，原逝者安息，生者坚强" "Let this moment forever be engraved in our minds. May the dead rest in peace, and may the living stand strong and firm."

I can get behind that.