Rescue & Aid

Son's words inspire: When one suffers, everyone helps

By Fu Jing (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-04-22 07:28

Xining-- My son's little voice zipped across phone lines, bringing him next to me for a few short moments in the quake zone.

"Dad, my teacher told us that boys and girls in the quake zone don't have enough to eat," the five-year-old said on Tuesday night from home in Beijing. "But here we have delicious food every day."

Instructed by his kindergarten teacher, little Fu was asking me for 10 yuan ($1.46) to donate to those living in tents and hospitals, or spending days and nights on self-made shabby shelters atop the rubble.

I was moved by his simple request, and agreed without hesitation.

Before saying goodbye, little Fu thanked me. "Dad, when one suffers, everyone helps," he said, citing the Chinese slogan that would become a theme in the days to come.

At 10 am Wednesday, hundreds of thousands of men and women, young and old, joined the flood of sorrow at the city center square in the provincial capital of Xining, more than 800 km from the epicenter.

After crossing several high mountains on the plateaus between Yushu and Xining on Tuesday, I was standing together with lines of students in tears.

Again, I saw boys and girls in uniform hold high eight Chinese characters, reminding us all: When one suffers, everyone helps.

Long after the mourning ceremony, as snow continued to fall, the students remained, singing the national anthem and shouting "When one suffers, everyone helps."

Heart trembling and mind enlightened, I could no longer hold back tears when I again heard the words first told me by my son tucked up safely so many, many kilometers away.

As I was covering stories in severely shocked Yushu, I found thousands of soldiers, civil servants, volunteers, monks, teachers and students on the front lines practicing the basic values of humanity by saving lives, delivering food and water, and even working as guides for us journalists from home and abroad who came to tell their tales.

Far from the epicenter, the disaster stories, one after another, have taught beautiful lessons of human values.

Wu Chen, 10, from Guchengtai Primary School in the provincial capital, also asked for 20 yuan from his parents to donate to other children in the quake zone.

"I think those who lost their parents in the quake really need the money," he said.

It was Wu's second time donating money for quake-hit students.

Alongside students nationwide nearly two years ago, Wu gave 10 yuan to victims in the Wenchuan earthquake, which killed about 70,000 people within seconds. "I don't want to have a quake again," Wu told me. "It's too disastrous."

I could only hold him firmly in my arms.

When reporting on the Wenchuan earthquake two years ago I wrote: "As a journalist, I always want to be there, especially at the frontlines of disasters and wars."

"However," I continued, "when seeing white-haired seniors who have lost sons and daughters, children who have lost parents, family homes turned to rubble, I would rather there never be such a frontline."

That was my hope on May 19, 2008, while mourning the dead in the high mountains with dozens of villagers in Pingwu county, Sichuan province. It was the first time I had attended such a ceremony of national mourning.

Less than two years later, there I was again, in the mountains, sobbing and praying for the dead in Yushu with the rest of the country.

So I repeat my blessing, my hope for never seeing such a disaster again.

Yet just in case I have stored away the lesson my young son taught me over the phone: When one suffers, everyone helps.