Rescue & Aid
Departure is an experience of 'suffering'
By Zhang Jin (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-04-29 07:14
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XINING - According to Buddhism, one of the eight "sufferings" of the secular world is departure. And I was about to make mine.
As I packed up my things on Tuesday for my departure from Qinghai, where I witnessed the brutality of the catastrophe and the resilience of local Tibetans, I felt bad.
It would be good to spend more days with them, I told myself, when my cell phone rang.
I didn't recognize the number.
"It's you!" I was really surprised.
The 14-year-old girl and her family lived in a tent a stone's throw from mine. During my four days in Yushu, they treated me to breakfast three times. It was Yangchi Lhatso who taught me to make tsamba, a local delicacy that mixes yak butter with highland barley flour.
She was calling from Gyegu town, the epicenter of the 7.1 magnitude earthquake. Though I gave her my number, I didn't expect she would call me so soon, because when I left Gyegu for Xining last Friday many people were sharing only a few cell phone battery chargers.
"Are you still in Xining? I'm heading to Xining after the May Day holiday," she said.
"I'm actually leaving tomorrow," I replied.
"Oh," she sounded disappointed.
"What are you coming for?" I asked.
"I'm going to school," she raised her voice, full of excitement - little surprise, as the girl had been eager to attend school.
"So I can't meet you in Xining," she said with pity.
"Don't worry. We can meet in Beijing," I told her.
"Okay, then, see you," she said, hanging up the phone before I was able to ask her to relay my regards to her family.
It wasn't strange to me. My stay in a Tibetan neighborhood, though brief, let me know they are straightforward and simple, and not full of excessive courtesy.
It was good to know the girl's school dream would come true.
I continued to pack up when the phone rang again, with the same number calling.
"Hey, Yangchi Lhatso, what's up?" I asked.
"No, I'm not Yangchi Lhatso. This is Wang Yinglan calling. I'm using her phone."
The image of a tearful woman came to my mind. When I first met Wang last Thursday, she was very worried that she wouldn't be able to collect enough money to return to her hometown in Anyang, Henan province.
Wang ran a small grocery in Gyegu town, but the quake flattened the store, and all her belongings, including money, were buried under the rubble. She now lives in the same temporary settlement as Yangchi Lhatso and they have become good friends.
"I'm heading back to Henan, probably after the May Day holiday," she said.
"Really?" I was a bit surprised. "Have you dug your money up?"
"No. Snow and mud destroyed all the bank notes, but the policemen have helped recover some of my goods. I can sell them for some money and that'll be enough to buy a ticket home," she said with excitement.
"Good for you." I shared her happiness.
Hanging up the phone, my heart lightened. The two calls let me know that things are really turning better in Gyegu. It seems that people have started to leave the trauma behind to embrace a better tomorrow.
With that knowledge, my departure is no longer such a suffering.
