3 Minutes of Noise: A Country in Mourning

May 20, 2008

Been out of touch for a while, as you can see. My Macbook crashed a few days ago, and it has spent a few lonely days in the Apple tech shop. I was computer-less, but luckily, the techie helped me retrieve my hard-drive, most of which I backed up to an external drive.

Far bigger news are the earthquakes in China, the aftershocks of which still threaten China’s interior.

Yes, I felt it too, even way out here in Beijing, a good three-hour flight from Wenchuan, Sichuan. Thanks, btw, to those of you who wrote in to ask :-)

I had just finished lunch with my girl in my apartment. We were in a high-rise condo building. I was sitting on my couch and then the room started to shake. I said, “Whoa, I think I ate too much. I’m really dizzy.”

My girl said, “Uh, no. It’s an earthquake. I feel it too.”

We looked up and noticed that the chandelier was swinging back and forth. We evacuated the building with all the other office people and residents. And we stood outside for about a half hour before heading back in. I got texts saying there would be more serious tremors later in the evening, but fortunately, they proved false.

I heard people talking about a huge earthquake in Sichuan that afternoon. But I was busy with my thesis and my other work.

And there is always bad news going on. Like what struck Myanmar just before this. There are always people dying from some tragic accident or natural disaster somewhere in the world. Cold and callous, I know. But I’m just being honest.

And then the photos and news reports started pouring in. I don’t usually watch TV, especially in China. But you couldn’t escape the coverage here. It’s everywhere.

It’s strange and surreal, watching small groups of models crying over their laptops while viewing very graphic photos of the earthquake victims. These are the kind of photos that you can’t find using search engines in English. There are pages and pages of photos, including shots of dozens of school-children lying face down in sewer water, of bloodied arms and mangled legs protruding from broken slabs of concrete and metal, of dead infants lying in the lifeless arms of nurses and doctors who couldn’t be saved in time from their collapsing hospital building. These generate tons of sympathy … and charity. At least it did from me.

My home bar here in Beijing hosted an open bar on Sunday night asking only for donations to the Red Cross at the door. That’s right. Free drinks all night long. And they didn’t skimp on the drink menu. Everything but bottles was available. It made me proud to call them my home bar despite their lackluster crowd the past few weekends.

That was Sunday. It still seemed so far removed from my reality. The way fucking models seemed out of my reality just a couple of years ago. I didn’t even give it a second thought. Donate? Sure, if I’ll get some free booze in return.

And then there was yesterday at 2:28 pm. It was exactly one week from the earthquake. Apparently, there was to be a country-wide 3 minutes of silence. I didn’t know. I was living in my protected bubble of comfy, semi-luxurious expat life. I was taking the elevator up to my apartment at around 2:20pm that day and noticed lots of people taking the elevators down and rushing outside. I saw a sign taped next to the elevator door announcing the 3 minutes of silence.

I’ve observed minutes of silence before, many times in fact, in Canada and the US. Those were always real times of silence. Everybody stands up, bows their heads, and is eerily quiet.

I thought it would be like that. I figured I might as well stay in my apartment and be silent alone.

And then 2:28 hit. You couldn’t miss it.

The city’s outdoor sirens went off. I didn’t even know there were sirens. I was way up in a high floor apartment with my windows closed and facing a quiet courtyard below. And all I could hear were the sirens and the noise.

It seemed like every single car on the road (and mind you, this is Beijing, so that’s a fucking lot of cars) was honking its horns non-stop. It wasn’t beep, beep, beep. It was one long blast for three full minutes.

I looked out the window and saw that every car in my downtown intersection had stopped. And every person had stopped moving. They were just standing still. Many were gathered in circles. Some were hugging. Some were holding hands. All heads were bowed.

It felt like a twilight zone.

It was three full minutes of sheer noise. One long, wailing, horrific, sorrowful sheet of sound.

Such was much more fitting for the kind of disaster that hit. Better than pure silence. Three minutes of terror. Just three minutes for us.

Estimates are nearing 70,000 victims and rising.

Life is more than than the petty world of fuck-closes, kiss-closes, rapid escalations, one-night stands, same-night lays, lay reports and field reports, and Asian guys getting white girls. Come out from the dark side of pickup. Stop using people for your own ego-validation. I’ve been just as guilty of this as anyone, so I’m equally talking to myself.

Death may require your life today. Carpe diem that shit.

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Posted by Asian Rake | Filed Under Miscellaneous 

Comments

No Responses to “3 Minutes of Noise: A Country in Mourning”

  1. thoseguns on May 22nd, 2008 11:21 am

    I’m glad you’re okay, man. I saw that on the news and was saddened at all the lives lost- last i read it was around 50k. Tragic.

    Carpe diem!

  2. Lily on June 4th, 2008 3:43 pm

    hey…I have relatives in Sichuan so this entry really hit home for me. Thankfully they’re doing fine but so many others are obviously not. The reactions here in America range from sympathy to being like “you deserve it” which I can’t believe is happening when so many people have died and suffered.

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