School children death toll sparks tough questions in China
JUYUAN, China (AFP) -- As more children were pulled Wednesday from the rubble of their schools, questions emerged over whether corruption and shoddy construction were to blame for taking such a heavy toll of young lives.
AFP - Thursday, May 15
Not to sound callous, but I had to snicker when I got to "corruption and shoddy construction". It's just not something that escapes notice, even if the earthquake didn't topple all those buildings.
I live in an old building. Perhaps it really isn't that old, just dismally maintained. Same difference? In any case, a new notice board was recently installed at the lift landing. Not a great notice board, but functional, with a single-coloured frame and a glass panel. Maybe not so much a notice board as a poster frame. Well, this thing, whatever it's meant to be, would be pretty decent if the glass panel wasn't broken. Let's see, we've got a brand new poster frame, which we carelessly broke in the process of delivery / installation, but whatever. Someone removed the broken glass several weeks later. Now it's just a sad empty frame in a dark and dank lift landing. Already forgotten, and never been used. No, wait. Someone came along and rubber-stamped on its cardboard backing (in red ink, no less) an advertisment for ... something. Served its purpose, then.
Meanwhile, upstairs in a little flat on level 14, the occupant heard something that sounded suspiciously like dishes smashing into a million bits. Uh-oh, I don't remember placing any dishes in precarious positions. But nothing was amiss in the kitchen.
The bathroom, then. Two tiles have free-fallen off the bathroom wall. One landed unharmed in a bucket, delivering 2 mortal holes. The other, not as clever, perished, leaving its broken body scattered across the bathroom floor.
Remember, back in art class, when you used to just squeeze two dabs of glue instead of spreading the glue evenly across the surface? The construction worker must've attended the same art class. Sat right beside you, in fact.
Oh, and you also used cheap water-based glue that dissolves away when your masterpiece got wet, didn't you? Must've shared it with that construction fellow.
Gravity is a funny thing. Gives things weight. Then some clever chap invented sliding doors. That glass door may be heavy, but it just slides. So smooth a child could move it. Well, maybe not that particular sliding door in the place I previously lived. It was a pleasant compound comprising several low apartment buildings, even has a proper car park, clean stairwells and a 24-hour ... er, fellow (before that incident involving the adjacent dark alley and a psycho, I might've called it "security"). Adjacent to my big airy room was a nice balcony. Hard to get in there, though, with that ill-tempered glass door. I s'pose I'd be ill-tempered too, if I had to spend my life upside-down, being dragged to and fro on my head. Imagine the migrains.
Perhaps "shoddy" just means "not very knowledgable". Even the best materials will crumble if there is a lack of knowledge and appreciation. And what does "corruption" mean?
It means the "local officials are very XXX", to quote a friend living in Guangzhou. He wants to "adopt a kid", any kid who had been left homeless and parentless after the quake, I assume. He would provide the child with monetary assistance, while a friend of his would take care of the child in terms of housing and daily needs. Impossible, it seems. "If you have been to Sichuan, you will know what I mean", he said in reference to the XXX-ness of the local officials.
They stand around waiting for help, instead of thinking of how they can rebuild homes, he elaborated. His suspicions (shared by not just a few, I suspect) are that they might actually be happier post-quake then pre-quake because of the large amounts of money pouring in to assist the region (and perhaps line their pockets).
I rarely make monetary donations. Pre-China, Test Subject 1 (under coercion) and I used to make annual donations to The Boys' Brigade Sharity Gift Box, which seeks to "bring cheer to the less fortunate by collecting food items and fulfilling Christmas wishes of the beneficiaries". The project encourages donors "to go beyond purely financial giving and are instead challenged to make the extra effort to buy gifts for the less privileged in our society". I remember buying school supplies and/or food supplies and depositing them at the Sharity booth downtown. On hindsight, I s'pose it was because it felt better knowing what your hard-earned money was being spent on.
And then! And then you read something like this:
Myanmar cyclone victims getting low-quality supplies
AFP - Thursday, May 13
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) -- Many cyclone victims are getting spoiled or poor-quality food from Myanmar's junta instead of the enriched supplies being delivered by foreign governments and charities, victims and aid workers said Tuesday.
A longtime foreign resident of Myanmar's biggest city, Yangon, told The Associated Press in Bangkok by telephone that angry government officials complained to him about the military misappropriating aid.
He said the officials told him that high-energy biscuits rushed in on the World Food Program's first flights were sent to a military warehouse. They were exchanged for what the officials described as "tasteless and low-quality" biscuits produced by the Industry Ministry to be handed out to cyclone victims, he said.
Misappropriating biscuits. One of those things that makes you want to either laugh or cry. Although here in China, they'd rather you cry. You need to suffer collectively when something tragic happens, nothing too entertaining now!
China takes playoff games off air
Reuters, Wednesday May 28 2008 (adds NBA China statement in paras 9-10, byline)
By Nick Mulvenney
BEIJING, May 28 (Reuters) - NBA playoff games have been taken off air by China's state television network because they are considered too entertaining for a nation still recovering from the Sichuan earthquake.
All entertainment in China was stopped last week for three days of national mourning for the victims of the 7.9 magnitude quake that struck the western province on May 12.State TV sports channel CCTV 5, like most other stations, returned to normal programming last Thursday and showed the Western Conference finals game between the Los Angeles Lakers and San Antonio Spurs on May 22.
But subsequent clashes in that series and the Eastern Conference playoff finals between Detroit and Boston were not shown."These games are not in accordance with the atmosphere of the nation after the devastation of the earthquake. They are too entertaining" Jiang Heping, director of the state TV sports channel, told Reuters.
Methinks it's time to air those Korean melodramas. No better way than playing a Winter Sonata to incite collective weeping (although some may argue that it's more entertaining than watching the NBA playoffs). It beats imposing a nation-wide three-minute-long silence. I mention this only because I was at the supermarket when it occurred and while the supermarket staff stopped what they were doing, it's quite obvious they were not being mournful. Neither were the many Chinese shoppers, who continued pushing their carts, picking their vegetables and poking their meat.
Granted, I followed suit, but then I'm just a cynical, hypocritical, critical foreigner doing as the Romans do, innit.
