China: Time to pray
Written by: Global Voices
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‘Pray for the disaster victims, god bless China' has been the main motif on many main Chinese blogging websites as the country moves past the hundredth hour of mourning, fund-raising and blood donations.
The call for prayer has been the theme of coverage at new media and blog service provider Netease, which has also created a map mashup wherein users in Wenchuan can report in live time what's happening in their area. Blog service and news provider Tencent, like many
of its peers, has set up a number of different pages allowing users to express their support and shared experiences. has just released its first 2008 beta version of the company's hugely popular instant messaging client with a disaster
relief theme, QQ Prayer; downloading it allows the user to send candles and yellow ribbons to display their support and compassion to earthquake victims. As with all
internet companies, QQ has set up a donations page which has already seen users sending in over 13 million RMB, as well as a channel to report
fund-raising scams.QQ has continued aggregating user-shot video clips from around the earthquake disaster scene which now number in the hundreds, as well as having set up a chart showing the latest figures and updates from the relief mission, including a missing person's bulletin board which can be seen further down.Sina.com has gone for a green ribbon campaign, and is also calling on users of its blogging services to pray for those lost and yet to be unburied, as well as
compiling official CCTV footage along with user-shot video.
Sohu.com's main Earthquake page is also featuring clips from the few media allowed to report from the disaster zone as well as those uploaded by users, with
the emphasis on the latter. As with most blog portal websites, details on how to donate to Chinese Red Cross are being given prominence.Chinese search engine leader Baidu has turned its Earthquake page into a sort of operations center for all the different online and offline relief
initiatives it has underway, with calls to action aimed at users also being seen on smaller blogging sites such as Blogbus, BlogCN and Xici Hutong, among many others.Cat898 has put most of its front page
toward discussion of the earthquake, and features a photo set of the men working on the relief mission front line. And the blog
portal at China.com, while featuring what appears to be one user's photos of the devastation hundreds of thousands
are experiencing, is also now highlighting one post which proposes that people allocate 1% of their monthly income toward the relief
campaign:æ¯äººæå·¥èµç1%ï¼å¯¹æ¯ä¸ªäººæ¥è¯´ä¸ç®-ä»ä¹ï¼ä½æ¯å¯¹äºç¾åºç人æ°'坿¯æ'å'½é'±å'ãç¸ä¿¡æ'ä»¬çæ°'æ-ä¸å®è½å¤å¨å±é¾ä¸å´èµ·ã
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One percent of everyone's monthly wage
doesn't add up to much for anyone, but for people in the disaster zone this money that can save lives. I believe our nation can surely recover from this calamity.
To quote an ad slogan:
“With me, China is strong”
The overwhelming reponse to the proposal has been that people have already donated far more than 1% of their monthly salaries. The third
comment on the proposal reads:To quote an ad slogan:
“With me, China is strong”
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The biggest catastrophe from this catastrophe are the tens of thousands of orphans it's left behind!!! At this time they are receiving relief along with the other
survivors, but I'm afraid to imagine what will happen to them in the future. As time goes on, will our government keep thinking as much about them as it is now?
Even if the government keeps them in mind, it will only still be be symbolic relief on special holidays, and what's more, relief funds put aside for them will not necessarily arrive on time! Cases of departments at all levels intercepting and embezzling these funds happen every year, and what actually ends up where it should is just a piddle! This is why I strongly propose that the government immediately formulate the following policy: let those caring people from around the country adopt them!! What's imperative is that the government draw up the related household registration and accompanying policies. If they could all have tuition waived for the twelve years of mandatory education etc…!! This would make is less troublesome for those adopting, especially with the household registration!!!
Anti-CNN.com has also set up a new ‘Earthquake Status' section, the top thread in which at present is a response to
those making the argument online that corruption led to poorly-constructed school buildings in the Wenchuan area, which is why so many schools collapsed while government buildings remained standing:
‘Those saying that the government buildings are still in good condition can just shut their mouths'Pioneering web 2.0 site Douban has set up a number of groups:[Earthquake] How netizens have used Fanfou and Wikipedia to file real-time
reportsEven if the government keeps them in mind, it will only still be be symbolic relief on special holidays, and what's more, relief funds put aside for them will not necessarily arrive on time! Cases of departments at all levels intercepting and embezzling these funds happen every year, and what actually ends up where it should is just a piddle! This is why I strongly propose that the government immediately formulate the following policy: let those caring people from around the country adopt them!! What's imperative is that the government draw up the related household registration and accompanying policies. If they could all have tuition waived for the twelve years of mandatory education etc…!! This would make is less troublesome for those adopting, especially with the household registration!!!
