My dear friends,
It's been a long time since my last report. I feel sorry that I couldn't write another report like before to update the progress after the earthquake in China in a timely manner as I wished.
I have been trying everything I can to beat the deadline for delivery of products and at the same time keep the quality standards regardless of our circumstances and obstacles here in Chengdu, China. Because of my overbooked schedule and travels, I hardly have had a lot of time for media n
ews and newspapers; I could hardly say I have enou
gh time for sleep even. But when you're far away from one thing, you're closer to another. I found myself still found opportunities squeezed in some time participated more into the disaster relief effort. In this sense, I guess I'm further from the media but closer to a real life.
At first, I was chosen to be one of three verbal interpreters for an American humanitarian group, called "Mercy Corp" for their training sessions. In the end, I was the only one, and quite frankly (:-) )the most favorable one chosen to stay. They even offered me a long term project manager position to stay working for them. When they realized I had a very demanding job which I felt most passionate for, they created me an "open-ended" job position in their organization whenever I come back... I'm very very flattered by their generous offer. But you know and I know that I have to remain focused on growing my little fashion business. Between 4 of my "jobs" in 4 different fields, I have to remin
d myself which drives me the most. I can't use only 50% or less of my time and energy to compete well in one of the toughest field like fashion business despite of the fact I'm not doing so bad so far.
Wow, it's been a while, so where shall I even start?...
Let's first talk about this Mercy Corp program. Obviously, I would never choose something for no reason. Started from the beginning, I noticed there're a lot of organized donations from all over the world after earthquake flood in, and distributed through Chinese government's channels. But for a much longer term help for children and many adults after such hugely scaled psychological trauma, it's quite messy if it's
covered. It's less visible work and more difficult to measure, yet has huge impact and needs on the stability of our future society and also at personal development at individual level after disaster.
There're many psychosocial teams and volunteers (quite diverse background) came from all over China to the earthquake affected areas, with many different approaches and methodologies... Some works, but many are questionable, as experts from national level to provincial and city level all addressed their concerns through TV programs at one point of time.
Mercy Corp, however, brought with them a team of psychosocial experts from America, including 3 expert on methodology, 2 on psychiatry and psychology and a bunch of Ame
rican and Chinese supporting staffs. Along with their team of people, they brought a user friendly methodology and a set of tools to provide long term guided psychosocial r
elief help, targeted specifically to Children from age 0 to 18, even good for adults. Thus differentiate this method from all the other commonly seen methods in the earthquake affected areas.
1. User friendly: The methodology and the tools were designed for non-professional caregivers. As the result, it can provide a very fast coverage in huge geographic areas -- excellent for relief effort after huge natural disasters which requires both speed and scale of coverage.
2. Also broad AGE coverage: Anyone can use (especially good for children), and anyone (children and adults) can benefit from it.
3. Great designs: There're two tools -- One, Workbook (like a private emotional dialog diary with him/herself); Two, Moving Forward (a set of sports and games for children to have fun and at the same time to learn some theories/Principles from, in order to help them rebuild self-esteem, constructive communication, team work etc. The second part especially good for children with high energy...
4. Time and Clinical proved: The same methodology has been used and tested for the last a
few decades, from earthquake in Peru, to Hurricane Catrina and 911 in U.S.... So, Chinese children are not going to be the first ones to try.
5. It offered a brand new experience for even the senior doctors from the most prestigious psychiatric institute in China: Open their eyes to a better way to communicate with children and adults -- which is completely conflicting with traditional Chinese ways to treat and educate children. Guess why I "fled" China and came to U.S. at my teenage years, and still fight for the traditional Chinese way of treating and judging children with strong characters? Guess why I so much want to help this training and methodology to spread in Sichuan despite of my busy schedule? It speaks to me at a deep personal level.
5. All this generosity come for a pure motivation: Mercy Corp is an NGO (non-government organization, not associated with any religions). People came to work for the love of children and for a better world. Plus, the main speaker during the training was one of the key administrators for Peace Corp for a few years. And to join the Peace Corp was the very first job I wanted to apply for freshly graduated from college! I couldn't make it because I wasn't American resident at the time. But how funny the world works to me -- My life is full of those happy circles: Years later, I'm doing similar things after all.
(It might sound like I'm making a free advertisement for Mercy Corp. :-) But in fact, I'm just talking about how I truly feel. As I really like their methodology, I introduced them to my mom who's the founder/director of Chinese Cochrane Center and chief editor of the journal of Chinese Evidence Based Medicine (EBM). It's a perfect match for both of them. EBM can provide this methodology with scientific studies and analysis and elevate it to an academic and international level. At the same time, a cost effective psychosocial approach after major disaster can provide a good piece of evidence to influence Chinese government's policy making. and become a shared acknowledge among other public health organizations all over the world. And this Journal of Chinese EBM can bring Mercy Corp approach to this International stage. Chinese EBM Journal would open their English
version starting this coming Oct. Right now, their Chinese website is
http://www.cjebm.org.cn So far, they're very happy about this collaboration.)
So, with the training, we traveled to some earthquake affected areas, talked to many different people, including psychologists, psychiatrists, professors, volunteers, teachers, children etc and visited them in their temporary housing/offices... (I have many photos which can be sent
to you later). During those days of non-stop working, talking (can you imagine, I'm really their voice filter), I was loosing my voice. But in each seminar, I can't tell you how thankful and moved each and every listener was! They showed their gratitude to their foreign guests/speakers came all the way to help them... And how much they're concerned for their students, clients, neighbours etc... And how much they eager to learn and learn more...
