The Du

Here is a little list of cool spots in Chengdu. This is actually a VERY incomplete list, but its a good start. holla.

Haiti

here is a short essay on Haiti and Chengdu and some of the similarities and differences in the disasters that struck here and there.

Crib finalized

Contract signed. The crib is real nice, we is happy. I wish I could show you pics, but i have to wait till those greasy bastards at the Bad Monkey send me the battery I forgot at their bar. (Excuses ...)

The house has two big courtyards, a lily pond, a chicken area, two floors, three pear trees, four peach trees, two tangerine trees, a host of bushes and herbs and stuff that I don't even know about and I think there is some sort of fig tree too.

So its all good.

If you are interested in China matters, check out Sisci's new essay on Atimes.

Three Mountain Teas

I went to Mengding Mountain yesterday and took a LONG trek to find my Honey Dew Green supplier Bai Ting Ting (Xiao Bai) just so I could be there again. It a beautiful spot. Tea bushes as far as the eye can see and as clear a sky as the Sichuan fog allows.

Its real country out here. Peasants scream up and down the no-lane roads in their three-wheel go carts, ducks waddle around pigs nuzzle roadside refuse a cow hides in the reeds by the river that flows down from the peak.

Xiao Bai's processing plant sits right on the river just a few feet from the old bridge. Behind her building is the local school. Dirty kids screeched in glee when i rolled up on their classroom and took eyes-closed foul shots with their flat basketball. One rowdy lil punk through a paper plane at me so i chased hm down and threw him over my shoulder. An eye-opening experience for him for sure.

I drank the local Honey Dew and some Maofeng and it was crystal clear with hints of yellowish green and the buds stood erect int he bottom of the square glass. I swished it around my mouth and felt the cleansing. I could sit there all day and compose verse for cock-eyed peasants.

Later int eh week I will visit the second mountain and my other supplier Lao Li up in Qing Cheng Mountain. I might try and get there on the 8th, the anniversary of the quake. And then, at some point, maybe after the full moon, I trek up Emei Mountain.

Qing Cheng Daoism infused Piao Xue Green, Meng Ding's hallowed Honey Dew, Emei's Buddha chant fed Zhu Ye Qing. These are the teas from Sichuan that I bringing to the states.

Charlie took pics, so I'll have them soon.

When things die

I was in Chengdu for the past two days taking care of some business and I went to check out my old home in Three Gods Village. I have posted here about it earlier -- the place is getting torn down to make way for high rise buildings and the people are forced to move out for two years.

I went there at night to pick up my cats and a few last things. When we pulled in to my neighborhood, it was 11pm and there were two people, an old man and a young kid with a flashlight, roaming through the houses picking through the wreckage. Everybody had moved out already and the houses were dark with gaping black holes where the windows were. The scavengers reminded my of grave robbers, the neighborhood of a graveyard. My courtyard was strewn with blankets, broken window frames, bamboo mats, piles of rubbish and paint. I smelled vinegar -- someone had thrown a bottle against my kitchen door and black vinegar dripped down. There was a framed picture of Thelonious Monk lying amidst the refuse and I found my old house shoes covered in paint chips.

My cats were roaming around the house. Stony, Crackhead and Gimpy. The other two kittens, Champy and Fuzz, have been MIA for two days. It was a horrible feeling, looking at this place of life and beauty reduced to a collection of dying homes, remnants littering the area, cats wondering around.

Our cab driver stuck around to help us collect the cats and he left his headlights on. I stopped and looked around at my old home by the light of two beams and saw nothing but death. Not even decay left a lingering trace of life ...

We tried to get the cats in, but they fought us and scratched me all over my hands. We tied them, grabbed them, cajoled them and eventually .. left them.

I managed to grab Gimpy and take him with us. The two adult mommas, Crackhead and Stony, might stand a chance on their own and they were too strong and wild for me to get them in the taxi, so I decided to let them live free. But for reasons I can't even understand, i took the kitten and now he is in my new apartment in Chengdu. Beanmilk will be living there while I am in Beijing and back to the US.

Last night Gimpy yowled and cried throughout the night. All the kittens have been skittish about humans, and I am very worried that Gimpy won't ever accustom himself to inside living. But from what other cat owners say, it is only a matter of time.

