Absurdity, Allegory and China

There are moments in our lives that peg us to a position when an event of great weight unfolds. The afternoon of May 12, 2008 is one I will not soon forget. I felt ‘something’ that did not feel right, a noise of some sort as I lay in the bed reading. (I keep odd hours and sometimes in mid-afternoon I’ll lie down to take a break.) Within a minute of feeling whatever the odd sensation was, I’d received a text message from my daughter in Beijing: “Did you feel that.” Though I wasn’t sure what I’d felt, I sent her back, “I felt something.” So, I went online, and immediately began reading what turned out to be the first few notes of a dirge: an earthquake at the edge of the Tibetan Plateau, in Sichuan.

My initial thought was, “What about the schools?” The reason I immediately hit on the schools was because I’d spent a good deal of time over the preceding three years living in a first-floor concrete box in a school on the Plateau in Qinghai. I immediately called a friend at the school and was relieved when he picked up and told me that all was fine there, that they hadn’t felt a thing.

For the better part of a quarter century I’d worked construction in the U.S., and I’d learned a thing or two about how things are built. The building where I stayed in Qinghai was a four-story concrete box that I had no doubt would be a one-story tomb in a temblor. Being on the first floor insured a quick death, and of this I had no question. I was informed by experience. Though none of the others – there were approximately 250 people in 40 rooms – had the building experience I had,  I assumed that, at some level, they knew about the pancake effect. They also knew they were in a minority school in the Qinghai countryside, which meant that they could be assured that the building was built with as many cut-corners as possible. The top floor was nearly all students, and though it gave them a better chance than those of us on the first floor, if the whole thing were to come down there was not much question that most who were inside or anywhere near the building would never again be thinking about ‘tomorrow.’

Since the Sichuan earthquake people have been trying to get the government to come clean on the shoddy school construction that saw so many schools collapse and take so many children’s lives. They want truth and accountability for those who skimmed and stole and produced inferior buildings that collapsed while neighboring buildings did not catastrophically destruct. Officials in Sichuan continue to stonewall, protecting those who were responsible for both the oversight and construction of the schools. The list/number of dead children has been referred to as a ‘state secret,’ and many have been incarcerated for trying to get to the truth. The latest in a long number of detainees has been Ai Weiwei, the eclectic Beijing artist who has been pursuing a list of names of the dead children, in lieu of waiting for one to come from the government. A translation of one of his blog posts describing his detention and beating is here.

What is disturbing in all of this is the behavior of Premier Wen Jiabao, a native of Tianjin – a geologist and engineer, which qualifies him to some degree to understand the magnitude of the material destruction – was all over the earthquake scene, the face of the government in-charge: offering advice, showing compassion, promising to make everything right. But that was before the Olympics, when the press was everywhere (except , of course, Tibet). For nearly a year the people of Sichuan have battled their government for answers, for accountability, for something that might actually help them still their rage. But so far the answers have been more boilerplate sloganeering and propaganda campaigns than anything substantive and honest. And in many cases the people who lost children are battling against the ones who have profited from the corruption that brought the schools down on their children. It is difficult to imagine a worse situation, though the response of the Bush Administration to Hurricane Katrina victims vies with the Chinese government’s response to the Sichuan earthquake for the lowest level of shame. When I watched Wen making his way through the destruction I had a glimmer of hope that somehow they might actually handle this with honor and legitimacy. There I go again, letting false hope get a leg up on me. You’d think that after all these years I’d learn. Oh well, I guess I’m just easy, thinking that leaders should actually try to help the People.

I have no answer for my title “Where’s Wen?” though I can tell you where he was this past Saturday: Listening to Jackie Chan tell the world that Chinese people couldn’t really handle freedom. In what can only be seen as too many blows to the head, Mr. Chan, the movie star (who does his own stunts! Really!) revealed in front of a real audience, which included the Good Uncle, “I’m gradually beginning to feel that we Chinese need to be controlled. If we are not being controlled, we’ll just do what we want.”

And that would be what, Jackie? Well for starters let me suggest that they might want an official list of the children killed in last year’s earthquake. Nothing wrong with that, unless, of course, there is much to hide. I am sure Uncle Wen was pleased to hear the great Mr. Kickass tell him to ‘stay the course.’ That ought to take a load off his mind. Now, perhaps, he can get back to working on that list. I doubt any official thugs will beat him up. But, then again, you never know, since it’s not always clear whose really in charge once you get out into the hinterlands and start asking the hard questions like, “Why did so many of the schools collapse killing so many defenseless children? And by the way, how many died and what were their names? And lets have a look at the construction accounting books. There may be something there of great interest. To the People.”

How are we supposed to take China as a serious state when the officials have such total disregard for their own country’s children and the overwhelming grief felt by the parents who are seeking justice. Is the only barometer economic and financial? Is it only about the money?

And don’t even get me started on the myth of “how much we care about our elderly.”  That’s for another day when my BP’s back down in the safe range again.