Fair

A colleague opened a conversation with me this evening by saying "You know, a disaster happens somewhere in the world and people say 'it's not fair.' We don't labour under that disability in China - we just deal with it the best we can and move forward. Tomorrow is a new day."

This intrigued the heck out of me because that's usually where I come from. It amazes me when people invoke the "it's not fair" clause, particularly for really silly stuff, which they all too often do;

"It's not fair that Starbucks raised the price of the venti extra hot soymilk extra syrup dolce extra cinnamon latte by 21 cents!"

"It's not fair that Avril Lavigne won't play a concert in Hamilton!"

"It's not fair that Arsenal didn't win Champions League" (okay, that one wasn't fair)

The problem is that "fair," which really should be reserved for invocations of requisite or breached social justice, has been totally trivialized.

Looking at "fairness" heuristically, we should be able to learn, first, that fairness is really amorphous and, second, that the "too bad" rule usually trumps in a rock-paper-scissors battle between what we hope might happen and what actually does.

Mr. Charles Brown, famed eight-year-old baseball pitcher, field goal kicker, and wearer of stylin' retro sweaters, understood that a mantra of "it's not fair," would solve zero percent of his problems. He persevered. Over and over and over again. No matter what he tried, his colleague, a Ms. Lucy, would always move the ball at the last minute thereby causing Mr. Brown to have a frightful spill.

I have also admired a Dr. Wile Everett Coyote, omnivorous consumer of all products Acme. In an eternal quest for a nice BBQ tenderloin of roadrunner, we never once see him hold up a "it's not fair" sign. Sure, once in a while, just before the TNT explodes, we see a resigned, perhaps even melancholy, facial expression. But we never see him call the quality control guy at Acme and tell him "it's not fair." We never see him email RAPID (Roadrunners Against Poaching and Improper Dining) bemoaning the bounce and quick of that bird (Roadrunner be wicked fast). No, he just goes back to the drawing board (literally) again and again and still again.

When my mom was diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer on a cold late September day three years ago and she was gone by Christmas, I don't remember ever think or saying the word "fair"; life revolved around the expediencies of survival and managing morhpine and oxygen levels.

So how interesting that in my five days (it seems MUCH longer) here in China, tonight was the first time I've even heard the word "fair." I didn't even notice it was missing. It's as if "fair" were sugar and I'd just so taken to that Coke Zero in all of its sucralose-y goodness.

But I turn on CNN at the gym and see my 92nd installment of how unfair the whole "gas prices-protracted Democratic primaries-credit crunch-absence of subprime loan availability-the Easter Bunny isn't real-Zimbabwe is bit behind on their loan repayments-it costs four percent more this year to have a backyard BBQ-the next US President will be older than Methuselah when sworn in" thingy is and I'm just struck dumb given that I can change the channel one up or one down and get an essentially live feed from Sichuan.

I can't help but be drawn tonight to one of my favourite novels of all time, Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. My mind drifts to Nick Carraway's stunningly brilliant narrative first lines which, I would humbly opine, wrap up this blog entry quite well:

"In my younger and more vulnerable years, my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. 'Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone,' he told me, 'just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages you've had.' While reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope, I've come to admit that my tolerance of human behavior has its limits."
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A New Area of My Expertise: Feminine Protection

Those who know me are well aware that I'm the kind of person who likes to deep-dive in knowledge. When I want to know something about Dutch art in the 1500s, I want to know it ALL. I can tell you everything you need to know about whisky, tennis (yes, I can make an eloquent argument why Federer is not close to being the best player of all time...or even the top 3). I have a lot of knowledge about normal things, such as travel, sports and the best beers of the world, as well as narrower, eclectic things, such as collecting wristwatches, vintage sneakers ("kicks," if you will) and American advertising of the 20th century (I know way too much about that, to the point that I considered a Ph.D. In that area).

But, friends, until this afternoon, I knew nada about feminine protection.

So, first things first. Why did I know nothing before this afternoon while I'm now an evolving expert? Well, word from the earthquake zone is that they need more and more of said materials. We shipped down a few cases the other day but it hasn't even made a dent in the need. Why? Not sure. And I don't want to ask. Comrade Aron (as I'm often called here, which is very cool, I think) is just doing what he's asked to do.

If you asked me to buy toothpaste, that's easy: tartar control (not to be confused with the more delicious tartar sauce), flouride or not...really pretty simple stuff.

Deodorant? Piece o cake. See, you have three varieties: deodorant, anti-perspirant, anti-perspirant slash deodorant. You can be NARS (Not a Rocket Scientist) and still buy something that will make you smell as fresh as honeysuckle.

Feminine protection? Different ball game entirely. On a normal day, I guess I'd be choosing between formats and sizes. With wings, without wings (um, I'm getting hungry for wings) then maxi, mini, midi (I'm not sure if that one even exists - I may have just invented it). You get the picture.

But, today, I also had to factor in issues such as packaging and, of course, price. Logically, big packages are cheaper. But, if I buy packages too large, I can reach fewer people. It makes more sense to send five women each one package containing 10 pads than send one woman a package containing 50.