I dreamt of hundreds of cats and kittens in my room, my own and others, crying and wailing through the night and waking me up. When i awoke, i heard Gimpy.

We call him Gimpy because as a newborn, he had a badly deformed left front leg. At the time, I was worried that he would not be able to make it, he limped heavily, so I considered drowning him. My friends thought i was crazy. But he is strong and spry now and is the only one to make it to the city, the only one that represents the days in Three God's Village when I sat in my courtyard, inspected my flowers, drank tea and watched the sun move across the land.

Last night, after we discussed the fact that the kitten I wanted to drown is the only kitten that "survived," Beanmilk said:

"Never in my life have i experienced so many events that were connected like now. These past few months have been very strange ..."

Beijing 2008

I am finally in Beijing. After several months of talking about it and changes to the plan on a weekly basis, I am now officially part of the whole "one world one dream" experience in Beijing.

Yesterday was a beautiful day. The sun shone all day, the sky was blue and white lazy clouds hung in the still air. The dozens of new glass buildings sparkled. I saw some of the crazy buildings they put up here for the big party: the birds nest, the CCTV Tower and a few others on Chang An Blvd where the heart of the party will be. I live right off of Chang An Blvd in a pimp pad on the 17th floor.

Today i bought more dress clothes and some shoes and such. I bought some already, but I guess i have no sense of suit-class cuz my boss took one look at me, shook his head and took me to the genuine copy market down the road to buy some almost real threads. I got two pairs of geek pants, three nerd shirts and some dork shoes for about USD140. I blabbed with the Anhui girls that run the market and convinced them i wasn't gay. I think i did anyway. They kept bringing these shy young boys up to me and saying "try on! try on!"

Peep it:




Today is a typical China day: gray and oppressive, slightly drizzly, stankin, humid, hectic. My preliminary perspective is that Beijing is a big Chengdu. There are a lot of Westerners here and they have a Hooters, all the restaurants of the world, all the banks etc. but this city is still a huge small town. I have to say, Shanghai has Beijing beat in terms of worldly pimp-ocity and straight baller-ism-fication. (translation for non-Americans: shanghai is better.)

but let me just say here that I am down with Sichuan and the Dirty Du for life. I represent peasant pimps in the SW hills. I ride with sichuan hua spittin, sunflower seed splittin, hot booty hittin, moonshine sippin, funky pipe hittin players from the Land of Abundance. Chengdu is the bomb. Its a village and such and provincial and all that and everybody is a damn farmer no matter what they do or what they drive, but I am down with it. If i could throw up gang signs in Blogger I'd be reppin right now, fo real. Shit. I am ready to jump out of this cubicle and kick a Beijing-er in the jaw for actin funny and not respectin Chengdu like he should.

Ahem. Excuse me. Just had to let ya'll know how it is.

But for now I have to listen to this garble they call "Beijing Hua" and wear super dork clothes for a while. Its a small price to pay for bein in the middle of the mix in 2008.

here is a good lil blurb about the complexities of life and the importance of history.

My Neighbors

Here are some pics by photographer Andreas Mueller of the village i live in and some of my neighbors:

Three God's Village and The Hakka - lil Update

I have gotten a glimpse of the historical record of the Hakka that settled in Three Gods Village where I live. They arrived in Sichuan during the reign of Kangxi -- first in Longquan (not far from where I am) then eventually in this village. The trip took 4 months from Guangdong where they are from and the original Li Clan is now split amongst 12 generations and "middle names."

The generation that has children now -- the adults of the village -- are Clan Li, middle name "Guang." My neighbors are Li Guang Wen and Li Guang Xi. Their older brother is Li Guang Cuan.

But the middle name only extends to the male heir, so any girls are "exempt" ... so Li Guang Wen's daughter is Li Tian Tian. And Li Guang Xi's younger brother eschews the whole thing altogether and named is son Li Chun Tao. They barely speak the old language -- they might claim to to impress visitors and emphasize being unique -- but the truth is that after 1949 the culture began dying and as of 1980 it was almost completely dead.

In 2007 one of the elders put together a description of the family history and laid out a map of their travels and pointed out the location of the grave of their common ancestor, near the Technical College in Chengdu.

