Earthquake!
I have received quite a few e-mails checking on me to make sure I’m okay after the earthquake. I didn’t even feel it and there was no impact here in Kunming. I haven’t talked to anyone here at the school that felt it but people in other parts of town felt it and said the highrises were swaying. Obviously, it is quite a tragedy and I suspect the number of deaths will far exceed what’s been reported so far. There are many villages and small towns that they have not talked about too much mostly because they are remote and difficult to get to as the area is mountainous and doesn’t have many good roads. Many of the roads were heavily damaged or blocked by rockslides. Many of the locals are suspicious about whether the government will reports all the facts accurately. There is a lot of coverage on tv with much of the footage showing the premier telling the workers to work harder to save the people and telling victims not to worry that the government will take care of them. This is the standard script for tv coverage whenever there is a disaster here. I have not heard any discussion about quality of construction issues that may have contributed to the deaths of many such as at the 2 schools where some buildings collapsed killing hundreds of students and teachers. In general, the quality of construction in most parts of China is poor compared to western standards. I chatted online this morning with a friend of mine in Chengdu (the capital of Sichuan province and less than 100 miles from the epicenter) and she said there was very little damage there but many people were sleeping outside and that last night she slept in her car because she was afraid of more shocks as they have been having many of them.
I forgot to mention in my last post some details about the May 1 (Labor Day) holiday. It was an official holiday but the students here had to participate in an Olympics celebration. In the morning they had to stand on the sports field in their designated area neatly lined up in rows and listen to some speeches then they all jogged around the campus carrying Chinese and Olympic flags. The day before was the start of the 100 day countdown to 8-8-08 (8 is considered a lucky number). There is Olympics coverage on tv everyday and even some special shows about the preparations, facilities, etc. Needless to say, it’s a huge deal for China and they are pulling out all the stops to put on a great show. They are having the longest torch run in history including taking it to the top of Mt. Everest which was covered live on tv. In order to have a trouble free relay to the top of Mt. Everest they prevented non-Olympic climbers that had already made commitments and plans, cancel their climbs shortly before their climbs were to begin. I think most of the people here are very excited and proud for their country to be hosting the Olympics. I don’t have any plans to attend any of the events as I don’t want to fight the crowds and I assume it would be very difficult to get tickets for the events I‘d be most interested in seeing.
The last thing I’ll comment about is about Chinese lifestyle regarding their kitchens. I have been in several local’s kitchens and on average they have about 5 to 10% of the stuff of an average American kitchen. They normally only have 1 to 3 cooking pots or pans and very few dishes and utensils (most of the time they use just one bowl at meal time). They don’t normally have a big pantry stocked with food or a big refrigerator filled. They use very few frozen foods so there is normally very little in a freezer. Because they don’t store a lot and since they don’t have cars that they can pull into a garage near the kitchen they normally only buy what they can carry at one time. This requires them to shop at least 2 or 3 times a week. I also keep very little in my kitchen (no room for a lot anyway) and shop at least 2 or 3 times a week. It’s amazing how few things you can get by with!
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