First, the weather here has definitely turned into summer. Our days have been into the mid 90’s with high humidity, and we’re about to melt. We haven’t had much rain, though we have had two or three days of respite in the last month, and for the past two days it has been very windy, winds in the 35-45 mph range which blows so much dirt they call them sandstorms here. The Gobi Desert starts only 15 miles North of Beijing, so when we get a Northwest wind it brings part of the desert with it. The air was so nice on Wednesday that we opened our windows to air our apartment out, but by bedtime we had a layer of dirt on everything in our house! You could see footprints in the dirt on the floor where we walked, so we closed all the windows again and turned on our air conditioners. One of them is right over my computer, so I caught bronchitis again and feel crummy. ReNee has me on antibiotics, so hopefully I’ll get over it in a few days. One of the natives here yesterday said, “I hope you have enjoyed the cool weather. Summer starts tomorrow and it will get hot and won’t cool down again until fall.” Yayyy. Just what we wanted to hear! I don’t mind the cold—you can always put on more clothes. But hot? You can only take so many off before you get arrested!
We have loved the spring here, though. The flowers and trees are absolutely beautiful. Everything blossoms. They have been doing a lot of landscaping in preparation for the Olympics, as the torch will pass through Tianjin on August 4th, just before it goes to Beijing for the opening ceremonies. The government is using it as a good excuse to spruce things up and get rid of the old, dirty parts of the city. They have huge construction crews that come and work on projects 24/7, and things get done! There are older brick commercial areas that we drive past, in fact one of them is the shopping area where we bought our electric bikes. When we got our bikes, the guy we bought them from told us he had to move in two days. We drove by in three and the entire complex of several hundred shops was vacant. The next day it was gone! They had bulldozed it into huge piles of rubble and were hauling it away. Two days later the ground was cleared and leveled and they were digging footings for a new high-rise apartment complex.
On Fukang Lu, the road we ride our bikes to the church, one morning they were starting to rip up the pavement. By the time we came home from church, they had about two miles of it torn up on one side with all the traffic both ways going on the two lanes on the other side of the street. They were also widening the road by two lanes, putting in a new bike path, moving all the power poles and putting in a fence. The next week when we were going to church they had paved those two miles and were doing the other side of the street. They also took out a bunch more buildings and brought in fill. In one week it went from a shopping district to a nice park area with trees already blooming, sod laid, bushes in and they were putting up fencing between it and the new roadway. It is amazing how fast they work. They are also putting in a new storm drainage system and new waterlines, working around the road, power and landscaping crews on the same stretch of road. Amazing.
Of course, the major news is the earthquake. It happened on May 12th, destroying 5 MILLION homes, and as of this date, 67,183 confirmed dead, 20,790 still missing. There have been 361,822 injured seriously enough to require hospitalization. Of course, there is no warning in an earthquake so many were killed when buildings collapsed. Even in an area where buildings are built to earthquake standards, many of them are destroyed in an earthquake with a magnitude of 8.0. Many of these villages (cities by our standards—a “village” is a town that has less than 1.5 million inhabitants. In the five counties hit hardest, the population is about 45.6 million. It would be about the size and scope as if Chicago were the epicenter, taking out all of the major cities around it, including Indianapolis, the quad cities, etc. And if that weren’t enough, there have been over 1400 aftershocks, 700 above 4.0, 150 above 5.0, and 40 above 6.0 Sunday there was an aftershock of 5.4 that flattened another 70,000 already weakened homes and killed 14 more people, 12 of who were on a relief bus on a highway that was buried by a landslide, and Wednesday one of 5.7 that flattened another 450,000 homes and killed or injured 70 more people. When will it end? Now if that’s not enough, Sichuan Province is in the mountainous region of China with many major rivers that feed the Yangtze River, the third largest in the world that we just floated down the week before the earthquake. The earthquake caused many big landslides that blocked the rivers and are causing many “Quake Lakes.” They have also gotten a lot of spring rain which has caused high river flows, so many of the lakes are filling with water, with the threat of bursting and downstream flooding. The PLA army is frantically working to create diversions and spillways to relieve the pressure, but it looks like flooding is imminent in some areas. So now they are trying to evacuee the people that would be flooded. Day before yesterday they evacuated 150,000 people, and yesterday they evacuated another 158,000 people. If the dam goes, it will flood 1.3 million people from the 33 townships of Mianyang City, which is the city located nearest the dam. And that’s just the Mianyang Quake dam. Things in China don’t happen on a small scale! Mianyang City is also where tens of thousands were killed by the quake in the initial “tremor.”