I will meet him tomorrow and give you a transcript of his essay and a pic or two.

Hakka in Sichuan

Hey.

I am doing research on the Hakka people in Sichuan. The Hakka are sometimes referred to as the "Jews of China." They reportedly originated in the Yellow River Valley and migrated south to Fujian and Guangdong to escape wars and famines. They settled in and around the Pearl River for many centuries, retaining their unique culture and language. They are also known as "Kejia" which means guests or guest family in Chinese. They have been on the move for 2000 years.

They migrated across the globe after the Taiping Rebellion -- a Hakka led rebellion against the Qing -- and many of the Chinatowns we have come to take for granted were founded by Hakka people.

For me, the interest lies in their migration to Sichuan during the Ming and Qing Dynasties after Sichuan was decimated by constant warfare. Settlers were encouraged (8 pieces of silver for the men, 6 for women and children) to move across the nation to Sichuan and build a life here, in the "Land of Abundance." They did, and have flourished to this very day.

What interests me the most is the connection between the Taiping Rebels that were decimated at the Battle of the Dadu River in 1865 by Qing Imperial forces and the gong fu river lake people of today. Legend has it that the rebels fled into the hills and settled near present-day Yaan. Those rebels were trained in martial arts and passed on what they had learned, eventually leading to the school in Hanyuan that I train at.

My home is getting torn down next week, as some of you may know, and the village that is being razed is also an ancient Hakka village dating back at least 200 years. My neighbors are all Hakka and some of them still speak their own langauge. Almost every family has a book of records that details their migrations across China over the past 500 years. So the story of "farmers getting pushed off their lands" has now developed into something much more interesting: another move for the harried Hakka.

its not just how farmers adapt to the city, but how Hakka farmers stay Hakka in the face of urbanization and modernity. Its not just how gong fu adapt to the commercialization of culture and the dissipation of the "noble warrior," but about the legacy of Han-Hakka rebels reaching from beyond the grave to leave their imprint on Modern China.

Please, feel free to comment.

Some mo' Sichuan Hua

So i will try and put a few good Sichuan Hua phrases up here from time to time ...

such as this fine one right here:

zhaan hua'r kai huang qiang!

zhaan hua'r is that dude, wherever there is some commotion or excitement, his ass is there. talking as if he was the only one to witness/take part in whatever has everybody up in arms. "Man, i was just walkin, mindin my own biznass, when all of a sudden, these blonde women just started fallin from the sky all around me ..."

kai huang qiang is what the zhaan hua'r says: bullshit. he be speakin, but everybody knows its just some made up self-serving nonsense.

literal translation: zhaan hua'r:standing flower; kai huang qiang:shoot a yellow gun.

funny note: kai also means open, so people here sometimes get a kick out of saying "open yellow gun!" at someone who is talking shit.

aftershocks

today ... bout three minutes ago, a large aftershock shook chengdu. the largest in a long time, maybe since the original quake. and it lasted for about one minute. here things rattled and my heart raced, but nothing damaging happened. but if it was this heavy here, then up north people died.

and who knows what happened to the dam ...

mom i can't see your hand

A Poem by an anonymous Chinese circling the web(translated):

Children quick
quick
Hold fast to Mother's hand
The Road to Heaven
Is so dark
Mom is afraid
you'll hit your head
Quick
Hold fast to Mother's hand
Have Mom walk with you

mom
I'm afraid
The road to heaven
is so dark
I cant see your hand
Since the walls fell
and stole away the sun
I haven't been able to see
your tender gaze

Child
Go
The road ahead carries no more sorrow
no more boring school books
you won't ever see Dad's fist again
You should remember
The image of your Father and I
In the next life, we'll walk together again

mom
don't despair
the road to heaven is crowded
there are classmates and friends here
we all say
don't cry don't cry
every person's mom is also my mom
every chid is my mother's child
since my days are finished,
give your love to the living children

mom
you shouldn't cry
the glimmer of tears gives no light
its our road
let us take it ourselves

mom
I will remember the image of you and dad
and remember our promise
in the next life, we'll walk together again

A Theory of Relativity

First off: Blogger is blocked in China, so people cannot see it here, I cannot comment back to any of you and i do use a proxy.

