Love to China
Recently, there was a massive earthquake in China. Xu Yan and her friends and family have not been directly affected by the event, which is a tremendous blessing for us, but many, many others have. The death toll is up over 12,000 now… and counting.
Though the Chinese government appears to have things under control (wish they were around during Katrina), I’m in the process of trying to locate information regarding how we can help from afar. The Chinese have a long history of dealing with various natural and man-made disasters, so I suspect this will work itself out in the end. They are an especially resilient people.
The purpose of this post, in any case, is to simply send some love to my Chinese brothers and sisters in Sichuan province and beyond. You are in my heart.
@Shane
I’ll put the NYTimes link in another post: http://tinyurl.com/5voyj8
rynsa
20 May 08 at 7:59 pm
NBC is reporting that there have been protests in some cities – Beichuan, I think – organized by parents to protest the miserable construction of schools where so many kids (thousands of kids) died. A team of San Fran earthquake engineers went in to assess and said the schools in the town had the absolute worst construction of all the buildings – no steel bar or concrete reinforcement, substandard concrete was used, etc. The schools went down in seconds. This is the result of corruption. Slippery bastards contract to build a school, use cheap materials, pay off local officials so they won’t be fined or held accountable. I wish they would find the guilty parties and prosecute them. These protests are not being report in China Daily (Xinhau). How about the Chinese media? Are Chinese people learning about how corruption killed thousands?
shane
20 May 08 at 9:18 pm
@Shane
I concur, mon amis. The corruption you described in the construction industry, by the way, also reaches into other aspects of Chinese manufacturing, and well beyond national borders. Lack of oversight and accountability has led to untold amounts of dangerous products being released into the American marketplace.
See:
Made Bad in China
Who Sucks? Blog
In this modern context, it’s important to remember that the international media has become just another industry, subject to the same selfish aspirations of capitalism, and readily corruptible. They’d much rather ’sell’ the story of a country coming together in a time of tragedy than the story (an old story now) of government-subsidized companies cutting corners to improve the bottom line. How do you make a sexy computer graphic with that? What kind of compelling soundtrack goes well with plutocratic villainy?
Government is an easy target, actually. To a limited extent so are the corporations that make money off death. But helping Chinese folks to take a more critical perspective on the things they see, hear, read, etc., well, that’s the real trick. Analyzing systems of information is not an inherent skill. It must be learned, which means it must be taught.
Honestly, that’s a problem in the so-called ‘developed’ world, as well. Why did we go to war in Iraq again? What did all those ‘embedded’ journalists say in the lead-up to invasion? Who’s making money off this whole adventure anyway? What news agencies are tied to what political agenda? Etc… Hmph.
Yep. Media literacy aint easy.
rynsa
21 May 08 at 1:26 am