It has been interesting to see the general reaction of the Chinese people to these disasters. There is a tremendous outpouring of love and compassion for those who are suffering. Here on Nankai Campus of 33,000 students, donation boxes were set up to allow the students to offer aid to the victims. In one afternoon more than 1.5 million yuan was donated by students and faculty who are living on a shoestring. Most of them are donating their food and living expense money, saying, “I can live without a few meals. They are living without families and homes.” So many students donated blood they had to close down the donations because they no longer had enough locations to store the blood supply, and told the students they would let them know when they needed more. Thousands of students signed up for the potential donor list. Across China so far there has been $4.7 billion dollars US donated by the Chinese people for disaster recovery. There have also been generous donations of money, food, medical supplies, and temporary housing from countries around the world
to help these people start rebuilding before winter hits. Can you imagine the devastation that would have happened if this had happened in the middle of the winter during the night instead of on a spring day in the middle of the afternoon? The Chinese people can.
There have been innumerable stories of sacrifice and heroism, of miracles, and of the blessings that have taken place in the rescue efforts, and of service rendered by tens of thousands of volunteers. I know that China is officially an atheistic nation, but as we read our students journals, it is only the “official” view. So many of our students say, “God has blessed China so much” and “May God bless those who are suffering” and “May God Bless China that She may grow stronger from this disaster.” On Monday, one week after the disaster, there was an official period of mourning at 2:28 p.m., the time the initial quake hit Sichuan. They sounded the emergency sirens, cars and busses sounded their horns, and everything stopped for three minutes to commemorate the three minutes the quake lasted. Millions of people all over China stood with heads bowed in prayer for the victims and survivors, and for the rescue workers. Flags were flown at half-staff for two weeks to pay respect to those who died. It is the first time a period of mourning has been declared in China except for the death of a national political figure. That in itself is significant. Also significant is that China has allowed the press from all nations free access to the disaster area, and has allowed unlimited coverage. They have also welcomed relief workers from Russia, Germany, France, India, the US, and many other nations who have volunteered their time and expertise to aid the victims. The day of the initial quake, Premier Wen Jiabao flew to the quake zone to survey the damage and try to encourage the people. He was slightly injured in one of the aftershocks, but ignored the injury to his leg and worked with the relief workers to try to help rescue some of the victims. He has visited the area since then to make sure that all that can be done is being done. They have sent over 150,000 army soldiers there and they have been working around the clock to help. Now they are working to extract the bodies and are spraying disinfectant to try to prevent plagues and disease that usually accompanies this type of disaster. President Hu Jintao has also been to the area to offer condolences and support. I guess one of the benefits of having this type of government is that you can bypass so much of the governmental bureaucracy and red tape that plagued the victims of Hurricane Katrina a few years ago. They have allocated billions of yuan to the relief effort, and have pledged more when it is needed. It will be. Last week I gave a lesson about disasters in our lives, and though we can’t avoid them, we can be prepared for them. I talked about the importance of 72-hour kits (“go bags”) that they can grab at a moments notice that may save their lives and help them survive. I gave them the list as published on the lds.org website, and told them they could put one together and keep it under their bed or desk in their dorms. We also talked about survival techniques for earthquakes, hurricanes (typhoons over here), tornadoes, floods, fires, etc. They were pretty attentive!
Well, enough of the disaster. (I hope!) A couple of weeks ago we went over to Tongu, one of the suburbs of Tianjin over by the bay where the shipping port is. We had a great time, and it is one of China’s largest and busiest ports. It is really impressive! Of course the women wanted to go shopping, so we stopped at one of the shops there where they have this huge indoor market. In one store there are thousands of shops on each of three floors. We had a ball bargaining and buying stuff. I bought a couple of 64 gig jump drives for my computer, and Ed wanted me to get him one, so we went back last weekend and bought some more. Except that now we bought some 120 and 160 gig ones. I didn’t even know they made them that big, but they seem to work fine and we can almost back up our whole computer on one flash drive! Technology is awesome! And so was the price. We paid about $15 US for each of them. I have transferred some DVDs onto them that we show in our classes, and it makes it really easy to show them. I can get about 40 movies onto one flash drive, but so far I haven’t done so yet. We also got a bunch of other junk that we get to bring home, hope we have room for all of it! We already sent a couple of boxes home, but the cost of shipping is more than the stuff in them is worth! I told ReNee we just needed to throw it all away, but she didn’t think so. Oh, well.