Why the country is not accepting foreign assistance for now
Anti-poverty funds: ways to donate and know where your donation is goingThere have also been prayer groups, more tips on how to donate wisely, a group to publicize new access points into cut-off Wenchuan as they are discovered, discussions over whether the torch relay ought to be put on hold, and even a group just to discuss initial photos that came out of the disaster areas. Groups set up by religious intellectuals like Wang Yi have seen numerous discussions taking place.Some Douban groups have been deleted, but others have been set up to host discussions that were deleted off other sites. Then there's Douban's moving special earthquake page, where it turns out actually dozens of earthquake groups have been set up, each with their own avatars and many with hundreds of members.Douban was actually one of the first to set up a space to help users find their missing loved ones. QQ's is still growing, there's even been a site set up especially for those missing from the 5-12 earthquake, and on Friday Google China released its own contribution, which builds off existing efforts underway on Tianya, Baidu, Soso, Sina and Netease.Citizen and independent online media have been making contributions of their own. The Chinese-language entry for the 2008 Sichuan earthquake on Wikipedia was set up more quickly than its English-language counterpart, despite that Wikipedia Chinese is blocked from within China.Citizen reporter Zuola has come out of retirement and arrived in Sichuan Friday with a shovel, batteries and medicine to help with the rescue efforts and will be sending updates to his Twitter account [zh] and late Friday night posted photos to his blog recounting what he saw from on the train to Chengdu and in the city itself, after meeting up with a local NGO:
Blogbus user Frees writes also of
going on with life post-earthquake, and shares a picture of the crowd gathered outside the local Ikea where they work:
Photos from Netease blogger Wan, also in Chengdu:
Baidu
user Cinderella in Ya'an, Sichuan posted photos from one of her nights spent sleeping with the community outside in the park:
One
outdoor enthusiast and photographer has posted a number of
photos of blood and goods donation drives from where he blogs in Leshan, and Yahoo!China blogger Puping777 has a wide variety of photos of his own,
taken in devastated Beichuan while there to help out. The Wuqing blogger has photos of road slides on mountains near Aba in Sichuan province.Well-known
Bullog blogger Song Shinan, who lives near Chengdu, has been working overtime to aggregate all bits of information he can find in what has now turned into a series of highly-informative posts that are being mirrored onto his Netease blog.Technology Sociology Science Fiction futurism blog Qixianglu, another website calling on readers to turn to their spiritual sources of support to
pray for the earthquake victims, has been tracking stories related to the earthquake as they come out; part of their strategy has included a QQ group, a Douban group, and tags on Technorati, Del.icio.us, Zooomr and Flickr.The MeMedia collective has being doing in Chinese for total coverage of
Earthquake discussions what the crew at Shanghaiist have been doing in English; among all the links MeMedia has been aggregating and sharing
publicly on Diigo has been the last blog post from a teacher in Beichuan who didn't survive the earthquake, photos of a school
sports activity from May 11.Entertainment reporter/blogger Tu Motuo at Bullog.cn is actually in Dujiangyan right now and has posted photos of a crumbled hospital and a city in darkness with only generators at this point with which to function.Tang Buxi at Blogging for China has
