Epics and Earthquakes May 2008

Considering March and April passed relatively uneventfully, May is making up for it in spades….After my trip to Leshan and Emei Shan at the beginning of the month, I settled down to preparing and teaching classes for my final month of this term. Then my friend Yeshi and her daughter Machig called to say they were coming up to visit for the following weekend.
Arriving the Friday evening, we went out for a gallivant with a bunch of teachers and their families on the Saturday to a nearby village called Pi Pa Yuan. Riding a battered old bus with rattling wooden seats up the winding roads into the surrounding hills, we drove past fields of wheat, rice and vegetables until the bus stopped to let us off seemingly in the middle of nowhere. The teachers set off down a curving path through an orchard of pi pa trees, the fruit for which the village is named. I haven’t seen them elsewhere, and doubt there’s an English name, but the fruit is small and orange-yellow, with several smooth pits inside. They look a bit like small mangoes, but are more sour. We carried on through the orchard til we reached a tea house set among the trees, its two floors built of wood and open on all sides to the breezes. Before sitting down for tea, we wandered among the orchards, chasing butterflies and enjoying the break from town and city life, especially Yeshi, who lives in the polluted metropolis of Chengdu. We walked out to the terraced fields and watched the local farmers harvesting rapeseed, and watering other crops. It could have been 100 years ago, with the farmers bright specks of colour among the fields of wheat and rice, large round hats protecting them from the sun. After a while, we returned to lounge in the shade in the terrace, sipping green tea and enjoying the cool breeze for a few hours before lunch. This turned out to be a veritable feast, all sorts of traditional delicacies. Finally mid afternoon, we returned to Santai for a quiet evening. The next day, we went out across the river to visit the Dong Shan park and the large Buddha statue in the cliff-side there. Not as big as Leshan, of course, but with a very serene expression on its face. Nearby, there was another large statue of Kwan Yin, the Chinese equivalent of Chenresig, the deity representing compassion, along with two other statues of the Chinese versions of Jampelyang (wisdom) and Chana Dorje (power). Wandered around for a bit by the river, watching some men fish with a long silken net strung between two long poles before returning to the town for lunch, so Yeshi and Machig could catch the bus back to Chengdu. A lovely weekend, and the weather was perfect.

So, back to classes as usual on Monday, expecting a typical week. Things started out normally enough, taught two classes Monday morning, and then was sitting at home in the early afternoon before my final class preparing some lessons for the next week, when suddenly the building started to shake violently back and forth, stuff fell off shelves, and a couple windows broke. Earthquake. Hearing the shouts and screams of my neighbours, I too dashed downstairs ( my flat is on the 5th floor), holding the railing as the building continued to sway and shake. Everyone was running out to the football ground, and my first concern was the students, as there are 8-9000 of them packed into two buildings, of 6 floors each, and it was obviously going to take some time to get them all out safely. Meanwhile, the ground continued to shake, making one feel oddly seasick and nauseous. Finally, everyone was out, and the tremor stopped, but everywhere people were crying and shouting, trying to find family and friends in the crowd. To make matters worse, the phone lines were either down or bogged down by people trying to contact their families to find out if they were alright. Many students were dizzy and nauseous, many of them fainting, and having to be carried over to the shade. There were a few more tremors, though not as strong as the first, and talking to students, I heard that in the panic, a few students had leapt out the windows of the 3rd and 4th floors, several of whom were taken to the hospital, some with broken limbs, and one girl with a serious head injury, was rushed to the big surgical hospital in Mianyang, an hour away. For the most part, though, teachers had done an excellent job in controlling the situation, and getting the students out safely. The last earthquake in this area was in 1976, so none of the students had experienced an earthquake before and were understandably terrified. We all spent the rest of that afternoon out on the football field, as the tremors continued. It was very hot, but the school arranged to have water bottles handed out to everyone. Finally students settled down, were organized in groups according to their classes and we commenced the wait to find out what we were to do next. Eventually we heard how bad the earthquake had been, and that thousands of people in a nearby town had been killed. We also heard that several of the older houses on the outskirts of town had fallen down, and some people had been killed in Santai, but since the phones were still down, we had no other details than that.
At around 6pm, it was announced that we were all to stay the night on the football ground, as it wasn’t safe to spend the night in the dorms or apartments. People spread out bits of newspaper and mats, those who lived on the lower floors ventured into their flats to get blankets, and we all settled down for the night. Noone really slept, most of us sat in small groups talking. In an odd way, I was glad for the earthquake, as I got the chance to really talk with many students.. But that novelty wore off fairly quickly as the night wore on, and we grew tired. Then it started to rain. With nowhere to shelter, we were all thoroughly drenched and tired when the sun finally rose in the morning.