So picture me at Wal-Mart on Jianguo Men Dai Je street, my "neighbourhood" here in Chaoyang district, the only man within 500 metres of this section of the store and the only foreigner in the entire Wal-Mart. So I'm standing there with a pad of paper and a pencil calculating until price, using my pocket English-Mandarin translator to negotiate a discount and generally trying not to get thrown in jail for loitering. Or looking like a freak.

I think I've got it figured out. So, tomorrow, we're going to make a big purchase at several Wal-Marts and maybe even a Merry-Mart (the local version of the same).

We spent an hour or so this morning examining finances. We're tight, but looking good. Here's a summary:

With the money that arrived from Canada today, I have ¥42,700 remaining in cash in the safe.

We have committed ¥25,000 for the new shipment of tenting materials, including the truck to drive it from Shandong and our truck to take it to the Chengdu train.

We owe ¥1,000 balance on the Children's Day cards

We will buy 1,000 shirts at an AMAZING price of ¥7 each for a total of ¥7,000

This leaves us an uncommitted ¥9,700 (please, any mathematician out there can correct me if I'm wrong)

So, we will use that ¥9,700 for feminine protection and powdered baby formula. We'll get a fair amount of that as they need it not only in the camps for the displaced people, but also in the orphanages.

And, how was YOUR day :) ?
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A sadness in Mao's image this week...taken while running across from Tiananmen Square

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The Mathematics of Disaster

Today is front-loaded on business, end-loaded on relaxing and exploring this great city.

It's 10am and I've already had two meetings, after falling asleep last night for a couple of hours at 3:45am.

Next up, I'll be meeting with a colleague to review, in painstaking detail, our project's finances. The rest of the donations have arrived from Canada, so we'll be doing a final count, subtracting the large amount we've committed for the next load of tenting materials, factoring in the clothing I plan to buy on Monday, and we'll see what we have left.

I was hoping to visit an orphange here in Beijing, where my contacts tell me that some of the Sichuan orphans arrived this week but, interestingly, all official channels here in Beijing disavow this fact, claiming that such a transfer has not occurred. The reality, though, is that there are 110-125 orphans here who have arrived over the past week from the Beichuan area. This is fact.

I'd like to be able to make a donation to help the organization as well as local foster families who have really overstretched their means to take them in. So, I'll keep hunting.

On the subject of children, here is an update from a team of international child welfare experts and psychologists, currently in Sichuan:

"We travelled nearly 3 hours to get to the child welfare institution we work with in Mian Yang. All the children are still living in tents. We spent three hours assessing the needs of the orphanage and came up with some simple rehabilitation plans for the children, some of which have just lost their parents in the earthquake.

The orphanage director was told that about 100 new orphans from the earthquake were coming into their institution soon. It is vital that they receive some training on post-trauma counselling and rehabilitation.

We have never seen such a massive need in one place. Long term training and support is crucial for the lives of these children after this terrible disaster..."

The official count of new orphans from the earthquake is 4,000, though sources close to me say that the actual figure is in the 5,500 range. Statisticians grapple with a concept of net gain in orphans, the gruesome reality that while "x" number of children lost their parents in the Tragedy, "y" number of existing orphans were killed.

If Schopenhauer was right - that compassion is the basis of all morality - these days in China have demonstrated to me, in very practical terms, the great morality of the people of China. Their generosity of spirit and action has been truly remarkable and, as I have mentioned before, this relief effort has set a new standard from which the world can learn.

I'll end this post with a Hebrew proverb: "When a needy person stands at your door, God himself stands at his side." So, as much as you possibly can, give. If you have anything at all to give, you have everything to live for.
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Second birth

"All things have second birth; The earthquake is not satisfied at once." - Wordsworth

For almost three years I have been a huge proponent of the concept of microfinance. In brief, microfinance is the provision of small loans (microcredit) to poor people to help them engage in productive activities or grow very small businesses.

I truly believe that microfinance can, in the mid- to long-term, have a huge role in giving the affected region China a second birth after the earthquake and that is the thesis of the discussions I have been having and will continue to have over the next few days with people who have the means to provide seed money.

For those unfamiliar with Nobel Prize winner, Mohammed Yunus and what he has done for the world through microfinance, he not only has a very good book but there are a series of Stanford University lectures by Dr. Yunus and his colleages, downloadable on iTunes.

So, here's a piece of really good news: The Beijing Red Cross has so many private donations right now that they're asking that people wishing to ship items to Sichuan take their things to China Post, at least for a few days so that they can catch up. Really, the response of regular people doing what they can, giving what they can has, to me, set a new international standard in and for philanthropy. I'd challenge anyone to dissuade me of this in terms of actual participation rates of giving.

As for today, I spent all afternoon visiting supplier for new clothing, by the gross, for Sichuan. While I didn't buy anything today, I negotiated price way down and believe that I'm close to a deal with a Beijing clothing manufacturer. I can buy 1,000 shirts at the cost of ¥6 per shirt. That's a good quality shirt for around 90 cents Canadian.

