(We first posted final thoughts from All Things Considered producers, hosts and reporters who were in Sichuan here. An extended version of this entry is posted on May 30. Please post new comments at that location.)
From left, Brendan Banazak, Robert Siegel, Chris Turpin, Melissa Block, Andrea Hsu, Stacey Abbott, Joy Ma, Art Silverman Saturday May 24, Sheraton Chengdu.
Photo by a Sheraton Hotel Doorman12:00 AM ET | 05-28-2008 | permalink
In the week before the earthquake, my husband and I discussed how great it was going to be to have Chengdu Diary on NPR exactly three years from the week we had spent there becoming parents.
As of late, weve been wondering what to tell our son, adopted from China, fostered through the Guangyuan Social Welfare Institute and received in Chengdu on May 17th 2005, about his origins. Our son, now 4, is not characteristically Han Chinese, his ethnic origin, though unknown for certain, may be Tibetan or any other culture that meets at this crossroads in Sichuan.
We had looked forward to what we might learn from Chengdu Diary. Never did I think that this past week would bring such a collision of our worlds. For a family thousands of miles away from the epicenter of this seismic event, this has become a very significant part of our story. The story that we will tell our child about who he is and who we are to each other.
As geoscientists who have worked in China, my husband and I are well familiar with the tectonic activity that goes on in the Asian region. Having been to the area three years ago, we had strong images of what destruction this massive quake could have there. When the first fataliy numbers came in, we multiplied them by 10.
Through the past three years there have often been times in my musings that I have thought about my sons birth mother, and the circumstances that may have lead to her decisions. Just as he has been in my arms, she has been in my heart, always there, somewhere in Sichuan Province.
Now I find myself scanning tragic images for the face of someone I dont know, but who may seem familiar. I tell myself that perhaps she is unhurt and suffers only the burden of the difficulties brought on by the disaster.
No matter what I tell myself, an internal emptiness is the vessel of my grief for a woman who I've suddenly realized I may never be able to thank. Why I have harbored the fantasy that someday I would be able to do so I cant explain really. Statistically, I know the likelihood, only now I've truly acknowledged it. All this brought forward by knowing that the lives of the "birth people" of my son have been significantly impacted by the quake.
All in all its a strange sort of sadness I have, a grieving for something I've never really had. Not unlike the grieving one goes through over the inability to conceive. Not something easily shared openly.
Overall I hope it will enable me to feel greater empathy with my son when he begins to question his origins, and who his "birth people" are.
Just after receiving our referral for our son, I answered a request by a professor for adoptive mothers to share what they would like the birth mothers of their children to know. This is what I wrote:
To the birth mother of my son
Ive only come to know for two days that the responsibility of rearing and loving and teaching this child will be mine. For two days now I have thought of myself as a mother with a son. Though the legal bits of paper rendering him to me are not yet transacted, he already is mine to dream about and plan for and be worried about. My wonderments do not at present extend to who you are or why you were unable to take on the responsibilities
that I have now accepted. I know nothing more about my boy than that he was born on 3 May 2004, was received by officials 6 days after his birth and that he has been in foster care. My greater concern is what he will wonder,
my son, as to who you are and how he came to be mothered by me. I will tell him what I know, and through his years I will listen to his wonderments and help him settle on an understanding of how we came to be family.
"That is sad", he may say, "that my birth mother couldnt keep me". "It is ok for you to be sad for her", I will say, "I am sad that she doesnt get to see what a wonderful boy you are, but in giving you to be given to us, she
has made the most significant decision a human can make. No birth mother makes the decision without pain and suffering, but the joy she gives to those who receive her gift is far, far greater than her own hurt. In allowing us to make you a part of our family she brings light and love to a world larger than just her own. She sends joy across oceans and mountains and connects histories and ancestries, binding us all back to our common origins. Her courage in sharing you is the biggest thing she may ever do, it is certainly the greatest thing that anyone has ever done for me. And that my child is what I want you and she both to know."
So Chengdu Diarists, Thank you very much for your coverage. It has taken us closer to people of Sichuan with whom our family feels so strongly connected.
I can not thank you enough, each and every one of you for the program. These past couple of weeks, the first thing coming home is to read your diary and often multiple times, I even drive instead of commute just so I may get to listen to you (the signal is sometimes blocked on the train). It is because of you, I seem to be brought at the sites hit by the quake from thousands of miles away. I cried for those lost innocent victims, upset at the earthquake, angry at those who did not make the building strong enough, and grateful to those who show me once again while in a such devastation what the meaning of life really is and how we should live it.