It was then announced that the school would be closed for a few days until the buildings had been checked, and the threat of further quakes was over. So students headed off to gather their things and catch buses to their villages. I squelched back to my room, had a quick shower (extremely quick- the possibility of having to dash out again in just a towel not being a terribly attractive option!) and changed into dry clothes. Managed to finally get through on a painfully slow internet connection to let people know I was alive, and had something to eat. There had been no dinner last night, as all the shops and restaurants were closed, so everyone was wet, cold and hungry. Then I put some stuff in a small bag, along with my tent, near the door, to be prepared this time in case we had to dash outside again. It was a fairly quiet morning, still many small tremors so most people had set up camp out on the field, afraid to be in the buildings, but I decided to hang out in my room as long as possible, as it was still chilly and overcast outside. Then around 3pm that afternoon, there was another biggish tremor. Though not as bad as Monday’s, everyone ran outside again, and noone was permitted back into the buildings that afternoon or evening. Then it started to rain around 4:00. It poured. And poured. All bloody night. My tent held out pretty well, but then I realized it was sitting in an inch of water that had collected on the artificial rubbery surface of the field. It started to seep in along the bottom seams of the tent, until all my blankets were soaked. That was one long, long night. In the morning, it was all a bit deja-vu-ish as I squelched yet again upstairs, and hung everything out to dry, including the tent itself. Made myself a steaming cup of artificial coffee, which had never tasted so good, and sat down to attempt the emails again. Once that was done, made myself breakfast, curled up on the settee and tried to sleep a bit. Two hours of sleep in two days is just not conducive to longevity or general happiness. The phone lines had obviously been repaired though, and my phones rang pretty much constantly all morning. Word of the earthquake had spread, and the reports of fatalities seemed to grow by the hour, making me realize just how lucky we were to be merely wet, cold and hungry, as opposed to wet, cold and dead! (Though I suppose being wet and cold would at that point be less of an issue.)

In actual fact, once the initial terror wore off, I almost enjoyed the tremors, thinking how well they put things into perspective. As humans we consider ourselves practically immortal in some ways, but when you stand on what is usually taken for granted to be solid immovable earth, and fell it shake and roll beneath your feet, it rapidly changes your attitude, and you realize just how very small an insignificant we are compared to the natural forces that control the earth. Amazing. I sat on the field, feeling it rock beneath me, and thought of how the mountain ranges were formed or swallowed up, continents created or destroyed. Better than a lifetime of geography lessons. And the edge of fear to give it spice. Of course, I write from a perspective outside the chaos of the towns destroyed at the center of the quake. I suspect very few people were sitting around rhapsodizing about geography with building falling down around their heads.

Well, all that day, the tremors continued, classes were still cancelled, and Wednesday evening we were told to sleep outside again. Fortunately that night was clear and dry, it was a veritable pleasure in comparison to the previous nights, and I was quite glad to feel the hard surface of the field below rather than the lake of the night before. There was another fairly strong tremor at 5am, and I woke up to the shaking and sound of screams, but there was no damage. Still, at that point noone could go back to sleep, so I packed up and headed (squelchlessly) back upstairs again for a coffee and my morning email session. The electricity was back on again, and though we were warned to be careful, people were cooking on the gas stoves again. There are warnings out about a chemical spill into the water supply in the area though, so everyone is being careful of the water.
So here I sit, waiting to hear what is to happen tomorrow, whether classes are to restart or not. If not, I plan to head to Chengdu to visit friends for the weekend, as Yeshi and her daughter are heading out, having had enough of the political stress of the past few months, topped by this. Apparently many people are leaving, but I’ve only a couple weeks left of this term, before I take off to travel for the summer holidays. My final classes are on the morning of May 30, and if all goes well, I intend to leave that afternoon.