Then, pictures below, we wrapped up the afternoon with a meal at a famous Beijing Sichuan restaurant. The fish dish in the picture may be the spiciest dish I've ever had in my life. It's a whole fish poached in searing chili oil. It has about a million Sichuan peppercorns and chilis. There no such thing as too spicy for me, but this was INTENSE. And amazingly good.
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super hot Sichuan fish and cold Yanjing beer

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Hot Sichuan Chili

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Bright Lights, Big City

Beijing is a BIG city. It defines "huge," "enormous," "very very large."

But I've always loved stories that reflect how big cities can aslo each be an amalgamation of many small towns and small town stories. Like Mexico City. It's not a city of 22,000,000, it's a gathering place of these cool colonias and barrios - it's hundreds of villages brought together under one vibrant, colourful roof. Defining the character of a city is as impossible as defining the greatest song in the history of rock and roll (which, by the way, is a tie between The Eagles' "Hotel California" and Oasis' "Wonderwall")

Early this morning I had breakfast with a local philanthropist who is a friend of a friend of the cousin of a friend's friend :) So, as it turns out, yesterday when we were working with the Beijing Red Cross and loading all of our materials for shipping, one of their executive directors was there observing. And she is friends with the guy I had breakfast with today. And she was so moved at meeting us and seeing this great direct foreign aid money at work that she relayed her impressions to this guy. And he was moved...to the point that he wrote a check today for ¥100,000 for the effort.

That's some awesome karma :) Serious high fives all around!!!!!

Speaking of karma, everyone here is laughing about the Sharon Stone situation - they see it as an amusement, a welcome diversion from the Tragedy (I've made a decision to capitalize it from here on), and CCTV has given the story serious legs (they've even slapped a pair of Nike Cortezes on it, letting it run hard and strong for a while). The media here are no dummies - each shot of Ms. Stone is less flattering than the one before. She looked to be approximately 98 in the last shot I saw of her on TV this morning. As you may have heard, she had ALL of her films banned from China two days ago after making the brilliant statement (which clearly reflected her fine breeding and evolved global consciousness) that the earthquake was "karmic retribution for China's position and actions regarding Tibet."

Again, really trying hard to abstain from editorializing about world politics while writing from Mainland China, but, exsqueeze me, how about if Sharon Stone looks at her own country for a bit? Really, is the US, in any way, shape or form, a nation and society that should be criticising others? Isn't that tantamount to Burger King telling Jenny Craig that her Chicken Kiev entree has is too low in potassium? Am I missing something here? They have 100 million people without even a shred of the most basic human dignity health insurance, they...okay, I won't begin a 900-word rant. I'll leave it at that for now. Just don't criticise your neighbour for not trimming his hedges when your yard is completely covered in dog poop, okay?

Taking some time during a much-needed early morning run to reflect on stuff, I thought about Emerson (well, I also thought about a big bowl of Vietnamese bun cha and maybe a Polish Zywiec beer or two). I remember from when I taught an integrated History/English American Studies course at a great prep school near Washington, DC, his powerful words: "Every man is my superior in some way. From that I learn of him."

It's easy to say "Oh, yeah, I embrace that. Yep, Emerson. Heavy-duty stuff," but that's usually a load of salted carp as people in the First World have a very strong tendency to believe that people in the Third World, are just so far behind, so antiquated. Someone once said to me "I can't believe that people actually drive bicycles in Beijing - can't they afford cars?" Really.

This fundamental unhinging of reality (it's no less than that) scares the pants off me. In the First World, I always overhear business people speak and they say "No" and "Problem," more than anything else. But in the Third World I hear "Possibility," and "Intriguing.". The lingua franca of business is less pan-global than people think; there has been little evolution of a functional Esperanto in world commerce. Instead, we interact nationally, and regionally and we reflect this in how we speak.

I find myself doing the same thing and the end result is that in Latin and South America, in developing Asian nations and some of the former Eastern Bloc countries I speak in that self-same encouraging, proactive, forward-looking patois.

Everything here in Beijing is forward-looking. Beijingers are no dummies. They're savvy, great negotiators, a bit guarded and a very strong-willed, in a positive way. This truly is the Chinese version of Jay McInerney's 1980s Gotham, of which he wrote in his masterwork, "Bright Lights, Big City.". The fashion scene here in Beijing is becoming world-class. All of the major fashion brands and houses have established a solid foothold in Beijing and they did so before expanding to the Mumbais and Bogotás of the world. People here - especially women - dress well and dress for the occasion.

I think that the world will be very pleasantly surprised when they come to Beijing in 70 days to celebrate sport and life and hope for the future.

Which is how they need to come. Period.

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Dateline CCTV

Today drained me. No - today totally knocked me on my backside, physically and emotionall.

First, it has been really very windy for the past day and this has meant, after spending so much of the day outside and in dusty areas, that my chest is really heavy and very congested. No fun.