One of the China Teachers Ed Hacking, that was with the Kennedy Center and was teaching here independently had a heart attack last week and died. He was 67, and apparently in good health. He had been put into the branch presidency the week before, and was at the meeting with the branch president who is a doctor. As the BP was opening the door, Ed collapsed, and though they tried to resuscitate him with CPR they couldn’t. They tried to ship his body back to the US, but because of the red tape they couldn’t, so he was cremated here and his wife took his ashes home. They won’t allow religious services here, so they couldn’t have a funeral, but will in the US, I’d imagine. It was really sudden and nobody’s fault. They were on our trip to Chongqing the first of May and we got to know them when they ate at our table and we visited with them at our various activities. I guess one never knows. I told Mom that if I die like that, just cremate me and add my ashes to the wind in Tianjin. Hard to say how many “ashes to ashes and dust to dust” is blowing through on any give sandstorm here. As many as have lived in this land, I’d imagine it isn’t just a few. With the exception of just a few minority areas where burial is still permitted, Chinese law requires cremation of the deceased. Fine with me. When I’m dead all that’s left is a decrepit chunk of clay. Spiritually I will be having a family reunion with my family and friends and relatives that have gone through it before. Sounds like a good plan to me!
I guess the side note of the above incident is though, that China has a policy of not allowing foreign teachers “z” visas (teaching visas) for teachers over 60. They have been pretty flexible on this requirement because they really like the quality of teachers from the Kennedy Center, but we may have trouble renewing ours for this next year. We should hear in the next few weeks whether we get to come back or now. We still feel like this is where we are supposed to be, so maybe the Lord will soften some hearts and we’ll be OK. I guess we’ll see.
Our classes this semester have really been fun. We have really gotten close to our students, as we have had most of them for the whole year, even from last semester, so we get to know them pretty well. We also get to share their joys and sorrows through their journals, and that is a special experience. It will be really hard to tell them all goodbye at the end of the term in three weeks. Because of the Dragon Boat Festival on June 9th, we will miss a Monday, so that class will only have two days left, their oral final and their written final. For my classes oral final, I have assigned them to be prepared to speak for five minutes about the family history of a member of their immediate family, such as one of their grandparents, parents, siblings, or even themselves. I told them they should interview each member of their family and record what was said, then decide which story was the most significant, and tell us about it. Some of the students have written about their experience in their journals and they have had some really touching experiences. One common theme is that they have learned things about their loved ones they had no idea about, and that they have come to see them and love them in an entirely different way. I look forward to hearing their stories. The classes that aren’t affected by the holiday get one extra class, so I’m going to talk about the 4th of July in the US. I think they will really enjoy it, especially with the surge of patriotism here because of the earthquake. They need to know that others also love and appreciate their countries, and that by doing so, they are not thinking they are superior to others.
These past few weeks we have been inviting our students to a nice restaurant here on campus and treating them to a nice Chinese dinner. We usually have about 12-14 of them at a time, and let them order a main course for each two of them. All Chinese food is served family style on a big lazy-susan in the middle of the table, and you turn it to get what you want to eat. It is really fun, and the food is delicious! There is such a wide variety of flavors, textures and foods, everything from pecan chicken, sweet and sour pork, garlic broccoli, seafood dishes, fried rice dishes, soups, you name it. It still blows my mind that we can eat as much as we can hold, often have enough to bring home carry-out boxes of leftovers, and make our students so happy for $40 US for all of it. Now, for our 39th anniversary on Tuesday we went to TGI-Fridays for barbeque spare ribs, and it cost that much for just the two of us. (But they were REALLY good!) Sometimes you just have to splurge for special occasions. After dinner with the students we brought them up to our apartment and taught them some of the parlor games we used to play when we were young, like “Do you love your neighbor” and the Dot game and “Chinese writing” (That ones really gets them!) and the Scissors crossed or uncrossed, etc. I think they think it’s really strange and fun to see adults that can laugh and play, when they usually just see the serious side of us in our classes. (Well, at least more serious!) I think it gives them a feeling of home and family, something that many of them who are only children haven’t experienced before. We usually tell them that this is how many people we usually had for dinner if only a couple of our kids brought home friends to eat with us. They go, “Wow!)
