Shaken and Stirred in China

Oliver Eade

'When in Rome, do as the Romans do,' urged our young Chinese guide; 'Swallow.' Being thoroughly British, it isn't in my nature to push and shove, but my wife is Chinese, so I followed in her wake. We only just got on the bus.

Which is why we didn't feel the initial shock as the bus bumbled along the windy mountain road in Jiuzhaigou National Park in Sichuan. Periodically, it would halt to disgorge babbling hordes of Chinese tourists at various viewpoints, and at the next stop we were told we'd have to take a detour on foot because of a landslide further down the valley. That's when we learned about the other landslide 'behind us' the one that buried, for three days, the bus we would have been on but for Swallow's suggestion. A Chinese tourist was killed on that bus. Shortly afterwards Swallow had a phone call from her boyfriend: a massive earthquake had hit Sichuan Province, its epicentre some 150 kilometres from us. The mountain rivers, normally crystal clear, had turned brown from the silt and debris washed down by multiple landslides, and on the way back to our hotel the road was partially blocked by a boulder the size of a minibus.

Then there were the after-shocks. Didn't think much about them when Swallow warned us back at the hotel that evening. After all, we'd just escaped being buried by a landslide, so I was pretty gung-ho about after-shocks; albeit in a trembling sort of a way. Not the real thing, are they? Or are they? What I didn't know was that with an earthquake of Richter 7.9, after-shocks can exceed 6. Now that, in its own right, is an earthquake!

I should have guessed, of course, when Swallow told us to head for the smallest room (toilet) if we felt anything. I was sitting on my bed, with nothing on, when the first aftershock happened. It was short-lived, so, acting tough, I stayed put. I slept through the second one, though it awoke and scared my wife. The third, about two in the morning, was terrifying. As though a Chinese dragon had grabbed the bed and was giving it a good shaking, and there was a rumbling noise as well. This time it continued for a good thirty seconds - a long time to feel the very ground you've always trusted is on the move. I held my wife close, for her teeth were chattering - and not from the cold. After it settled I peered out of the window. The grounds were filled with Chinese hotel guests. I really don't know why, but we chose to remain in our bed rather than dash to the toilet. Perhaps it's that womb-like protection a bed appears to offer. Foolhardy, maybe, but come the morning we were still alive, the hotel still standing.

The hotel, a large commercially built structure, was unscathed, but in many towns and villages in the earthquake zone the picture was one of utter devastation, poorly constructed government buildings, such as schools, often the worst hit. The full picture gradually emerged on the telly â?¦ sporadically, because of intermittent power. The scale of devastation was immense, the death toll rising by the hour, but what now stirred me after being shaken by the earthquake was the new face China and her people presented to the world. I've always loved my wife's compatriots, a race of people with extraordinary resilience and resourcefulness, but the efficiency, compassion and sheer determination shown by the Chinese rescue teams, mostly PLA soldiers, was moving indeed. I already knew about Bian Lian ('changing faces'), the Sichuan traditional opera in which performers' masks change repeatedly with only a flick of the head. It's like magic. Now, in a single day, I was seeing a flick-change of face in a nation of 1.3 billion people. Like most of us westerners, having grown so used to images of brutal PLA suppression, whether in Tibet or in Tiananmen Square, having been bombarded with reports of her blatant disregard for the global environment and for workers' rights, what happened in the aftermath of the earthquake not only moved me, but changed my whole way of thinking about the most populous country on earth. It wasn't all 'black'. I was seeing a lot of 'white' there - the good stuff - efficiency, gentleness and caring, with folk desperate to help others. Now, knowing the white is there, together with the black, it's easier to see the shades of grey in between; where most of us are, anyway.

I love my Chinese wife. I love China, her history, her culture, her food and her impossibly beautiful women. Nevertheless, I've also had my doubts and fears. Being shaken and stirred that day was the beginning of a far better understanding of this wonderful country. It's encouraged me to think and read more about many aspects of Chinese society, past and present. As with people, from which all countries are made up (is this why we usually refer to them as 'she'?), it takes a long time and a lot of effort to truly 'know' a nation. My wife has an extensive family in China, including two half-sisters whom we visit every two years, but the next time I return there I will know her motherland better.

And the rest of the world? Believe me China is a very important country for all our futures - the black, the white and the grey of her. Get to know her better, I suggest. Already the media appears to have forgotten how well she coped with what nature threw at her that terrible day in May. The Beijing Olympics over, they're back to the black stuff now - like the melamine in milk scam. All I'm saying is look at her many faces. They're not all bad.

Of course, if you're really sensible you'll learn to eat with chopsticks, and count up to ten in Mandarin.