May 27, 2008

This has been such a sad time here in China. It's difficult to know how to appropriately address the earthquake and all of it's destruction. On the day of the earthquake, my friend Julie and I were walking to my house. I got an email that afternoon from my friend Heidi in Jakarta asking if I had felt the earthquake. I had no idea what she was talking about and looked on my news-page and saw nothing about it. That night, I saw something about an earthquake in Chengdu that killed 4 people. I thought it was sad, but didn't dwell on it too much. The next morning, my mother called, wondering if we were OK! All of those thousands of people. It has been such a devastating blow for the Chinese people. The aftermath is even still going on. So many people without homes and still in danger. It was felt in some tall buildings in Nanjing, but no damage was done.

Exactly one week later, I was walking the same path home, and suddenly everyone stopped their cars and started honking continuously. As you can imagine, it was A LOT of honking. People on the sidewalks stopped. The sirens all over the city went off. It was such a touching experience to see them doing the only thing they could to mourn for those people lost in the earthquake. There is one bright thing that has come from all of this. I have seen Chinese people helping people in ways I have never seen before. There is such a feeling of unity and selflessness, which seems like a new thing to this nation. For a people who is so used to scraping by, and just "fending for themselves", it's a wonderful thing to see them volunteering time and money.

This morning, I went with Julie to see the Olympic torch while it was here in Nanjing. What a contrast. People were all so excited, and dressed in all sorts of Olympic paraphernalia. They were just thrilled. It was so funny. Julie and I posed in photo after photo with so many Chinese people. We bought flags and t-shirts, and everyone was so excited to see us foreigners excited with them. It was a great morning. Here are some photos of some excited people! Also, here is a little bit of trivia... The torch was made here in Nanjing. It looks like a scroll of paper, because the Chinese are proud to have invented paper.




I decided to take a photo of people taking photos of us. There were so many people that wanted photos with us, I think I know how Mickey Mouse feels??? I felt like a theme-park mascot!