translated a blog entry from a medical volunteer at one of the sites visited by Premier Wen Jiabao this week:I really am not used to those Sichuan provincial leaders. Weâre chewing on bread rolls, and our beloved PLA Army, Armed Police warriors⦠theyâre chewing only on dried instant noodles. But those leaders are eating two warm dishes and rice. At lunch I saw the premier while he was resting, and he was only eating a roll and salted vegetables. I cried at that moment.Also from the MeMedia links comes a Tianya thread that's been getting passed around, ‘Photos from the earthquake disaster site that you won't see on TV!' showing the full extent of the both human and structural damage that has taken place.Blogger Oliver Ding has set up a community space on SlideShare for those affected by and working against the damage done by the earthquake, one of the many ways to help the earthquake victims that in turn is being shown support on Digg.Veteran blogger Popoever has posted quite a number of graphics of different styles and sizes for those wishing to display and rally up support for relief fund-raising being carried out by Chinese Red Cross, both on his own blog and on Flickr. Several of those blog badges contain the information for a campaign Chinese Red Cross is carrying out in collaboration with China Mobile, which allows any of its hundreds of millions of users to donate 1 or 2 yuan via SMS from their mobile phones:
Perhaps as
a response to concerns many bloggers have vocalized regarding donating to Chinese Red Cross, but at least in keeping in line with several previous fund-raising drives over the past two years, blog
portal Bullog, which hosts many online celebrity and high-profile media workers' blogs, was quick to launch a donation drive
of its own, with accounts opened and organizers in Sichuan by the 14th. Those organizing the Bullog donation activity are some of the most well-known journalists, editors and bloggers in the country.Support for relief efforts from English-language bloggers has been equally swift and thorough. Overall support for Red Cross China has been so
strong that accessing the Red Cross website for the past several days has been difficult due to the high volumes of traffic it has been
receiving.In no particular order, here are just a few of the many blog posts foreign and English-language bloggers in China have given us in just a few hectic days:http://www.ifgogo.com/80/how-to-donate/http://cnreviews.com/uncategorized/china_earthquake_relief_and_donation_guide_-_will_update_20080514.html
http://cupofcha.com/2008/05/16/ways-to-donate-to-earthquake-relief.html
http://www.chinavortex.com/2008/05/how-chinese-websites-are-helping-donations-for-sichuan-earthquake-victims/
http://shanghaiist.com/2008/05/13/red_cross_society_earthquake_sichuan.php
http://beijingbookworm.com/whatsnew.htm
http://www.pandapassport.com/chinese-internet/donate-for-adspace/
http://www.lostlaowai.com/commentary/blog/2008/05/15/add-a-quake-relief-donation-badge-to-your-blogsite/
http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2008/05/help-chinas-qua.html
http://chinesepod.com/earthquake_relief
http://shanghaiist.com/2008/05/16/green_scene_how.phpWith only a few handpicked pro-CCP media being allowed to report openly from the disaster scene combined with the roadslides and remote locations being the hardest hit, the not-so-new role that microblogging has played in overall coverage of the earthquake hasn't been discounted.With sites like Summize.com making it instantly possible to see what's being said at any given time in Chinese on sites like Twitter, domestic Chinese services such as Jiwai and Fanfou took it a step further and provided their own [Earthquake] tags. On Fanfou alone there are even accounts that have been set up specifically to track developments as they unfolded; one here from charity NGO 1kg.org, and another from liveblogger ‘River Crab Goes Ashore'. On Twitter, someone has set up an account just to track seismological events in China as they take place.With Summize.com for Twitter and Fanfou's built-in regional search options, it's quite easy to seek out those microblogging their experiences of the past few days according to location; say Guangyuan, for instance, just 15 miles away from one of the nuclear warhead plants that might have been disrupted during the quake.Anyone who follows the ‘friends' of the chinaquakewatch account on either Twitter or Fanfou will be given instant access to a carefully-selected group of users who have been sticking closely to microblogging the events of the last few days as they personally have seen them unfold. Aftershocks could be felt in Chengdu on Friday, and here's what several Fanfou users had to say:10:40 am, Amekoé
ä¸å ±ä½ æ'ä¸äºäººå°±å¿«æ»ä¸è¾¹å»!强çè¦æ±å¢å¤æ"¯æ´!嫿叿æ"¾å¨æ¶é"èº«ä¸…å¿«å¿«èªæ'åä¸å½äºº!!
CCP if you can't save people then hurry up and get the hell out of the way! I strongly demand for foreign assistance! Don't put your hopes on that monster…hurry
up and save yourselves, China!!
