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My Birthday Dinner
Some friends from school treated me to a birthday dinner for my 24th birthday. As you can see from this picture, Chinese makeup is too dark for my fair complexion, so I was happy to receive some powder for fair-skinned folks from my parents What I thought was a simple Beijing rumbling has turned into the most devastating natural disaster China has experienced in recent decades. I was sitting at my desk, willing myself to crack open my books and begin studying, when I experienced a sudden onslaught of vertigo. I looked up at the ceiling and noticed my hanging lights noticeably swinging back and forth. When I stood up to get a better look at the lights, I stumbled. I could see the other high rises swaying ever so slightly through the window of my 19th floor apartment. I'd never experienced an earthquake before, and so decided the best solution was to yank my door open and stand in the doorway. The sensation stopped after what felt like twenty minutes, but couldn't have been more than two. I convinced myself that I'd become delusional and went back to my desk.
An hour later, I called a friend in Shanghai to say hello and he asked me if I'd seen the news. An earthquake had registered on the seismographs in Sichuan and it was being widely reported that it was felt all the way to Beijing and Shanghai. So it was an earthquake! I
My 24th Birthday Dinner
Deciding what to order is a serious business switched on the news and learned that while a 7.5 earthquake had occurred in Sichuan province, the damage to property and loss of life were thought to be minimal. I wish that had been true.
By the time I woke up on Tuesday morning, the magnitude of the earthquake had been upgraded to 7.8 and nearly 100 people were thought to have been killed. I was saddened by this news but thankful that the earthquake hadn't injured or killed more people. We had no way of knowing up here in Beijing the extent of the destruction in Sichuan.
On Tuesday afternoon, I learned that high rise office buildings in Beijing had been evacuated shortly after the first earthquake hit around 2:30 PM Monday afternoon, local time. Most of my classmates had been in class or at home sleeping; no one else had experienced the minor rolling sensation. It seemed that only those of us on the higher floors had felt anything noticeable.
As it stands today, Friday, May 16, upwards of 50,000 people may have been killed by the earthquake itself or the subsequent collapse of houses and landslides triggered by the quake. I feel so helpless
My 24th Birthday Dinner
Cutting the cake
My friends sang happy birthday to me in both English and Chinese! so far away in northeast China, unable to do anything but pray and send my good wishes to the victims of the quake. Yet I am so grateful that I am safe and alive.
After the Olympic torch relay protests and the way the Chinese government cracked down on the protests in Tibet, I had been feeling less than supportive of the Beijing government. However, after a tragedy of this magnitude, I have seen a different side to the government. Premier Wen Jiabao, second in command, was on the ground in Sichuan directing relief and rescue efforts the morning after the earthquake. How long did it take the American president Bush to visit the destruction of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina? Premier Wen has ordered 20,000 troops into the affected areas and 30,000 more are expected to arrive in the next several days. In the absence of cranes or other machinery, troops are using shovels, axes and even their bare hands to reach those buried in the rubble. Everyone I talk to on the streets is affected by this disaster. It is so very obvious the enormous patriotic and nationalistic sentiments that exist in the Chinese people. Despite what
Birthday Dinner
Friends from Indonesia, Greece and Kazakhstan I had thought, what happens to some of them, happens to all of them. They are so connected, even if it takes a disaster like this to demonstrate it.
Please join me in sending your prayers to the people of Sichuan, and to everyone in China who was affected by the earthquake. At this moment in time, the government is not accepting American aid workers, but is accepting monetary donations towards the rescue efforts. The roads are so impassable that Chinese soldiers are walking 30 miles on foot to reach some areas affected by the earthquake. Once transportation clears up, more aid workers will be allowed in.
At Beijing Language and Culture University, life has to go on. On Monday, I gave a ten-minute presentation in Chinese about the American perspective on the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States. Some of my classmates hail from nations that may not have received substantial coverage of the attacks, like North Korea, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Sierra Leone. Most of my classmates were presenting information on their home countries; while interesting, it became a bit run of the mill after several presentations. I began mine with the sentence "Today I'd
Birthday Dinner
Friends from Indonesia and Great Britain like to tell you about the worst day of my life". Well, that grabbed their attention. Throughout my ten-minute presentation, I think I could have heard a pin drop. I included two short videos of the second plane (flight 175) crashing into the south tower of the World Trade Center and of the north tower collapsing. It was clear from the expressions on their faces and sharp intakes of breath that some of my classmates had never seen that footage before.
Much of my report was informational-- describing the size of the passenger jets, the time they crashed into the towers, how much jet fuel was left at the time of the crash. But interspersed where my own personal memories from that day. The blue sky. The warm weather. My shock at seeing the second plane fly into the second tower on live national television. My history teacher turning off the news and forcing us to take notes on some seemingly irrelevant part of U.S. history, while history was being made at that very moment. How the last class of the day was choir, and we went outside, stood in a circle and sang our national anthem in four-part
Birthday Dinner
Friends from Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Indonesia harmony while tear-streaked faces appeared in the windows all around us. It was a day that marked the end of my childhood and the beginning of a new, less naive part of my life.
When I finished my presentation, my classmates sat for a moment in what felt like stunned silence. Then they began to clap, and clap long after the teacher had thanked me and tried to move on. I felt it was important to keep spreading the message, to keep the memories of those who died that day alive, and to never forget what had happened on that fateful day. Just as the newspapers of so many nations proclaimed that "we are all Americans today", it seems the world is proclaiming this week that "we are all Chinese". Human suffering is a shared tragedy. I am proud to say that despite some of the errors we've made as a country, the United States donates the greatest amount of aid of any country in the world. That makes me even prouder to be an American.
I have no doubt that China will emerge from this tragedy stronger and more united than ever. Though I will not be here in August and do not always support the decisions the Chinese government makes, I hope the Olympics go smoothly and are a great success for the Chinese people. I will always support the Chinese in their endeavors to develop their nation and become stronger. Everyone deserves that opportunity.
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Thai
non-member comment
From the looks of it, it looks like you had the UN over for your birthday dinner. So are you studying AND working with the UN?? :-) You make a very good point on saying how "human suffering is a shared tragedy"...couldn't agree with you more. I, too, hope that everything in the end works out....don't we all? Well, keep these coming!