There is so much to tell ... I drove from Chengdu up north to a place called Hanwang today, through the towns of Shifang and Mianzhu.

Shifang was the first stop. The city is a satellite of Deyang Town, which is an industrial city surrounded by wheat fields and rice paddies. Its a poor town with older buildings, near the mountains and itself surrounded by several destitute villages living off of industry and small time local business. The city center was hit, but not hard. Almost all of the buildings are standing and there is a refugee camp in the middle of town. The refugees are both shell-shocked peasants and workers from the suburbs and urbanites who don't dare return to their cracked and splintered apartments.

The outlying villages and towns suffered enormously. Thousands are dead, thousands missing, thousands injured ... in every such town in northern Sichuan, there is a large placard with figures, pictures and details of sorrow that each town experienced. There was one picture in Shifang of a school of 400 in a village called Yinghua -- more than 300 died -- and the picture shows two girls, bodies horribly stretched, twisted and shattered. They have running pants and sneakers on. They are skinny and both have light blue underwear.

A man named He was pointing at the picture and explained that the two were girls he knew. He pulled his son out the wreckage of that school. His son has two broken legs and is in a hospital in Chongqing. Later I was in an apartment nearby and watched three girls point out their teacher on TV whose daughter had died. They knew that girl too.

On the road to Mianzhu, the damage started getting bad. Its wheat threshing season, so there are mobile threshing machines on the road and peasants in the fields. They return to tents of red, white and blue plastic when the work is done. Their houses have all fallen in, or been damaged to heavily to support people so they wrap bamboo around trees and telephone poles and bring their beds out into the open. The road is lined with tent cities, spaced by government supply depots with field hospitals and bands of volunteers stopping and unloading. Some drive BMWS and Audis, others tiny CheryQQs and tinbox bread trucks. Some, like the French, arrive in a caravan of 30 double wide semi trucks filled with supplies.

The supply train stretches 156km long and probably twice as wide, spread out over highways, two- and three-laners, unfinished piles of stone and pavement waiting to be melted into asphalt and potholed dirt roads where we dodge tractors and blind men on motorbikes.

Mianzhu has rubble in the streets. The area has been cleared and is stocked with supplies. It took heavy damage, but here as with all cities in China, buildings built in different eras with different materials stand next to each other. The older buildings built of concrete, sand and brick are largely demolished. The new modern complexes with steel, re bar, good bricks and solid cement stand pristine, towering over a refugee camp in the middle of town. One guy came out in shorts and broken sandals and told me, this is all i got, the pants on my butt and these scruffy sandals. He laughed as he pointed down and everybody laughed with him. I joked with the kids there for a while. I named one Stankfoot and the other Boogerface. Everybody joined in the joke-fest. They kept offering me water and food. Everyone gathered around and I made the little kids laugh till snot came out their noses. Its easy: a big laowai speaking like a peasant makes everybody bust out ...

I said: you guys are awesome, smiling and laughing in the middle of this thing ...
They replied:
we're chinese, we can withstand anything.
It feels good to be alive
no matter what life brings, we always stay happy ...

It was a Hallmark moment so I brought it down by telling Stankfoot to go and wash himself.

Mianzhu to Hanwang is where we began to see the real devastation -- on a macrolevel -- that the earthquake did to northern Sichuan. Nothing was intact. Nobody was indoors.

Hanwang, named after legendary general Liu Bang, will have to be completely re-built. The whole city is a vast ruin -- those structures that still stand are gutted and split. There were people everywhere. Mine Rescue and Recovery teams from Shaanxi, Hebei and Sichuan Provinces. Army Units from Sichuan, Hunan and Hebei. Police lights flashed, heavy equipment rolled past, medics went from tent to tent looking at the survivors.

The mood was not chaotic or desperate, just methodical and even jovial at times. Some of the wreckage gave off the smell of rotting death and these were handled by teams of 10 - 15 soldiers with shovels and disinfectant who would wait while tractors sifted skillfully through the rubble,then they would dig out anything they would find. A local policeman pointed out his jacket and they retrieved it from the rubble.