Intending on reading today's paper at 6pm, I, instead, fell fast asleep for a much-needed three hours. Part of the change is that I'm now in a hotel. While it's a very modest one, at best, for the first time since I've been in China, I have a real bed, a real bathroom and a little bit of silence. Which is faaaaantastic. I have some meetings over the next few days and I needed to be in the Central Business District. Believe me, this little three-star-on-a-good-day hotel feels like the Mandarin Oriental Munich to me right now.

So, I've just conferred with my advisors here and made some strategic decisions.

So far, we've spent close to ¥30,000 (I'm keeping absolutely perfect records, to the cent) and I remain shocked and stunned at how far this has gone. With a bit of a nice cash infusion on the way tomorrow, we were planning how to get the most bang for our buck over the next days.

We've decided to invest in another shipment of tenting materials from Shandong Province. Sure, tenting materials aren't "sexy," - it doesn't have the same cachet as "we sent baby formula," but, you know what, it is, right now, the NUMBER ONE item in demand and, as I said the other day, for whatever reason, it is becoming very expensive and harder to find.

So, we're going to order twice the massive shipment we did today. Take a look at the pic, below, and envision twice that amount. TWICE. That's going to help so many people, I can't even imagine.

Tonight is my first access to TV since I've been in China and I turned the TV on to one the most depressing shows ever. It's the Chinese TV (CCTV) equivalent of Dateline NBC and it's killing me to watch this as I type away this entry on my mobile.

They are on site in Wenchuan County, Sichuan Province. They showing things I never even considered, such as, what makeshift tools they use to remove dead bodies from rubble. How they char human remains to prevent disease. They're interviewing rescue workers, some of whom are burying their entire families in the line of work. It's disturbing and powerful and real and should be required viewing for every international person I know or don't know who just hasn't been moved to thought or action (which, as you can tell, has been a stinky albatros draped around my neck for a couple of week. And I can't seem to let it go).

Speaking of thought and action, tomorrow I'm beginning to have some of those big picture chats about what can be done here on an ongoing basis in the area of private initiatives to support the relief effort. And it's so important that these intitiatives not only have domestic supprt, but are truly spearheaded by Chinese nationals, not foreigners. Then, in the afternoon, I'm heading to a factory to look at shirts and pants, new, in bulk.

And right now, I'm going to get truly CLEAN for the first time since stepping off the plane on Monday. This hotel has a bathtub! And a shower! It's amazing how quickly we will cherish little comforts after a few days of their absence.

So while I'm absolutely wiped out, I also leave this day feeling truly amazing - the feeling you get when you can look back on a day and say "You know, today we made it happen. Today we seriously DID something."
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The Best Picture Ever

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This, friends, is direct aid

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Aron at Red Cross shipping site

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Aron and tents heading for Sichuan

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Slipsliding Away

"You know the nearer your destination
The more you're slipsliding away..."

Was Paul Simon ever involved in relief work? Ever time we made a plan for today - the nearer our destination - the more it went slipsliding away.

You don't need to be bored with the details, but on about 45 minutes of sleep I had to move carefully and slowly across several rings of town. The first thing we addressed today was a wonderful project - an idea incubated by a colleague of mine in this rescue effort.

She thought that, given that 1st June is Children's Day here in China, she wanted to do a creative project that would spread something in very short supply - hope. She thought that if we had some some high-quality photos taken for us (which we could then turn into many beautiful Children's Day holiday cards) of kids happy at work and at play at a school in Canada, this could give the schoolchildren of Sichuan a sense that, yes, things will eventually imprive and they will again find happiness. Here, in her words:

"the receivers are kids between 6-15.
"Happy Children's Day! Wish you are strong and happy forever!" Though we are far away, our hearts tie together!"

So I ran it by a couple of child psychologists here and they thought it was awesome, so we're having 10,000 cards made and that was our first stop of the day, to design the cards so they'll be ready for us to ship for 1st June delivery in Sichuan.

Traffic today might be the worst I can remember in Beijing. It took me 90 minutes to go about a quater way across the city to the printer. And, in the midst of this, we have gone to a plan C as to how we can transport the tenting material that arrives at 2pm today from 5th ring to our shipping spot. I have a pretty clear sense that by the time 2pm comes we may really be at the Plan K. Or P.

1:58 pm: Great News! The tenting material is here!!! Well, here being in the middle of nowhere, far from the heart of Beijing. And, as promised, it looks REALLY solid and durable, as promised. And the manufacturer threw in some extra square metres, given our cause. Nice. I'm so impressed by the quality of this stuff. If you have to be out in the elements and you need a material to shelter you, this looks like THE stuff.

And we drive to our drop off point, very focused and motivated to get these materials on the way to Sichuan right away, Coldplay is blaring from the stereo:

Am I part of the cure
Or am I part of the disease

And, then, 3:55pm, one of the most visceral, moving moments of my life:

As we pull up the the area set up by the great, wonderful, lovely and kind people of the Beijing Red Cross for the free, express shipment of donations to Sichuan, the driver of our truck tells me, through my colleague who translates, that he is from Sichuan.

