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Heavy hearts, but solidarity in Xining
By Zhang Jin (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-04-17 09:02
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XINING - As I stepped out of the Xining airport terminal on Friday morning, I felt a strange sense of unfamiliarity - though I had been here just last autumn with my wife.
The chilly air with the dazzling sunshine, I remember, but the 33 ambulances parked in a sealed area a stone's throw away, besides the grim faces all around, I don't.
These ambulances have been on duty 24 hours since Wednesday, and they have rushed hundreds of injured from Yushu to hospitals in Xining.
Soldiers from the Beijing military command, who were with us on the flight to Xining, collected their luggage in a blink of the eye and were carried away in military trucks parked outside the airport.
They were in a race against time.
There was no doubt the country had learned a few things from the Sichuan earthquake in 2008. It seemed everyone knew their jobs, like they had been practicing.
Some 800 km from Yushu, the city of Xining is walking around with a heavy heart.
Phone calls to Xining, just like everywhere else in Qinghai province, are initially being transferred to a voice message, which, in English translation, says: Stay strong.
That's a message they probably don't want to hear. Maybe because strength and courage come naturally to them.
The solidarity of the people in Yushu, more than 90 percent of whom are from Tibetan ethnic groups, is out of question.
During our brief stay in Xining, we heard plenty of stories about how Yushu residents helped each other when the quake struck, days before aid started pouring in.
A local reporter, who had just returned from Yushu, told us he saw a group of monks, locally known as aka, dig out buried victims from underneath piles of debris barehanded.
In Xining, especially at a time like this, no one was out to fleece you.
Jeep taxis, which are a common mode of transport in the city, were in short supply at the airport, since the government has rented most of the vehicles for rescue work.
When we finally found an empty taxi, we were expecting to pay an outrageous price for a ride.
But the driver surprised us. He asked for the usual price: 3.5 yuan per km.
It's not totally absurd to assume he would try and cut himself a profit once we've seen anarchy take over in many disaster-hit areas.
I couldn't help but ask him why he wouldn't take the opportunity to make a profit.
"That's dirty money. That's cheating. I can't do that. All of you are here to help us, right?"