The statue of Liu Bang in the middle of town had its head knocked off and the clock nearby is stuck on 2:28p, the time of the earthquake.

Yesterday, when I returned from Qing Cheng Mtn, I ate hot pot with Charlie and Ramon. Ramon seems bedeviled by the feeling that, although he had been in the middle of the earthquake and seen its fury face-to-face, he still remained untouched.

"I don't want to be untouched"
"Maybe you feel your experience was inadequate," said Charlie. "Maybe you feel like you don't deserve to have survived."
"Yeah, Survivor's Guilt," I said.
"Maybe," said Ramon. "All i know is, I was in the middle of the quake and I still feel like a tourist. Like somehow being foreign got me through it all ..."

Around Qing Cheng ...

Yesterday i climbed as far as it is possible to climb right and Qing Cheng mtn is def. devastated near the top. Past the Tai An Old town basically every building lies in ruins. There are a few valleys which will take months to clear. Boulders and huge chunks of mountain clog the roads at the very top and have buried several hundred people, both locals and older tourists retiring in the Jade City.

The Daoist monks, all 16 of them, made it out as far as I now. They are at th bottom of the mountain. The White Cloud (not Lotus) Monastery is shaken but still standing. The people are in good spirits, but very listless. They are living in tents and receiving more than enough supplies and aid from military, private indiv. volunteer groups and the police. The relief effort is bad-ass. The soldiers showed up on the 14th and had all important roads cleared by the night of the 15th. Supplies and such rolled in soon after. No one will die there anymore.

But the locals relied on tourism to live, so their homes and livelihoods have been taken away from them. There is an air of uncertainty and stoicism, laughter and silent stares, generosity and muted pleas to have us spread the word ...

a few notes:

CNN those crackers, reported that "all is good" the Americans have arrived with generators. What BS. The Americans donated 500,000USD which I have to defend now where ever I go. When the locals hear I am American, they immediately say: 500K? what the hell? And then they praise me and thank me because I showed up. Its important that people see that all Americans aren't crackers like those in office.

Betcha those generators run on 110V ... hahaha

Jackie Chan gave about 13million USD. Granted, he's Chinese, but the US is supposedly the "Greatest Goddamn Nation in the World!"

and one more note that I think is pretty insane (amongst the hundreds that I could write):

a teenager pulled out of the rubble yesterday -- surrounded by the rotting dead bodies of his classmates said:

"Uncle, can I get a Coke?"
"Sure son, right away!"
"Uncle! make sure its ice cold ..."

China will come out of this stronger ... peace.

Tongiht i will take the time to put pics and links up.

China handles business

President Hu Jintao made it to Dujiangyan today and shook hands with Prime Minister Wen Jiabao...

Today I took a ride with a civil engineer and a security and infrastructure assessment expert around the northwest suburbs of Chengdu. We visited Chongzhou, Qingcheng Mountain and the outskirts of Dujiangyan.

The purpose of the trip was to give the security's expert's clients -- corporate clients -- an idea of the damage done in Chengdu and the economic impact on their businesses.

We saw hundreds of vehicles heading north out of Chengdu toward Dujiangyan -- a veritable rag tag fleet i.e. Battlestar Galactica -- loaded up with water, blankets, clothes and instant noodles. Many of these vehicles were turned back by police. Some of them dropped their supplies off, others were not able to.

The reasoning behind this was explained by the civil engineer, who has extensive experience in disaster areas such as Sudan and West Africa in the 1970s and 80s and more recently in Indonesia after the tsunami. A lot of times, well-meaning volunteers create more problems than they solve. Often with tragic consequences.

What all of us have seen here is in direct contrast with the situation we saw in New Orleans during and after the tsunami. The sense of social responsibility in China does not exist in our society. Any person who would actually dare to loot, pillage, shoot someone or rape during this time of crisis would be lynched by the neighborhood before the police even heard of it. But the point is, it would never happen here.

We saw the wave of nationalism that took over the nation following the Tibetan protests and the media wave that followed. This ability to unite is in full force again and the world is now seeing the flip-side of a united China -- determined instead of aggressive.

After the government and the people of China showed that they can mobilize quickly and efficiently, the western media flip-flopped from criticism of government efforts to praise for a China that has "finally learned" how to be civilized. It smacks of civilizational fear.

