Early Morning Call from Afar

After having enjoyed a nice relaxing Mother's Day as a family, we settled in to bed for the night. At 1:50 Monday morning, May 12, we were awaken from our sleep by the ringing of our phone. "Who in the heck was calling at this time," I thought to myself as my wife answered the phone. Then then I heard the conversation being conducted in Chinese and knew it was Cindy, my sister-in-law. It wasn't the first time that she had called at this time in the morning, so I didn't think anything of it; after all, it's not always easy to remember the time differences, which would have been late afternoon or early evening of May 12th in my in-laws' city--Chengdu, Sichuan in the People's Republic of China. After my wife got off the phone, I asked if everything was all right. She said that there had been an earthquake and that Cindy was calling from her parents' land line because there was no cell phone service available. Everyone was fine except for being shaken, so I thought. We went back to sleep not thinking much more of the earthquake. After all, I know what it is like to experience an earthquake having lived in Southern California most of my life.

I was stunned when I first heard the news report of the magnitude 7.9 earthquake centered 57 k northwest of Chengdu with thousands of people killed, tens of thousands injured, and even more missing or unaccounted for. My wife tried to call her family again but couldn't get through this time. However, I was thankful to know my in-laws were among the living and not injured because of the early morning call. Then I began to think of all the people I know in the province of Sichuan and in the city of Chengdu.

Chengdu:

I would have to say that Chengdu is my favorite city in China, not just because it is the place where my bride is from. No, I first visited Chengdu in the summer of 1993. It was a stop over spot when my teaching team from the English Language Institute China (ELIC) was on its way to Lhasa, Tibet for our summer teaching assignment. It was on the return trip from Lhasa to Beijing when I had my first chance to roam around the city of Chengdu for an afternoon. Something about the city grabbed a hold of me, and I knew I wanted to come back to see and experience more of the wonderful place.

I applied to spend the summer of 1994 with ELIC, my third summer, and requested an assignment to Chengdu. I was sent as a member of one of two teams of teachers assigned to teach at the Sichuan College of Education. After couple of days teaching,I began to spend a lot of out-of-class time with many of my students taking trips to various parks and sites around the city. The place is full of history, and China has a long history. It was while I was teaching that summer when I met the very petite Chinese woman who was temporarily working for the Foreign Affairs Department at the Sichuan College of Education. We spent time talking in the lobby of the place where the school housed the two teaching teams. After leaving Chengdu, I exchanged letters with several of my students and the young woman from the Foreign Affairs Department. The relationship, if you can call it that, changed from pen pals to something different. We married in Chengdu in 1997 after I had finished teaching for a year and a half in another city and province.

So, back to Monday's earthquake, the news and images from this terrible disaster has been on my mind all week. I wonder about my former students. Are they alright, or are some of them victims? Most of my students were English teachers in high schools or junior high schools through out the province of Sichuan. I wonder, "Were any of the teachers killed in high school the colasped killing over 900 people my former students? " I wonder, "How are my in-laws doing?" I know that they are having to deal with sortages of food and clean water, but they are alive and not injured. I am very thankful for this.

Here are some links to videos from the earthquake area:

Asia Brief

Chengdu airport A place I've flown in and out of several times

Search for Survivors

News link

Keep these people in your thoughts and prayers.

Ken