The best wishes to China and Chinese people.
Stacey, Thank you. Like you I was in Chengdu on May 12th -- but in 2002 -- celebrating my first Mothers' Day as a mother of my beautifuly daughter from Chengdu CWI. In the past two weeks I've been haunted with an unspeakable grief that I have been unable to explain or describe. You have given it words.
With all my soul I hope my daughter's mother has survived and even more, I pray she has not lost another child.
Libby
I'm leaving for Chengdu this coming Wednesday and was looking forward to your report before the earthquake.
However, I have been reading your blog worried about the people there, you guys doing the reporting and how to get myself "ready" for what will be there.
I plan on writing my own blog while there based on the work that you have already.
My little group will be based in Chengdu and working out of the Chengdu Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine.
Our contact there has told us that the Hospital is already taking in some orphans.
I feel like I'm already there thanks to your coverage.
Peace
To Stacey,
I have deeply touched by the grieve of parents who have lost their children in the earth quake and I can only imagine how difficult it was for your son's birth mother to give him up to foster care.
We are all Chinese, whether one is Han, Man, Meng, Hui, Zang(Tibetan), Jiang, or other ethnic group. Each ethnic group contributes to and helps shape the culture and history of this land called China. As Chinese, we are members of the world's longest continuous civilization. China has made mistakes along its long history, the Chinese are proud of their country as Americans are proud of America. I hope you will share this with your son when he grows up.
I hope your son will grow up to be a productive member of the American society, proud of his adopted country. I hope that if he desires to visit his birth country, he will find a stronger and better nation than the one he was born in.
Couldn't thank you more!
I'm especially touched by Melissa's report "Couple frantic to search for loved ones", at which all of my students in a listening class couldn't hold their tears.
As a Chinese and as a college English teacher, I'd like to express my heartfelt gratitude to NPR's Sichuan crew. Thanks for your true-life and on-the-spot report and all those touching stories. With your objective writings and audio reports, you make people outside of China better understand its culture and its suffering from the disaster. Your stories and reports in English are the same touching and convincing and appealing as those appeared in Chinese mass media. You offered the Western world some of the first words, sounds and pictures from a catastrophe that has killed more than 62664 and left millions homeless. Your work definitely holds world's attention to the great tragedy and arouses universal sympathy for human suffering as well as wide awareness of social responsibility.
You make us so connected and so closer as human being. My countrymen and I appreciate all you have done and we appreciate the radiance of humanism.
Big thanks to the whole ATC crew and NPR reporters in China!
To Stacey: Thanks for sharing your personal story as a mother of an adopted child. It's very likely that someday I will also adopt a child in Sichuan, so your story helps me prepare for that day to come earlier. Best wishes to your family!
"Our son, now 4, is not characteristically Han Chinese, his ethnic origin, though unknown for certain, may be Tibetan or any other culture that meets at this crossroads in Sichuan."
han, really a pot of big mix. "ethnic" hans are more a culture concept than a concept of ethnicity.
Thank you all for your excellent job to bring my hometown closer to the US listeners. One month is certainly too short to cover everything of such a huge province like Sichuan. But as our old saying says: "every journey of a thousand miles begins with one step."
I really want to let you know how grateful we are for your efforts to build the bridge between the west and the east.
Welcome back, as Confucius said: "How happy we are to meet friends from afar."
I want to thank NPR and everybody at ATC for their magnificent job. This blog has become a wonderful community. Thanks, Stacey, and everyone, for sharing your stories here.
I hope NPR will have another Chengdu week in the future. It will be great to know how life evolves for those affected by the earthquake five years from now.
My heart too is saddened by the thought that I may not be able to tell my daughter's Chinese parents that she is safe and happy. They gave her up at 5 years old hoping for medical treatment for a damaged eye. We adopted her at 12.5 years old, and I was hoping to start a search for them before too much more time had past. I really thought there was a possibility to locate them as her circumstances were so distinctive.
Now, with so much destruction, and displaced people, I feel it will be an impossible task. I made her no promises, only that I would try, but now...
