Some Thoughts about the Quake

It is really painful to see the reports about this quake in Sichuan, especially the pictures. I heard a Chinese friend said she cried all the way while she looked through pictures online. I simply don't dare to do so. My tears rolled down when I just read the title of a report . My heart aches even when I read the plain words reports about the great sadness from the parents and some probably no hope waiting...Use the quote from Trent, 'More than anything, I wish for the best possible response from local, national and international sources to help make this disaster the smallest it could be and the recovery the fastest possible. '

From the limited sources I have (too busy with paper recently), such as NPR, Good morning America news, USA today, The New York Times, CCTV website, FTchinese website, I have some thoughts and want to them with you. I'd like to update them when I get more information later.

1. Trent commented that this quake was well-timed for Chinese government to escape from the criticism worldwide from the past. I agree. Facing such a tragedy, everyone will have sympathy first no matter what happened in the past. And with all my sorrow about the earthquake, I also think it is just fine, the big understanding gap can temporarily go away and that might do good for at least the Olympics.

2. Some said that Chinese government has a surprisingly openness and is highly responsive in this earthquake case, because the government can not survive another media pressure right before the Olympic and because it learned some lessons from the Tibet.
Personally I don't agree neither of the two. In my opinion, the first primary purpose, or the only reason for the existence of a government is to take care of its people, both in the long term and in the short term---at least this is true for the good government. (By the way here I need to express my huge confusion about Burma's government. ) Therefore, a good government will do what Chinese government do, or if possible, will do better, no matter what the other countries will say.

3. Trent said it might mean 'China is indeed maturing and entering into the global sphere and, therefore, wants to relate and communicate with other nations. ' I hope it with my whole heart but I have to say I highly doubt that. This is natural disaster and the interests and strategies are fairly obvious no matter from what point of view. But for other far more complex issues, it is hard to get to the common understanding this easily and I also consider the understanding of 'mature' might mean differently dependent on the standpoint.

4. Further research and follow up needed for this point: The qualities of the school building in quake area. In my sense, the 7.8 earthquake will tear down every building but from what the journalists reported or saw, there are some buildings taller than the school buildings didn't collapse. And as some low quality construction tragedies happened in China before, there are some questions about whether the school buildings are another example of corrupt local government. I will certainly pay attention to this and hopefully would provide more info later. My heart would certainly break if this is true.

At last, I want to mention Tibet again. The lessons from Tibet on the table now are far under its real values. The carelessness about truth, the extreme emotions, the blind angry for westerns (for Trent, I know, Japan and Korea are against China on this issue too, but like the against communist attitude here, there is against imperialism attitude, and its symbol is US, in China) and lots of other reasons, among which the propaganda system is NO.1, are far more important than how the Chinese government now fear the media pressure, which is really nonsense and misinterpretation in my opinion and I insist that China couldn't and wouldn't change from the outside force or what so ever.