Lovely Brothers

For those Kids in Wenchuan

Whenever I think of those kids who lost their beloved family, friends, teachers and neighbors in this terrible tragedy, my tears will stream down.... I wish there is a magic medicine that could enable them to delete all those dark and horrifying memories for ever.. as I know from my past experience how hard it could be for them to feel secured and happy


I was born in a city called DongChuan, which used to be the second largest city in Yuannan and was known for its rich copper reserve. Many of you in China at my age should know this city from one of the essays on our high school Chinese schoolbook, the essay is about "the massive mud-rock flow in Jiangjiagou". Yes, my hometown is now most famous for its massive mud-rock flow, the largest in the world. My hometown is also located in a very active earthquake zone. In 1976, the year I was born, there was a big earthquake ( about 6.7 degree) in Dongchuan and not afew people lost their lives. Therefore, I have learnt how to react to earth quake since kindergarden... However, before 1984, I just knew vaguely earthquake and mud rock-flow could be dangerous..


The geographic conditions in Dongchun is indeed quite similar to that of Wenchuan or Beichuan. The city is surrounded by high mountains with a river, called XiaoJiang, flowing at the mountainfoot... There are quite afew towns spread in the mountains, where most of the people are working on the copper mines. Either heavy rains or earthquake can easily trigger those mud-rock flow in action. In the summer of 1984, after a heavy rain, we heard that half of the residence in a town called "Yinming" were burried by the mud-rock flow.. Afew days later, I met two new friends, DanDan and DongDong, who just fled from Yinming to live with their uncle... DanDan and DongDong lost their mom in the mud-rock flow and the mud-rock flow even peeled off all the skins on DongDong's both leggs. As we become closer, they shared with me what they saw in that disaster and for the first time in my life I got to know what meant by the pain of losing your beloved ones and how fragile human being are in front of the nature.. Ever since then, whenever it rained at night, I tried to keep myself alert with all my clothes and shoes on and my brain was full of those imagined images of mud rock-flow.. I had to make sure I could run at anytime..., though I also knew the chance for me to run away from the disaster is minimal if it did happen.... It is until I setteled in Beijing that I finally got over those bad raining night stress...

If only kids-talk with disaster survivors could make me develop those stress, I just could not imagine how bad those surviving kids feel after witnessing this whole thing.. Though there might be afew kids with extra strong heart, most of them need our support to relieve their pain and feel secured.....