It happened like this: My colleague parked and had just exited the car. I was fishing in my Roots leather bag for a couple of hundred RMB to pay the short transfer shipping, and, as I look out the car window, I notice that the driver has broken down in tears. His crew comes to pick him up off the ground. I get out and he and I embrace, right there, in this shipping area that resembles a graveyard.

And then I learn that the entire crew of the truck are Sichuanese. The driver's entire family have lost their homes - some in the earthquake and the rest in the aftershocks. They have nothing - no possessiona at all - and they thank me over and over again for what seems to be hours. But I'm completely undeserving of their praise. The people of Sichuan are and these amazing volunteers here. All of them. Not me.

The moment was surreal. Amazing. THIS moment was why I came. This exact moment.

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Reflections, 4:00am

It's 4am and I've been up all night, for a variety of reasons. One of the great gifts of having been able to stay in a "normal" Beijing apartment has been witnessing daily life.

There is an amazing cadence, a wonderful, cyclical nature to what goes on here. I'm always stunned by the work ethic in various pasrts of Asia, China being no exception.

So, tonight, the street vendors closed up shop late - right around 3:00am. And, no, an hour later, the street rises, slowly, to life. I'm beginning to hear carts and the sounds of cans and bottles and just the sounds of life, of movement. I've just heard the first bird and the sky is one-tenth in its progression towards dawn. And there is a mounting energy, a palpable sense that some people who have been asleep for an hour or less are back at it. As I write this, I hear gathering of wood and I can imagine the smells from the metal vats and massive iron skillets that will slowly rise four floors to my room.

So I wonder what the sounds are tonight is the villages near Beichuan? Are there sounds of and in the earth? Can people hear wood and stone moving, settling? While I've spent the night smelling charbroiled mutton and spices, are other smelling rotting animal bodies, acrid winds of the disaster and the ongoing aftershocks?

Which leads me to the topic of sleep. How could you ever again have a restful sleep once you've been in a natural disaster? Tonight there remain people all over Sichuan Province - even the very modern capital, Chengdu - who have chosen to sleep on the street rather than in the homes, even their undamaged homes. So what does every sound, every creak, every natural movement evoke?

I've walked many kilometres in this neighbourhood over the past three days. I've walked at dawn and I've walked late at night. In my broken, very elementary mix of Mandarin and English (to my amusement, a word or two of Spanish, French and even Swedish creep in as I try to explain what should be a simple concept) I try to connect to the people. Whether that is something as simple as nodding appreciatively when the woman on the street cuts me a chunk of the fresh pineapple she's carving or giving a thumbs up as I walk by a huge series of grills with parts of every animal you can imagine, there is a sense in China or a genuine appreciation of things new. Different. Foreign.

It's natural, I think, to have an overwhelming fear of the unknown. The interesting and borderline ironic thing here is that over the several years I have travelled through this fine, fine nation, I've never felt that anyone was afraid to meet or get to know me.

I just remembered my first trip to an important world capital, somewhere south of Texas...and, say, north of Patagonia :) Someone I was with said "You never leave the hotel. Ever." So, ready to soil myself, I spent that first trip in the sterile American hotel, miserable, probably munching on club sandwiches or the Big Beefy Burger. Now, when I visit that same city, I revel in the stimulating company of friends and colleagues. I know world-class chefs. I cherish a picture taken two years ago with the country's President. I revel in the smells and sounds and goodwill of the people. It's one of 40 or so places in the world that I'm happy to call home, if even for a few days at a time.

So it's always disappointing when people ask me "You actaully went to place x?" "I've heard that it's really dangerous there!" What I want to hear is "What's it like? How are the art galleries? What's the music scene like? What do they eat in the streets? What's their THING, you know? How do they define themselves?"

As I finish this note I can hear the multitude of birds through my iPod headphones. The wind is brutal today, literally throwing piles of dust through the open window (my choices are dust and a bit cool or no dust and heat). It has laid a thick film on my black wallet and I can feel it on my face, I can touch the grit on my arms and I know that I'm here and the day begins...."
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Beijing street breakfast

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Volunteers packing supplies for flight to Chengdu

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Some of the medicines we shipped

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Volunteer bracelet.jpg

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china shoes.jpg

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Troubling note from Sichuan

This just came to my attention, 1:00am, from a children's aid worker presently in Sichuan:

"The place was so dead when we arrived, everything was still, only wind was blowing. I saw a boy standing in front of the rubble of the school for a long time without a blink. I went up to him and said hi.I asked: which grade were you in?He said quietly: Fourth grade.I squatted and said: Why are you always standing here?I saw tears coming up in his eyes. He said: My classmates are gone.Teacher Gao got injured because of me!I didn't know what I could say that would make him feel better. I just reached out my hand and held his. His hand was cold, so cold. When I was about to leave, I was trying to hold back my tears and asked: What do you want to do the most now?He lowered his head and answered in a shaking voice,'I want to go to school, but my school is not here any more.'" 