Anyway. In Qingcheng mountain everybody is living in tents, all houses and buildings have been damaged in some way or another, but its extraordinary that the vast majority of these buildings are still standing. I know that the areas farther north closer to the epicenter are decimated and in ruins, but near the outer edge of the earthquakes impact, almost all buildings -- although maybe shaken -- will house people again in the near future.

The people are resilient and in good spirits. The first words out of every one's mouth was: "Thank you for coming and caring about us." They let us know what they need -- basically medicine, water and dry clothes -- but they also offered us water and noodles. This is quintessentially Chinese. I know this place is corrupt as hell and after the dust settles heads will roll, but now is not the time. I believe all people pull together like this in times of need ... or did once, before we let ourselves be divided.

The relief effort has not reached many towns and villages that could use help, but this is a function of the earthquake's impact and the vast population of Sichuan Province. Every 5km one passes a township of around 50,000 people. Every 20km a town of about 100,000 pops out of the rice fields. The relief crews are focusing on those areas with bleeding, dying, trapped people. Those that are uninjured hunker down in tents, while rain pours into their living rooms. They register with the local government authorities and wait for someone to tell them what is next.

As far as I can see, the relief effort is astounding and well-organized. Around Chengdu, drop-off points for supplies are constantly filling up. Foreigners are giving what they have as well and holding benefit concerts and the like, but our assistance is minuscule and symbolic. The Chinese can handle their own business.

Back to Qingcheng Mountain: The mountain itself was hit very hard and most buildings, temples and pagodas where we once spent afternoons composing bad poetry and dreaming about sages are gone forever. I still don't have reliable info on the White Lotus Monastery -- but I will go back up with Charlie tomorrow to retrieve his bike and to meet with the old woman he carried out. I will keep you posted.

To Mianyang

Tomorrow we will try and head up to see if we can help. THe local authorities and Red Cross have designated the Bookworm and Cafe Paname as two foreign est. where supplies can be dropped off and from which teams might be able to head up and help. Earlier today, a group of Brits trapped in Wolong PAnda Reserve were helicoptered out. The rumors now are that they were helpless, but not dying and the government decided to get them out of there before int'l scrutiny became too hard. The radio reported the news and some Chinese were a little angry, accusing the gov of airlifting out foreigners when Chinese are dying everywhere.

If possible, we will try and get to Mianyang, where a refugee camp is growing. I will keep you posted.

Here are some headlines ... and a lot of good coverage and this story here was really hard to read.

There are still tremors throughout the night and rumors don't stop. Planes are being delayed here at the airport as thousands attempt to leave and thousands more attempt to get in. It is a crzy time to be here and it is only going to get more intense.

For those who have been asking about Qing Cheng Mtn, there is really not much specific information I can give ... judging from the damage of the surrounding areas, the videos that are already online and Charlie's first-hand account, I would say the mountain was devastated and will not be seeing any visitors for some time. It is impossible to say who survived, who didn't and who is missing right now.

I'll make ya famous

Well Chengdu is basically back to normal. My friend Charlie's harrowing experience is all over the web now -- here is the AP story, which also has the video. You can check out the text here.

We'll be heading up north tomorrow in a caravan filled with goodies. It will probably only be a daytrip because it is impractical for us to stay up there unless we bring tents .., tents that are better used to house homeless and injured.

Yesterday around 9pm we saw a car full of kids head out to Wenchuan with camping gear and supplies. Some of them were journalists, others were just concerned citizens. The Chinese Red Cross is not taking any more blood, because they are already overflowing with donated blood.

I have heard some rumors that many people are returning their tickets to the Olympics and calling off trips out here that were long planned. I know a few guide book projects I was working on are now on hold. The Chinese embassies are still hassling everyone who wants to come here in the next few months. The combination of natural disasters, Tibetan protests, aggressive nationalism and visa problems is causing an exodus of sorts amongst some of the foreigners here, and it is also keeping others away.

It is a very sad thing to contemplate, an unsuccessful Olympics. For Chinese who have grown up in the past 25 years, it is very confusing and hurtful to have the West scrutinize them so. They don't understand why.