This weekend for the Dragon Boat Festival we are planning to go to Qingdao with some of our China Teacher friends for a couple of days. Qingdao is supposed to be one of the most beautiful places in China. I don’t know how it can be, as so many of the places we have been to and seen are breathtaking! It is supposed to be a really relaxed time with time for shopping and sight-seeing. (Now isn’t that an oxy-moron!) Maybe it will be if we send the wives shopping and we do the sight-seeing! Anyway, Mom is pretty excited about it. She has really developed into a shopper. She and Julie are going to really have fun together this summer, I can tell! I think she’s going to have a hard time paying full price for something, though, as here you are expected to bargain for what you buy, and usually get it for about 1/3rd the original asking price. Too bad we can’t do that with gas in the US. Ed just wrote us this morning and said that gas is up to $3.98/gal, went up 7 cents yesterday. I think we’ll be driving a heck of a lot less than we used to! Probably not be running to town 3 or 8 times a day like we used to, just when the whim hit us. Probably won’t be buying another mini-van either, as we’ll have to get something we can afford to drive. The price of gas has doubled since we’ve been here, but our retirement has lost value because of the inflation! So now we are in the same boat as millions of other retirees throughout the US. Such is life. Glad I still have some projects in the “bank” in our back yard.
Well, I guess I’d better be getting ready for my classes next week. We are going to Beijing again tomorrow, some of the women want to go shopping again, (Surprise!) and we are going to a KungFu demonstration by the Shaolin Monks in the evening. Olsens have seen it before and said it is really good. I hope my bronchitis is better by then, or ReNee will have to go by herself and I’ll stay home and sleep.
It’s been so fun to hear from our kids, Glad Shaun and Kellie’s new baby Rachel arrived safely and that mother and daughter are doing well. So glad Julie was able to go spend a few days with them to help take care of Addie and the others and have a good visit with Kelli. We loved a fun Skype visit with them, they looked so good on the video camera! We also got to Skype Brent and Kiley and meet our little Kaedyn for the first time. She is darling! We can hardly wait to see her in person this summer! Teresa Skyped us and we got to see how Ivy has grown in the past 5 months. We love technology! Live vision and chats free over the internet half way around the world! Awesome! And we’ve loved the e-mails from you! It means so much to keep in touch and hear what’s going on in your lives. Fun to hear about the spring rains and snow melt, building chicken coops and storage sheds, house remodeling, car work, changes in ward and stake callings, missionaries coming and going, all the “boring” things that seem so mundane to you but help us keep in touch with loved ones. We should be getting back to the US on or about June 29th, will take a few days to recover from the jet-lag, but surely look forward to spending the 4th of July with our family and friends. I hope you are all well, that your lives are going well, and that you remember how much we love you.
Dondavid and ReNee.
What Can I Do For You?
What can I do for you, my dear motherland?
What can I do for you, my dear compatriots?
What can I do for you, those who are suffering and longing for?
What can I do for you, the little one who had been buried under ruins for nearly 120 hours and finally got rescued?
What can I do for you, the friend whose seven family members were all passed away in the sudden disaster?
I can feel the grief just as you
I can feel the desperation just as you.
I can feel the broken hearts just as you!
I can feel the terrible darkness just as you….
But…..what I can do for you is so limited, so little and so trifling.
I wept.
Tears fell onto the back of my hands, onto the papers, onto the ground that we love with all our hearts.
No time to wipe them.
I just wanted to say a word to soothe you.
Just a word.
But none came from out of my tight throat.
Then, please allow me, please!
Allow me to sit beside you, hand in hand, shoulder by shoulder and face the fear together.
Silently, I will give you a hug. I will eye contact with you.
It doesn’t matter we are both quiet.
It doesn’t matter we speak of no words.
It doesn’t matter how long the time is.
It doesn’t matter there are no shelters over our heads.
I will sit with you silently.
And the lonesomeness will go away.
And love will light all the life for us.
This poem is in memory of the people who are suffering and those who make contributions to the people in the earthquake.
Linda.