To assuage my guilt of probably failing at that task, and for not being able to help ease the pain of the victims of the earthquake, I have sent reports to the NPR team about efforts on behalf of the orphans in the damaged orphanages, and the new orphans coming. I felt perhaps that I could make a difference, albeit very small.
As a parent I feel helpless to give my child a past. Ironic that all the people in Sichuan are feeling helpless about giving their children a future.
Thank you so much for all you did in this coverage. I look forward to more "diaries" coming in the near future when you get enough time to reflect the whole process. I also look forward to "all things considered" more than I did before each day. Keep on good work and take care!
Good to see a picture for the whole crew and thanks all for the hard work and quality reporting.
It's nice that Andrea and Chris stay, as Chris says, this story is far from over.
Just heard Andrea's report today, great story, great reporting, nice voice, nice shot on that beautiful and hard working cow, and that 3 foot diameter iron wok brings a vivid image of communal life in the refuge camp.
Did not know Andrea was also a reporter but she sure is capable of quality reporting.
All good things must come to an end. I'm so appreciate NPR has given lots of attention to Chengdu.And thank you for the amazing stories you brought.
I am sad that such a good news series comes to an end. However, the thought that you will definitely come up with other excellent reports cheers me up a little. I wish you all the best!
(EDITOR'S NOTE: Thanks to all of you who made sure we knew our work was being appreciated)
I have been a faithful listener of NPR, but I have never been so hooked by your program as your report from Sichuan. thank god you are there, and thank you for all of the human stories coming out of the Quake zone. Your reporting has made it possible to form that emotional ties between the wonderful and suffering people of my ancester home (both my parents came from Sichuan, not far from the quake zone) and all of the American listeners, a connection so rare and valuable for the human kind.
I just want to thank you for your reports from Chengdu. I have been following them all with great interest because my daughter and her family live there. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
I taught at the Southwest University of Finance and Economics for a year beginning in 8/07 where I had more than 400 students who were wonderful to me. It was through a special exchange program setup with Marietta College.
I would like to know if anyone is aware of the extent of damage to the university.
I am aware that Melissa Block (All Things Considered) has spent a good deal of time at the Sichuan Higher Institute of Cuisine in Chengdu, China. I have a very good friend who teaches there, Lin Hong. We met when she came to Cornwall in England for several months back in 1999, to learn and study about English cuisine and food service. She stayed with my family and we correspond regularly. I have never had a phone contact and only have her e-mail address and the address of the Institute. I do not have any e-mail contact addresses with the Institute and the website is in Chinese which I am not able to understand. I am very concerned for her and her families safety since the disaster and wonder if you have any information or a contact at the Institute who may be able to tell me anything. I very much hope that you can help me.
Many thanks for reading this.
A big Thanks for ATC crew in CHengdu:
For your reporting about this booming city;
For reporting this unexpected earthquake and its aftermath;
For your professionalism and great compassion that brought people in Chengdu/Sichuan closer to the people all over the glaobe.
For your wonderful and least biased reporting, you will have not one more, but many more NPR supporters.
Please bring us some more stories from this beautiful land in future!
My family was in Chengdu last month and we have really felt connected with the ATC coverage. I have listened as if I were by your side and wept with each story of heartbreak. Thanks for being there to help us truly understand what is happening half way across the world.
This is a response to Tina Boydell's posting regarding her concern for a long lost friend at a cuisine institute in Chengdu, so perhaps this message can be sent just to Tina.
I am the mother of NPR producer Andrea Hsu, and I'm writing you this morning because I know Andrea is too swamped right now to respond to the many queries like yours, much as she would like to. If you could give me the web link to this institute, I will try to find out what I can for you. There has been very little damage to buildings in Chengdu itself, though the people's psyche and the social fabric may be affected. Chances are this cuisine institute is intact, but I will try to confirm this and let you know.
NPR,
Thanks for your coverage & perspective. I was scheduled to leave for Chengdu in 2 weeks but the trip has been postponed (what a bummer). The orphanage that my team was to be serving in was destroyed by Saturdays aftershock. Fortunately the kids were at school & nobody was killed/injured. Will you guys continue the blog for some time?
Big kudos to the entire ATC crew - NPR had been my major news source since the beginning of this tragic event and I have to say you are the definitive role model of journalism!
Thank you again for all your hard work.
Here is an article for your to read.
