Quake comes to China and the Torch to Xiamen

By now most people have probably heard about the earthquake this afternoon in west-central Sichuan province (see map below). It was a pretty big one, above magnitude 7, and there have been casualties, although the numbers are wildly conflicting. The center was about 800 miles from us, so we felt nothing. But we join people all over the world in the hope that not too many people have been hurt and life will not be too disrupted in those areas. A much smaller tremor was felt west of Beijing a few minutes later apparently.

At that time, we were fighting our way through an exuberant, if a bit pushy crowd of college students and staff of Xia Da to watch the Olympic Torch run past the campus on its way downtown. Classes were canceled and a very large crowd gathered, we and some other foreigners were shepherded by the overseas faculty office to a place near the front..we think to put us near the CCTV cameras..








It was a bit sunny but we were rewarded for our endurance by a great view of the torch being handed off right in front of us..as you can make out in the video ...the buses have the next torch bearers in them, then you can see the flame being passed off. It was a bit jumpy because we were in a very tightly packed crowd who were all jumping up and down.

Knowing that the torch relay has been controversial abroad..I gave some thought to my own feelings about doing what we did -- going out in our full Olympic attire, waving and cheering with the rest. For me, it boils down to having a great admiration for the Chinese people, and my own corner of China in particular. For Chinese people the Olympic Games has become a symbol to celebrate China's progress, a source of pride in their nation's growth. Regardless of my feelings about Tibet, and anger over the ways in which China still cages its citizens, I could not help feeling pleased and proud along with them -- if you think about what China was like just one generation ago -- there is really a lot to celebrate, besides of course the notion of the Olympics as a celebration of youth and oh yeah ...sports, remember?!?!? The world community has done a thorough job in recent weeks of pointing out all the ways in which China's progress remains incomplete...especially when it comes to the Chinese government's lack of tolerance for dissent. But seeing the torch was not about politics for me -- but about joining in the local spirit of fun and optimism...

..Which was nice because lately, there has been a general tightening of the mood here ahead of the Olympics--nothing in particular or frightening really, just noticing how much stricter the police are being about everything, how the church is keeping a lower profile, how some foreigners are having trouble renewing visas,as the rules are tightened, etc. I have been feeling a little moody about it all, also because of reading more 20th century Chinese history and fiction lately after an influx of books not available here ...Mao, the untold story by Jung Chung, brought by my sister and Beijing Coma by Ma Jian, a novel set in Beijing during the democracy movement of 1989, which I bought in Hong Kong. I recommend both of them.

The longer we are here the more we come across people who want to talk about politics, religion, and other sensitive topics -- and it does make life quite interesting.