Worst Kept Secrets

First of all, clearly, I’m still alive. It was weird being on the other end of that social phonemenon that causes people to make an instant connection between a catastrophe and the one person they know anywhere remotely near it. I was really touched by the concern, but WOW is Sichuan a long way away from Nanjing.

[some of the links in this post contain horribly upsetting photos]

I’ve got to say, though, that I’m really proud of my host country for its response. To my knowledge, nothing’s been covered up, hushed, or otherwise restrained, and I’m glad to see that. I realize that the decision to be so forthright about the devastation was probably a politically calculated one, but nevertheless - way to be, China. I sincerely hope that the government’s rapid response and transparent reporting of the quake provides a solid precedent for the future. From the above article from the New York Times:

Dali Yang, the director of the East Asian Institute in Singapore, said the government might have come to the realization that openness and accountability could bolster its legitimacy and counter growing anger over corruption, rising inflation and the disparity between the urban rich and the rural poor.

“I think their response to this disaster shows they can act, and they can care,” he said. “They seem to be aware that a disaster like this can pull the country together and bring them support.”

China’s had a really bad year. From protests to train wrecks to completely improbable blizzards, and now this. The news coming out of the area keeps getting worse and worse. The idea that nearly 20,000 people could be going about business as usual one minute and gone the next is something that I can’t really process. Please, if you’ve got the means, send a donation - thousands of people are homeless and grieving. And the only silver lining I can come up with is that at least they’re not in Myanmar, which is run by psychotic monsters. As unimaginably awful as the news out of Sichuan is, what’s happening in Myanmar is beyond disgusting and inexcusable.

In case you were wondering, Chengdu (in Sichuan Province) has a huge panda reserve, and the pandas are fine. And yes, I’m appropriately disgusted with myself for thinking about that as quickly as I did.

I’ve felt like I should post something about this since it happened, and I’ve been putting it off. I really am scared to talk about things that aren’t comfortably centered on myself. And believe it or not, that’s not entirely the result of egotism (although I’ll never deny that I suffer from that). I’m really afraid of publicly digging into things I don’t really understand, and with something like this, it feels really cheap and insincere for me to be blogging about the deaths of more people than I’ve personally known in my entire life on my new company laptop in my comfy, air-conditioned room with food, water, a bathroom, and a reasonable prediction as to what’s going to happen to me tomorrow. But what happened was absolutely fucking awful, and I guess I need to add my voice to everyone else’s. I’m going to give money as soon as I have some, but the only other thing I can do is let it be known that I am paying attention and hope that that counts for something. Does that make any sense?