Donations of money and supplies are pouring into Sichuan – or at least they’re intended for Sichuan – from all over China. Every school and business is collecting money from its personnel and donating it.

I was biking by the Old Boys Club yesterday, and without even saying hello Mr. Lù yelled out, “DàJiāng! how much money did you donate for the earthquake?” This caught me by surprise and I hesitated, which led him to exclaim something like, “I can’t believe he still can’t understand!” Mr. Sòng, who usually plays the Good Cop, asked if we’d given money.

“Of course,” I told him. “Our school and our company both are giving money.”

Mr. Lù wasn’t satisfied. “But you, how much money did you give?”

At this point I tried and failed to explain why North Americans don’t usually tell people how much we give, but I don’t have the vocabulary for that. Besides, Mr. Lù tuned out as soon as he saw I wasn’t going to tell him. Mr. Sòng understood that it’s not our culture in the West to say how much – “Oh, that’s very different!” – but that probably just means they think we’re all selfish, secretive, or whatever it is they suspect of people who aren’t open with such information. I wanted to say something like, “We don’t tell the whole world what we give because that seems selfish, like we’re only giving money to make ourselves look good to other people, plus we don’t care about getting ‘face,’ so we don’t need to tell everyone else how much money we give,” but that reflects more culture stress than it does a wise, culturally-informed response.

Afterward my teacher said there was nothing I could do in that situation. If I’d told them a big number they’d think I was just ridiculously rich: “He has so much money he can give so many dollars to people he doesn’t even have guānxì with!” (as in, people I don’t know and don’t care about). If I told them a small number, they’d criticize me for being cheap. If I refuse to tell them how much, they won’t understand and immediately assume I’ve got something to hide.

This little episode is just one of many things making me wonder if personal motives are automatically viewed with suspicion in Chinese culture.

John at Sinosplice also had some interesting donation experiences. At one company, they sent an e-mail around with a list of which employees contributed and how much. At another company, a foreign employee was criticized with “Who do you think you are?” for accidentally trying to donate more than everyone else. In the end she donated at the socially acceptable level.

Donations are public in China, and they impact face. At least, that’s what it looks like for now. If I ever figure all this stuff out, I’ll write books and make millions.

The photo is from a neighbourhood near our school, where they’ve posted a bunch of these yellow posters listing by name which residents gave money and how much. On the two posters pictured, everyone gave between 20 and 200元 ($2.85 and $28.50).

A provocative thesis: “For the first time in its history, the Chinese government is saying that it is OK to mourn for ordinary civilians.

…
For the first time, a Chinese government has embraced the idea that any human life, even that of ordinary human lives, has value.”

Today at 2:28pm, and air raid siren sounded and all traffic stood still for three minutes while all the drivers did what Tianjin drivers do best. The flags are all at half-mast, which is apparently the first time that’s been done for civilian casualties. I was at a major intersection on the way back from exercising at the time, so I stopped. I also managed to get some photos and video. Traffic police were at every big intersection, and I could see them checking their watches as the time drew near.

China’s blocked all the video, music and gaming sites and suspended the Olympic Torch relay for three days as a national expression of mourning. I’ll add video to the end of this post as soon as I find a way to get it uploaded to YouTube.

I just took these photos:

The black banner on the government building says: “Tianjin city deeply grieves for fellow citizens of Wenchuan, Sichuan who perished in the Great Earthquake” (天津市深切哀悼四川汶川大地震遇难同胞).

Businesses and schools also assembled outside. Jessica was in class, and they arranged the breaktime so that the whole school could go out together.

Make sure you turn up the sound for this video.

Pronounced: mò āi
Literally: silent grief
Means: to observe a moment of silence in tribute

From China’s Prime Minister:

“Any trivial matter multiplied by 1.3 billion will become a big problem;
Any astronomical figure divided by 1.3 billion will become a tiny number.”

From China’s internet:
“A little kindness multiplied by 1.3 billion will become an ocean of love;
A great problem divided by 1.3 billion will become a trivial matter.”

This afternoon, writing take-home tests after a picnic date.

Last night a friend thanked Jessica, “I want to represent the Chinese people and the Chinese government to thank the American government and the American people for the assistance with the earthquake.”

Here in Tianjin we’re far from the damaged areas. Some people felt the earthquake, but most didn’t. Things are normal, except that everyone is talking about the earthquake and people are upset. Jessica’s teacher cried in class yesterday. Mainlanders at a national level have a really strong emotional sense of shared identity (being ‘Chinese’ and part of ‘China’ is very very important to a lot of people). That means when a disaster of this size happens, people hundreds of miles away with no relatives in the affected areas are still pretty emotionally involved. They feel this as something that happened to ‘China,’ and so they feel that they personally have a big stake in it. All our teachers and friends are talking about it. It’s all over the news of course, so I’ll just give these two links:

• a large collection of photos from the earthquake. [UPDATE: this site has received so much traffic that their servers are having trouble. If you can't get through, try hitting refresh a couple times - works for me anyway. Over 300 pictures.]
• “This is not a natural disaster – this is done by humans.”
  People’s grief is already turning into rage, much of which is directed at the usual suspects: corrupt local officials who skim money out of public works like schools, which results in many ‘tofu’ buildings that aren’t built anywhere near to code and, in this case, pancake in the earthquake.
• the remains of a school (short video)
• News video of a kids getting rescued from the rubble. As he’s carried away half-conscious on a stretcher, one student asks for a Coke (at the 2m 15 sec mark).

P.S. – There’s a new thing in the right sidebar: “InterWǎng Debris” (“net” in Chinese is 网). It’s where we’ll put the most interesting or funny China-related links that we stumble across and think are worth sharing. They’ll change quickly, since new stuff comes through my e-mail and Bloglines everyday.

Pronounced: dì zhèn
Means: earthquake

Heartbreaking photos from the Sichuan earthquake. (Warning: graphic.)

“Ever wondered how Beijingers talk about the rest of China behind other people’s backs? Just click on the map to find out.”