I can say, on a positive note, that the world's foremost experts on the subject of child bereavement are now on the ground in Sichuan, working with staff members of the local organizations that work with orphans. Which is great, as the number of orphans will rise dramatically in the next days and weeks and the system to accomodate them effectively in Sichuan is, arguably, already overtaxed.
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The Waiting

1. "Morning" update, 2:43am Beijing time. Geez....

Tom Petty, rock god, once wrote:

"The waiting is the hardest part
Every day you see one more card
You take it on faith, you take it to the heart
The waiting is the hardest part"

I am as bad at waiting as a seal is at playing lacrosse and, to an extent, today is a waiting day for structural reasons.

As you may remember from yesterday's novella-sized entry, we have ordered MUCH tenting material. Today it is being cut, loaded on a truck and driven to the Capital.

So, I'm being as busy as a good Canadian beaver, eh, on this somewhat more relaxed day than yesterday.
I have several goals for the day and I will achieve them all:

1. Buy shoes. Not for me, silly. I'd like to buy good athletic or casual shoes for those who were left with no shoes at all. Especially as the rains come, this can really help.

2. Source a supplier for shirts and pants. I'd like to find a supplier where I can get some decent quality, no name, t-shirts by the gross for, I'm thinking, ¥8 - ¥10 per shirt and pants, also by the gross, for maybe ¥13 - ¥15 per pair.

3. Talk to some people about leveraging some money and ideas long-term to help in Sichuan. I have several such chats scheduled for the weekend, but I want to see if I can set more meetings....get more people behind my vision and get some traction here in the Capital.

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2. Afternoon update, written at a much more reasonable hour :)

My iPod and I were in a lot of taxis today. It was a glazed-over early afternoon, the Beijing haze came on little cat feet ... (okay - just checking the literacy level of my audience...that was obviously Sandberg, not me). But really, between the lack of sleep smacking me in the skull at around noon, the heat and the "Um, I'd like a triple dose of Beijing pollution today and a side of onion rings, please," it has been a limp to the finish line this afternoon, niñas y niños.

I chose an eclectic soundtrack for my hours of rides around this meglalopolous. A little Steely Dan "Aja" as we made stop after stop in the CBD, Sigur Ros' "Takk" near Meisong area, some early Liz Phair on Majipu, as I was feeling like a Supernova. Each district had a different feel, each set of music was relevant, resonant.

The highlight of that afternoon was that after a very time-consuming hunt, I bought shoes. No, I BOUGHT SHOES!!! I can't actually give too much detail here, particularly while I'm still in China. Suffice it to say that MANY brand new shoes are on their way to Sichuan tonight as another one of my contacts has arranged for them to be transported from where I bought them and then sent on.
Parenthetically, I have thought of and said the word "shoes" so many time today that it doesn't even sound like anything.

Things are changing rapidly here and in Sichuan on a daily basis. Today, the government told many non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that they need to un-involve themselves in the relief process. For a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that I'm physically in China, I have made a decision NOT to editorialize on this. The end result, though, is that our strategies have to change hour by hour.

For example, yesterday we worked all day with this amazing team of people at a NGO. Ten of them helped us pack and they shipped everything right away and it was amazing and fast and lovely and today they were shut down. Okay - plan B. Well, our plan B for shipping tomorrow was just (yes, you guessed it!) shut down. Okay - plan C. By tomorrow, Plan C might be Plan K. The important thing (and our comparative advantage here) is to be flexible and able to change direction immediately.

Today we've received several messages that tent cloth is becoming more and more critical. Nowhere near enough is being sent to the affected regions of Sichuan. So we're thinking "Okay...if our tent cloth actually arrives tomorrow, and if it's as good and strong as we've been told (it better be as I've prepayed not one single cent) then maybe the best thing (and this is what we're being told) is to order as much more as we can possibly afford. It makes sense - demand for this material will not wane in the days and weeks to come...if we've really hit a gold mine here, let's leverage the heck out of it. We'll see.

Tomorrow will be a soooperdoooper busy day with lots to buy and more money on the way to me from Canada. Another one of my contacts here has gained access for us to a wholesale pant and shirt factory, so we'll check that out as well.

Just had some news sent to me...the aftershocks have levelled 420,000 homes. So, add well over another million to the 5,000,000 already homeless. Not the best way to begin this evening....

ANS

Aftershock and more

Last night I was in a residential area of Beijing and saw something I've never seen before. Everyone on the street stopped to look at TV reports of the aftershock. No one moved, all stood transfixed at this very anomalous big screen projecting images from Sichuan to a random crowd. It was surreal, like standing outside your local grocery store and watching a completely out-of-place TV showing you images of a part of your own country falling apart.

Yesterday the aftershock was massive, registering a 6.4. Amazingly, there have been EIGHT THOUSAND aftershocks since 12th May but this was the strongest one of all (there was a 5.8 on 13th May). These aftershocks are making roads very treacherous; it can take three days to travel 200km, depending up exactly where you're starting from and exactly where you're going.