Big thanks to the whole ATC crew and NPR reporters in China! Thanks for bring my hometown closer to me through your words, thanks for bringing stories of real people devastated by the earthquake to here so we all can share their sorrow and grief. Your reports let us feel we are all connected no matter how different our culture is, and we shall reach out to help each other.
And I am sure lots of my friends will join the big family of the NPR supporters!
Thank you!
This is a response to Vivian Lin.
http://222.209.200.210/jxbm/wyx/gaikuo.asp?PID=201 This is the link of the department of foreign language of that institute.And you can find some information about Professor lin
This is also a response to Tina Boydell's post regarding her friend at a cuisine institute in Chengdu.
Hope the following contact information to be useful for you to locate your friend:
Foreign Language Department
65 East Qingjiang Road
Chengdu, China. Zip Code 610010
clb@mail.shic.edu.cn
Telephone: 028-87372018 028-84825086 Fax: 028-87372018
http://222.209.200.210/jxbm/wyx/english/gaikuo.asp?PID=189
Chengdu is my hometown. It is heartbreak to see my hometown people suffer, lost precious lives and beautiful homeland. Thanks to all the NPR family, for crying with us ad letting us know what is happening to the people there. I am touched by all the reports. When I heard the familiar Sichuan dialect, I am so grateful for NPR team in Chengdu. You risk your own lives to report. I know how dangerous the local conditions are. Your reports are not only with profession, but also with humanity. This is beyond race, religion, and nationality. Thank you Melissa, Andrea, Stacy, Louisa, Robert, Chris, Brenda, Anthony, David, Art and all the people work on this project.
Please keep all the people in that disaster in you thoughts. They need emotional supports for the years to come
Of all American media, I find myself like NPR the most. I can certainly see some typical US opinions which don't fit in Chinese culture and history but overall, it's much more balanced than any other US medias. Thanks for your great reports and I really appreaciate all your hard work.
I hope that NPR will have more programs like this in the future.
Hi Eva,
Here is a link to NPR's "All Things Considered" program. Not sure if you listen to their program or not. They did an excellent job in reporting the earthquake in Sichuan. A lot of very personal and touching stories. I also have been reading the comments from the listeners. They are all worth reading.
Lesley Finney formerly Lesley Porter,
In response to your question regarding the Southwest University of Finance and Economics, I have been keeping in touch with an acquaintance there. He has said that although aftershocks have been frequent and have sent buildings swaying, there has been no visible structural damage at his Chengdu campus. He has also heard that one of the two Chengdu campuses and also the Tianfu campus in Mianyang, neither of which suffered significant damage, has been/was used to house earthquake survivors. There has been much confusion in the administration and student body as to whether to cancel classes for the rest of the semester or to resume. (The latest plan is for classes to resume on Wednesday, June 28th.) School officials have also organized earthquake relief teams with students who speak the local dialects. Although there have been no reports of direct losses to the school, however, some students had family in the quake zone and thus may have had personal losses. My contact had seen fellow students breaking down in tears as he walked through the campus.
A lot of thanks to the crew from another Chiense in the US who is from Chengdu. A few comments before I offered to cook authentic "twice-cooked port" for the team when they are back. The offer is still good. Best wishes to everyone on the team.
Thank you so much for the excellent reportings on the earthquake in China. Your reports put a human face to China that I have rarely seen in America media. In my 30 years living in this country as a Chinese-American, news reports on China that I came across are mostly one dimensional - China the oppressive regime, China the expanding power, China without a face. You have revealed to your listeners a China that feels, hurts, aspires, and that America can relate to. Thank you.
Thank you for all the firsthand accounts of the people and their stories. Admittedly I have read more reports in Chinese than I have here on NPR. But your reporting grabs me to and from work for the last two weeks, whether it is about the earthquake or not. I have always an NPR listener. This time everything literally hit home. Thanks!
I - like some of the other comments - have an amazing daughter - adopted from China in Dec 05 - the paperwork was done in Chengdu and she was born (one assumes) near/in Yibin. I am so thankful that the area suffered minor damage as it is a few hours south of Chengdu - but after the initial shock of the news came thru I thought of my daughter's birth family...were they fine - did they fair well? Had they given up the little baby that would become my daughter - to keep or try for another child - that was then killed in the earthquake? Questions that will never be answered...but none the less I carry for the rest of my life - I have looked at the eyes of the orphans in the orphanage and see the emptyness that is there - and the ray of light that flashes like the sun when they have a family that loves them...I pray for the familes affected by the earthquake - there are no words to take away the pain.