11:46, parco77ç°å¨4级左å³çä½éæ'å·²ç»å¼å§è§å¾-æ'çç½äºãæ'麻æ¨äºã
I've already started to like the feeling of aftershocks at around 4.0. I've been shaken so much I'm numb.
13:28, fruitfanåéäº
Shaking again
13:29, venqia忥
There it is again
13:29, Alex06åååéäº.估计æé½æè§æ´ææ¾!
It just shook again just now. I bet the felt it even more in Chengdu!
13:34, Flyingåæåæäºä¸ä¸
It just shook a
bit again just now
13:37, fruitfanä»å¤©çä½éè¿æ¯"è¾ææ¾~
The aftershocks today are still quite obvious~
13:40, parco77åæé£ä¸ä¸ªãã太éæ'¼äº= =|||ããæ'çå°é"å£å 幢楼ç人纷纷åè·'䏿¥¼ã
That one just now…shook too strongly……I could see the people in the buildings around me running down one after the other.
14:03, yalaneråéäº?æ¯éçæ°´æç.
Did it quake again? The water in my glass is wobbling.
14:39, æ©åçä½éä¸èµ·ï¼ååºäººè·'å å
The second an aftershock starts, all the people in the market bolt off
14:45, yalaneråéäº,å¾å害çä½é.
It shook again, that was a really strong aftershock
16:08, tokyoeggä»å¤©ä¸ååå'ç"äºä¸æ¬¡ä½éï¼éæå¾çã以åè¿ä¸è§å¾-ï¼ç°å¨æç¹ææ äºã
There was another aftershock at noon today, it was quite intense. I haven't been feeling them until now, but that one was a bit scary.
16:13, tokyoeggæ'ç°å¨åå¨è¿éé½è½æè§å°æ¿åå¨å¾è½»å¾®çæå¨ã
Sitting here now, I can still feel the house wobbling slightly.
16:32, kakeé©å½æ'æ´å¢ï¼æ¬¢è¿â¦
To the Korean rescue team, welcome…
17:20, Flyingç°å¨åå·ææºå¡æ"ç"µè¯é½ä¸åæº
You can phone Sichuan mobile phone numbers and get through now
18:52, tokyoegg忥ä¸å¼ºä½éï¼è¦å´©æºäºï¼
If another aftershock comes, I'm gonna lose it!
19:28, Alex06ç´§æ¥éå'ï¼åå·ABåè¡æ¶²å'æ¥ï¼ï¼ï¼
Urgent notice: Sichuan's AB blood at emergency levels!!!
21:08, winningè±äºä¸ä¸ªå°æ-¶ææ"éå¿-æ¿è ç线ï¼å´è¢«å'ç¥åªæç"·ç"æè½å¥"èµ´åçº¿ï¼æ'èï¼ä½ æ§è§å'±å¥³ç"ä¹ï¼æ'坿¯æ¯"æäºç"·ç"è¦å¼ºæçå'ã
I spent an hour on the volunteer hotline, only to be told that only men can go to the front line. Fuck, are you discriminating against us women or what? I am tougher than some
men, you know!
22:53, fruitfanå°æ±¶å·çè·¯åæäº~
The road to Wenchuan is cut off again~
(May 17) 00:16, æ©åçæ©ï¼è¿æ¬¡ä½éæç»æ-¶é-´æ¯"è¾é¿
Mmm, this aftershock has been going a little too long
00:16, venqiaåéäº~ï¼
Quaking again~!
00:47, Flyingæ®è¯´å·²ç»æä¼¤å'转移å°ä¹å±±çå»é¢ï¼å¢å§"ä»ä¹æ-¶åå¯ä»¥ç»ç»æ'们åºå¨åï¼
They're saying the injured have already been transfered to hospitals in Leshan, is the Youth League ever going to send us out or what?
00:57, Pandaemoniumå-ä¸äºæ'ç¸ï¼æ¯æ¬¡ä½éé½è¦æ"个ç"µè¯æ¥è¯´ä¸æ¬¡â¦ä½ ä¸è¦å'è¯æ'ä½ å®³æâ¦
I can't stand my dad, every time there's an aftershock he calls to tell me about it…please don't tell me you're afraid…
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