national mourning

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So, I haven't written since last week when we were all just happy that we weren't anywhere near the earthquake, and weren't really aware of how catastrophic it really was. As the number of victims has gone up though, and as we found out that so many of the victims were kids, it's been extremely sad here for everyone. On Tuesday, the day after the earthquake, we had a school-wide ceremony outside which was really nice. The principal spoke and and there was a moment of silence. Everyone was standing in lines by grade and in front of each grade was a donation box. The kids went up one by one and put money to donate in the boxes. There was also a line for teachers, and of course there was a photographer from the newspaper there to take a pic of me and Candice

In basically every store, restaurant, and even on the big screen on the walking street tvs are turned on with the news, and the pictures of what's going on there is just horrible. All last week kids were asking me about the earthquake, and I really wish I was able to communicate with them a little better than to just be able to say "It's very sad". I was able to talk to some of the 5th graders about it, and as you can imagine, the fact that whole schools collapsed has really scared a lot of them. We did talk about what we can do to help though which was good, I just hope that they're talking about it with their Chinese teachers who can actually help them discuss what happened.

Beginning today, China is observing 3 days of mouring in honor of the vicitms. All of the flags were at half-staff today, and we stopped our classes at 2:28pm, the time that the earthquake hit, for 3 minutes of silence, with sirens from the high school nextdoor ringing. I wasn't aware until tonight, but the 3 minutes of silence was actually done across the country. In addtion to this, as you may have heard they stopped the olymipic torch route for these 3 days, and they have also mandated that all entertainment be cancelled for the next 3 days. This includes shows, karaoke places, bars, and internet game, music and video sites.

The main sites that I use, tudou and youku have both had messages for the last week, either before or after you watch a video, about donating money. Now, though they have both been redesigned to all grey sites with only links to news videos about the earthquake and of the ceremony that was held today in Tiananmen Square. If you try to search for a video a message comes up that access has temporarily been suspended in mourning of the vicitms.




on a happy note, the school show this past weekend was hilarious!! haha, I tried to take a lot of pics but unfortunately since it was inside and dark, most of them came out bad..there a bunch of videos though too. Also, unfortunately for you guys, I don't yet have any pics of me performing...but Carol said she'd get us videos and pics from the the school photographers so I'm gonna ask her about that tomorrow. look for them soon!

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Photos

a pic from the newspaper
Candice & I at the ceremony last week donating money.