Last night we were talking about the consequences of an unsuccessful Olympics. We basically agreed that China would retreat into itself like a turtle, again, if this were to happen. Here are a few stories about this issue.

We shall see.

The dude I referred to in my last post as stupid and selfish got what he wanted. His video is all over the world, he got paid big money by AP and they interviewed him. I have really seen the inside of the media machine for the first time with this natural disaster. I have mixed feelings about it all. The individual journalists are people just like everyone else, but when the machine gets in motion, I find myself being spun around like straw in a mudslide.

My "friend" Rafael is a reporter for La Vanguardia. We traveled together for one month in Xinjiang in 2003. Since then he has called me twice. Once to find out if I can be his translator and help him find Tibetans and Han that live near each other, in Lhasa .. basically find him the perfect story and report it for him.

The last was the day before yesterday, He showed up in Chengdu and asked me to hook up a car and translate and take him around the earthquake stuff. When i said I couldn't he hung up on me and dipped.

My boy Tenz just said: Amazing how this can impact so many individuals in so many different ways. For me its a clean slate, I can leave China. For others its the most traumatic and horrible experience of their lives. For others its a chance at fame and success ... "

I wrestle with myself about all of this too.

Chachin aint easy ya'll ...

Chillin in Flower Village

Well the tremors have picked up now and rumors are rife about another large earthquake. But rumors have been flying all day about no water, polluted water, airport open then closed and so on.

its safe out in my little farmhouse and I got a crew out there and some kitties to look after. Charlie's story is starting to circle around the web, despite the mercenary nature of his "companion" on the trip. That dude is hoarding all the images cuz he sees his big chance coming up. Very unprofessional, very selfish and very stupid. Had he made everything public, he would already be ... famous I guess.

Anyway Charlie and me are going to head out to the country side and ease back.

Chengdu Earthquake day after

Here is a story I wrote that didn't find space ... its a time-pegged story which means I can probably not publish it anywhere else. So here you are, a look at what was happening in the Du the day after:

In Chengdu a slight drizzle coats thousands of people who have taken to the streets and open public spaces, rather than spend the night in their apartments. The city, mercifully spared the destruction that has ravaged areas further north, has resumed bus transportation around the city. Restaurants and supermarkets are open and phone lines are more or less open.

It is the day after the largest earthquake in more than 30 years reduced vast areas of northwestern Sichuan Province to rubble, killing at least 11,000 people, with more reported missing or buried under rubble. More than 500,000 buildings have collapsed, according to state television, and coal, oil and chemical plants have been ordered to halt production following the disastrous collapse of two ammonia plants in Shifang, which buried more than 900 people, killing at least 90.

In Chengdu, hundreds of cars line up around gas stations, waiting to receive their ration of 100RMB worth of gas – about 30 liters based on current prices.

“There is no more gasoline being delivered for the time being,” said Wang Bo, a custodian at the PetroChina gas station on Yong Feng Road in south Chengdu. “Only official vehicles can fill up, all others are allotted only 100RMB worth.”

Many of the vehicles are actually waiting out the shocks and tremors which have continued into the morning and afternoon following yesterday’s 7.9 earthquake that leveled buildings in the counties and municipalities of Wenchuan, Beichuan. Mianyang, Deyang and Dujiangyan.

“We are not getting any reliable information from the government,” said Mr. Liu, a local resident standing next to his car on the south side of the city. “We were told to leave our apartments because there will be another quake sometime before six o’clock. I don’t dare go back home, so my family and I will wait here.”

Earlier today, an aftershock measuring 6.5 rocked Wenjiang, just 30 minutes outside of Chengdu. The tremors and shocks from that quake had the city's residents jittery all day -- the atmosphere became ripe for rumors. Nobody is sure where the rumors began, but almost all apartment complexes in the city have been emptied of people. Residents are forced to wait in their cars, under umbrellas and tents or in teahouses across the city listening to the radio and waiting for the tremors to stop.

Wang Xiao Qing and her niece Li Ya Juan spent last night in a tent on the Second Ring Road in Chengdu. They plan on staying outside and sleeping in an open space tonight, as well. Ms. Wang’s sister, the mother or Miss Li, is a Mianyang, Pingwu native and they have heard nothing from that area since the earthquake hit.