Thank you for sharing your stories with us.
c & k
ps - we also stayed in the Sheraton - walked to Carrefour and Mcdonalds - and our room overlooked the stadium - who knew years later it would be used to house so many people and so many stories.
"The experience leaves me curious about what the words "privacy" and "individualism" mean to people there."
I am thinking about the same thing here, in US, specially in my Constitution Law class.
It's an amazing journey to cross cultures.
Thanks for the sharing. Wish you all best!
My emotions have swung from being excited in March when you first announced the plan to sincere gratitude today when observing how this crew has done such a professional journalism with deep humanity,(humanism?). Things will happen no matter how we plan, schedule, or hope. One thing will not change is that human beings care each other enough to make this world worth living and loving. The stories and blog postings from this project certainly told me clearlly about this, no matter they are interviewers or interviewees.
Hi Sherry,
Your two comments appear to have not come with any links included. Could you try posting the URLs again? Thanks!
NiuNiu:
your name reminded me a friend I went to UT-Austin with.
Thanks for the superb reporting. Keep up with the good work ATC!
Melissa and Robert,
Thank you for your thoughtful reporting
the last 10 days, these report are not only heart warming but also very sincere and honest, unlike from most Western reporters/views of China prior
to the earthquake. I hope sometime in
the future when you visit Tibet you can
also provide honest, un-biased reports
once you truly get to know the local people as you appaprently did in Sichuan. As you quoted in your report
about young people in Chendu, Tibetans are treated much better than native
Americans on the reservations, who have
the poorest education level, highest un-employment rate, and shortest life
span. I sincerely hope those who profess to care about human rights of
Tibetans truly understand today's Tibet, and show equal concerns toward
plight of native Americans, after all its their ancestral land that America
occupied.
Wecome to China again, and I will continue to hear your great reports from ATC here in Tianjin, China.
Again, heart warming thanks from me
and my friends who are your loyal
listeners for your dedicated hard work,
and honest reporting.
Hope to hear your reports on air soon.
Best Wishes,
Chen-Liu Lee, Tianjin, China
Regarding my previous comment of 6:26 PM ET | 05-27-2008, the date should be May - and not June - 28th. Oops!
What can I really add? I've heard the reports on radio, read the articles on the Internet, and now have gone through the blog responses. I can only say that perhaps, like the flowers that I hope will someday bloom from amidst all the rubble, the reporting of the bravery, goodwill and honest generosity of the people in Chengdu will remain with us all. Thank you for being there and most importantly, STAYING THERE despite possible physical and mental harm, to record what you saw, heard, and felt. I can only hope that your leaving will not be like the a lit candle leaving the pitch black room.
I am hoping that through all of this sadness and destruction that the earthquake brought, that some of the parents who lost children will eventually think of adopting. I understand that there are many, many Chinese babies and children, mostly girls, that needed a home before the earthquake occurred. Perhaps some of the parents who are grieving will open their hearts and homes to these orphans and thereby honor those children that perished.
Your piece on rescuing the two lifesaving dogs are very touching. I have been following this development in the last few days on sohu blog. However, your piece did not mention that the local government in Sichuan has issued an order to kill all stray dogs and cats. I have no idea how many have been killed to date. I am outraged by this policy and the silence from animal rights groups around the world. Yes, I do understand the devastation and perhaps the inability of the local government to handle stray animals. That's why they need help! Someone should bring this issue to the awareness of animal rescue groups so we can all help to save these animals! They are earthquake victims too!
Vicki,
Indeed there are some groups working on saving those dogs, but the problem is there are so many of them and the local governemt just can't take chances for the possibilities of outbreaks of any epic deseases. there are over five millions of people who are homeless now.
I hope NPR put together a comprehensive report on how 1.3 billions live in that land for that long time, it is critical for US to learn how to live and share peacefully on the other side with only fraction lives. Especially now everything is in shortage, yet everyone wants more...
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NPR staff went to Chengdu, Sichuan, China in early May 2008 to prepare for a week of special reports for broadcast on All Things Considered. They found themselves in the middle of an unexpected story when the May 12th earthquake struck. The NPR team was there throughout the quake and aftermath. This blog gives you a day-by-day chronicle of the team's experiences before and after the quake.
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