If anyone thinks that the worst has passed (which, remarkably, some people do, even as the dealth toll climbs in the direction of 80,000), here's a passage from an update today from a Beijing-based children's organization:

"The Aba, Sichuan, Civil Affairs Bureau is now caring for approximately 1,000 orphaned and displaced children, most of whom are 7-12 years old.  There are over 100 infants.  They'd been placing the children in local shelters but had just received news that 70 more children are on the way.  There are no more tents and no more beds for them.  Further, they urgently need powdered milk and diapers.  And they need foods that don't require cooking as most of their cooking stoves and supplies have been destroyed.  They need so much they can't even give us an estimate." It's truly devastating to read notes such as this from Sichuan.

Here in Beijing, I'm sleeping as a guest in the very small apartment of a local resident. My room is four floors above the street in a four-floor low-rise. Turns out that there is a makeshift night market right below me that opens at dinner time and runs to 2am. And it's a Monday so I can only imagine what the weekend will be like. So, I tried to sleep among the intensely sensuous perfume of charred mutton, curried squid balls and sizzling organ meats - all of which I really love but not so much when it wafts through my window in the middle of the night.

Morning comes here at 4:16am, I find. The sun rises and the sounds of hawkers rolling metal carts, readying to prepare street breakfasts gets me up and I'm out the door early for a walk. Reminds me of Ho Chi Minh City, the sounds and smells of perfect early morning pho.

I like this part of town even thought it's kind of rough and very far out - its entirely new to me. My host last night, through a translating device, wrote "I am so happy that you are welcome in my humble home that is so poor and wrong." Through my translating device I wrote "Your home is wonderful and warm as your kindness.". Not sure how well that translated but it's the thought that counts.

By mid-morning, and after a 90 minute taxi ride in bad traffic, I'm at a branch of a major bank. Woth the help of a friend of a friend of a friend we get a preferential exchange rate on the currency I have with me, then we're off to shop. .

The things in greatest need right now in the disaster zone are the following:

1. Tent cloth: Tent cloth is becoming increasingly rare and expensive in the past nine days or so. Interestingly to me, it's the cloth that's important, as tents can be made on site (uh, yeah, I couldn't figure out how to do that myself). We have sourced a supplier of very high quality, supremely durable cloth in Shandong Province, about 13 hours from here. So, we're ordering all of our cloth from there and they will put it in big trucks and deliver to us in Beijing on Thursday! We will then put it on the plane to Chengdu. We're ordering a gigantic amount of this stuff. Tens of THOUSANDS of square metres!. The rains will come soon and that's as ominous as it sounds. The tenting materials will allow for many makeshift shelters which will save lives. Just the amount of material we will ship will help at least a thousand people take shelter!!

2. Mosquitocide (if such a word exists...I may have made it up...basically, stuff to kill mosquitoes): The mosquitoes are making people very, very sick and disease will spread. So we'll buy and ship down hundreds of boxes of the stuff. Here it comes in various forms, some better for kids and some better for adults. It's hard to describe the actual drug - we don't have anything like it in North Anerica that I know of.

3. Medicines: The need for a variety of medicines is critical. We're on the trail of many hugely important types of drugs. Most of what is in the greatest demand and will help the greatest of number of people is not prescription drugs but over-the-counter Chinese medicines. These will prevent and cure many illnesses that people are already coming down with. There are seven to ten medicines that we've been told are badly needed and we've bought cases of each of them. Basically, we cleared out the supply and have ordered THREE TIMES AS MUCH from the supplier on a rush 48 hour turnaround. They also gave us tons of free gifts, given how much we spent. Toothpaste, toothbrushes and more. Very kind - xie xie !!

So, we spent all afternoon sourcing out and buying lots of medicines. It was a slow and careful process to make sure we're getting the exact right things and that we're getting the best possible negotiated discount price.

It was amazing how inexpensive painkillers, for example, were. A generic Chinese equivalent of Aspirin was less than a dollar a package. So, we bought cases of it, as it's one of the items on the greatest need list.

It has been a really good and long day. We have already bought, packed and shipped a huge amount of things. It feels good to know that as early as tonight these essential items will arrive in Chengdu then be off by ground for the final leg of their journey.

I took some pictures today on my mobile of the stuff we bought and shipped. I have no access to a reliable internet connection at the moment so I can't log on to this blog aside from sending posts through my mobile as I've done so far. If anyone is really that into seeing pictures of boxes and boxes of stuff, email me at ansolomon@gmail.com and I'll send some to you :)
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Beijing is different

I was in Beijing three weeks ago and it was...well...Beijing. It's a huge, rapidly evolving city. While Shanghai refines its international identity, Beijing simply booms. In some elemental ways, Beijing sits at the intersection of the old and new Chinas. It is both atavistic and stunningly forward-looking. It usually resonates with movement, with life, with direction.