“We were told by the apartment authorities to stay out of our homes today, because a big earthquake will hit again this afternoon, sometime before six,” said Ms Wang. “I have heard nothing from my sister – I am worried, but not worried at the same time. I just wish we had reliable information, it is hard to know what is really going on.”

The State Council organized a live press conference this afternoon, giving the exact number of official dead – 11,922 – and expressing thanks for the offers of international assistance from around the world.

“We welcome aid in the form of materials and money from the international community,” said a State Council spokesman. “But we cannot allow foreign relief teams to enter China at this time, as our own teams have not yet managed to reach the worst-affected sites.”

Chengdu’s International Shuangliu airport re-opened this morning at 8am to allow relief teams from around China to get into the area. Rail lines across the country have been damaged by the earthquake, including one gasoline-filled freight train which was derailed in Gansu, subsequently bursting into flame. According to Xinhua, 149 cargo trains have been delayed or blocked on their way to Chengdu.

In a lighthearted moment, a slight tremor this afternoon sent the entire staff of the luxury hotpot restaurant, Huang Cheng Lao Ma, scattering into the street. Young women in uniform were giggling uncontrollably and holding each other. The last one to walk out was the manager, a large, heavy-set man who sauntered out of the restaurants doors to applause from his staff out on the street.

Local officials have stressed that the worst is over and that only small tremors will be felt from here on out, but residents of Chengdu are not convinced. Few are returning to their homes and most are taking their safety in their own hands by stocking up on water, flour and peanuts.

“I am spending the day in San Sheng Xiang (a flower manufacturing base 20 minutes southeast of the city) with water and cigarettes,” said Ran Wei. “I don’t know if there will be another big one and neither does anyone else.”

Local radio stations report that caravans of volunteers are heading north to Dujiangyan with water, tents and supplies, but these reports could not be independently confirmed. Tents and umbrellas were being passed out at elementary schools around the city to small children, the elderly and handicapped and local TV also asked for concerned locals to take care of each other and to seek out the elderly and weak to help them with water and shelter.

“The last time we felt anything like this was back in 1976 when an earthquake hit Songpan,” said elderly resident Xu Qing Guo. “This one is more horrible, because the tremors keep coming and we don’t know when it will all end. Al I can do is sit out here with my wife and listen to the radio.”

"Even if there is only a sliver of hope ..."

Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao's speech is looped on TV and radio and seems to have an effect. One line that inspired was:

"Even if there is only a sliver of hope, we will increase our efforts 100-fold to save those people"

Rumors are out now about the water. Water is turned off in Chengdu and in many of the hard hit areas farther north they are calling for people to deliver water to them in any way possible. Other than sporadic water -- Chengdu is basically back to normal. As if nothing ever happened.


A lot of Chinese are getting very angry and are quick to blame shoddy construction, corruption and inefficiency for the number of deaths. Everyone is asking why there were so many schools destroyed, but that is a natural reaction.

From what I have gathered over the past few days through combing the media and being interviewed by the BBC -- the Western media has a vested interest in controversy and the Chinese government is a convenient target. Any breath of corruption and the Guardian is all over it.

It is hard to say what the truth may be. I think it is very possible that the construction firm who gained the contract to build schools in Dujiangyan and Deyang skimped on materials and quality. But so did every other construction firm in the country on every single project they are involved in. China is in the midst of a commercial revolution -- selling out and making profit is glorious.

So on one hand, perhaps some of the deaths could have been avoided. But who is truly to blame? And can anyone have predicted an earthquake?

I think for Americans it is easy to compare with Hurricane Katrina -- the slow response to prior warnings and the even slower response to the destruction of New Orleans. From what I and many of my friends have seen here, the Chinese are doing a much better job of pulling together as one to help people injured, buried or displaced by the earthquake than the US Government did for the people of New Orleans. The NYT, here, on the same issue.

There are no reports of looting, prices are fixed and there are no reports of people taking advantage (yet) of a shortage of supplies and locals are eager to head north with water and/or give blood.

What happens to the construction firms and their government sponsors later? ... well the Chinese have a saying for that:

Qiu Hou Suan Zhang

"We'll get the numbers straight after the harvest ..."