But its different today. I've landed only a couple of hours ago and haven't slept in 27 hours. That works for me today because the colours are sharper, the 33 degree heat more searing, the senses sharpened. You absorb things in this state. You take things in and hold them inside for a while.

We are attempting (that's the operative word) to move through Beijing in rush hour traffic. We cross several zones of the city, multiple ring roads, and I'm trying to decompress, find some center, by listening to Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours" on my iPod - one of the most painstakingly exact and perfect and visceral and mindblowing albums in the history of rock and roll.

And as we drive China mourns. If the official days of mourning have passed, they have left the capital of this great nation with a wound, a tangible and profund sense of loss. Lindsey Buckingham was right on when he wrote "thunder only happens when it's raining." Beijing can't comprehend that there are people around the world who don't care about this tragedy. I know some of them - they know nothing about China or Asia. They still call it "The Orient," and its inhabitants as "Orientals," or worse, as if they were discussing this whole thing while sipping really big Jim Beams in naugahyde chairs in Dallas, 1973. Nothing moves them to thought or action that lies outside their sphere of influence or control. This tragedy didn't touch them. The thunder of the earthquake didn't affect the cars they drive or the clothes they wear, it didn't take food off their table, it didn't cause them to look in the bathroom mirror at 2:23 am and think "there but by the grace of God go I...."

But today, on a late Monday afternoon in Beijing, the cars seem to move slower. The grays in the clothes of the people are more muted, darker. The city has a dfferent texture - a density of grief and loss.
ANS

Less than one day to departure...

So, I've decided to create this blog so that people who invested money and time into my humanitarian trip to China can keep up to date with what I'm doing. Several of you have written amazing send-off notes that included "keep me up to date," so while this blog is less personal than individual notes, it will also be less consuming of the little free time I'll have.

I can post directly to this blog from my mobile, which is immensely cool. Those of you who know me are well aware that I'm a massive fan of small, agile, mobile technology. I actually rarely work on a "computer" - I kind of think that the day of "personal computing" (which I'll define here as someone sitting at a desk with a desktop or notebook computer) is soon to pass. Being able to be on the move, in an out of the office, in and out of a variety of countries, is what it's all about.

So, a little background. Here is a general view of the earthquake zone:



An earthquake in Wenchuan County, Sichuan Province (which was the epicentre) isn't a huge surprise. Sichuan Province is one of China’s more earthquake-prone areas. The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has a map showing natural disaster risk in China, which I've pasted below. Chengdu is right on the edge for degree seven earthquakes. The British Geological Survey gives Chengdu a rating of 6 out of 10 for earthquake risk. Beijing, where I'm heading, is rated at 7, while Shanghai comes in at 2.




I'm dealing with certain realities as I depart for this trip. Perhpas the most troubling is that the death toll may reach close to 80,000 before I return to Canada. The reality is that there are over 50,000 confirmed dead but the wild card is that 24,000 are still listed as "missing." I reason that, conservatively, 95 percent of the missing are dead, which is a rational but very depressing thought.

The post-earthquake images have been overwheming, both in the quality of images available on TV and over the Internet, but also in their intensity. Two images particularly resonated with me over these past difficult days.

The first is of a young woman being pulled from the rubble amost immediately after the earthquake. I think what moved me about this picture was, first, the fact that she survived, but also the prevailing sense of shock, as in "There's NO WAY that this just happened..." Here it is...



Then, in last Sunday's New York Times there was an image that moved me equally but because of its sense of calm, of a a resigned mourning. It is a picture of a family burning incense for relatives who were killed in the disaster.




I'm a pretty voracious reader. Honestly, I don't read novels anymore - I am ashamed to admit that my days of novel reading and novel writing were pretty much burned to embers when I left teaching. However, I read a LOT of nonfiction, magazines, newspapers from all over the world and in several languages (wow - that sounded very pseudo-intellectual...I meant that if I understand that language, I'd rather read the news from that country in the native language) biographies, every decent business book out there (thank you, Kellogg, for instilling this in me) and tons of blogs. Were blogs carbs I'd weigh about 600 kilos.

A blog entry that really moved me in the days after the earthquake is from the zoecarnate blog and can be read here http://zoecarnate.wordpress.com/2008/05/13/disaster-interconnectivity-action-contemplation/

It's actually far too "religious" for my taste but I greatly appreciate its spiritual perspective. There is a bit of a good/evil dynamic tension involved in any disaster - the sense of the inexplicable, the impercetible. Then, what should follow is compassion and sensitivity and, as zoecarnate writes, a weight of the "shalom on earth," which I truly sense is beginning to emerge.


Well, much laundry and packing to do. I'm bringing many empty hockey-type massive duffel bags to be used in the relief effort and only a small carry-on for me. Feels very weird to leave the suits and dress shirts and ties at home when I leave Canada, though I'm not complaining about a few days of jeans, t-shirts and my beloved Nike Air Max '95s....

I'll leave you with some contact information for the Red Cross in China. This was my first contribution, the day of the disaster. You'll find someone who speaks English if you call or, of course, you can donate through the Red Cross in your home country.