I'm SO proud of Mercy Corp, this American organization and their extremely hard working and devoted American staffs!! At one point, I asked the speaker privately, if U.S and Chin
a had a war, would they still come to China and help Chinese people like what they did now after earthquake. The reply was a fact: they're also helping with Afganitstan children during war with America.
Here's a field journal from Mercy Corp website: http://www.mercycorps.org/countries/china/2297.
Here's also a very moving story which I can't forget long after I read. It's about two youn
g male Israeli students who took responsibility on their own volunteered to go to the earthquake area to rescue two other young female Israeli students whom they didn't even meet before. The entire story was published in Chengdoo Magazine issue 13, May 2008. You can download it at website: www.chengdoo.com. I think it can really be a good movie material.
We need to be moved from time to time in life, and heros do exist among us.
As I promised earlier, I just want to touch briefly of some less publicly mentioned points:
1. Soldiers: There're very few information provided about the wounded and dead soldier
s. No one knows the exact number, but many people are quite concerned and worried for them. Because after all, they're still human, particularly, they're very young (many are in their early 20's).
2. Policy abusers:
1) As government pays for free medical coverage for every people from disaster affected areas, some people migrated from unaffected areas to the pointed hospital area demanding free surgery coverage for their pre-existing conditions.
2) As government provide free room and board for everyone from the areas, some
employees of certain state owned companies at less affected region also claimed they're "refugees" and demanded for more expensive foods despite of the fact their standard meal is really not bad according to average Chinese families. At the same time, they're asking where they could make desposit: Apparently, they hold quite a lot personal cash in their pockets, and wanted to put it in the bank while using government's free offering for daily living.
3. A separated issue: Average Han Chinese in Chengdu are quite afraid of and angry at Tibetans living in their city.
(But seriously, I don't know when and how this really started at this "average" level! Collected throughout my memories from childhood up, we never had any special things "against" Tibetans. We use to live in peace, co-existing in southwest China. From every aspect, Tibetans heavily rely on Han for economy, for education, for medical coverage etc... They have always been given all kinds of benefits for being a minority in China
, more so than Africans Americans in America. My great grandma was a Tibetan, and some of my relatives married to Tibetans as well. Why couldn't we continue "co-existing" sharing peace under the same sky?...)
1) The gate of our district is locked earlier than normal everyday. Because the gate keeper said some group of Tibetans sometimes sneaked into our district with long Tibetan knives looking for innocent people to kill, like what had happened a few months ago even on the streets in Chengdu.
2) One of my friends who's a Buddhist said that the ones who provoked the "event" w
ere for sure not real monks, the real monks would never do such a thing. It's against their religion.
3) I once got into a Taxi without noticing the driver was extremely upsetting and crying. Later, from his repetitive and long list of "bad words", I pieced together the story: A Tibetan medical visiting student grabbed his taxi door and forced into the car when his previous clients were getting off of the taxi. He let the taxi driver drive him into the West China Medical School, parked inside (which means Taxi driver had to pay the entrance fee also), and ran o
ut of the taxi without paying a penny. When the taxi driver followed him and asked for the payment, the Tibetan student not only didn't pay, but also responded with a brutal physical attack hit and kicked the Han Chinese taxi driver, at the same time humiliated him in Han Chinese with "bad words"...
I asked the taxi driver why he didn't call for police. He said "no chinese policemen would dare to touch Tibetans... Tibetans can do whatever they want. But the police all pretend they didn't see it. Han Chinese would for sure be heavily punished if they did the same... Chinese government is too weak with Tibetans. They're so afraid of foreign power!!..." In fact, these comments I heard over and over from average chinese during my stay in China. They a
ll think Chinese government is too weak and too unfair in treating Tibetans.
So, I told him if I was there seeing this happened, I for sure will come to help him get the payment from the Tibetan guy. I just can't believe how could any one get away with
this just because he's more brutal! When I told the story to my family later that day, they immediately responded "OH NO! Don't dare to do it! He can seriously hurt you! Not even Chinese government nor policeman do anything about it, how could you?! First you have to gain some weight yourself!" (My family always think I'm too thin and too physically fragile to even think of such a attempt.)
But then, what's the result? I heard from different Taxi drivers in Chengdu that all Taxi drivers in the city didn't pick up any Tibetans on the streets. "Because they never pay!" "What if they have to go to Medical Emergency Room?" I asked. "Too bad, who asked them to treat us like they do, and never pay?"
I would say too bad that Chinese government isn't so clever and good at marketing and branding as Dalai lama (with support of foreign government of course) at an international stage. And too bad that there's just too much fear and jealousy over Chinese economy in the western world. All the rest are just covers. (Including "human rights" also been stretched
out of proportion. I can't tell you how much people enjoy what they have now as comp
are to 10, 20 years ago. Measure Chinese progress proportionally to its own context and history.) -- purely my personal point of view. It's fine if you disagree. Just respect!
Now, I'm back to Chicago, back to another busy schedule of shows...
I want to make the effort to send this report before this Friday when Olympic games starts.
Back to the days when I was in China helping out after the earthquake, I can't help thinking how wonderful that would be if the Olympic games can go smoothly! This game becomes even more meaningful now to each of us after all the natural and artificial "disasters" going on in China this year... We have to overcome so much to reach to this point.
Contrasted to President Bush's point of view stated during his recent visit to Beijing, his farther made it clear: "Separate Politics with Games. Don't forget after all, it's about a game."
Although I have to say for some it's hard.
We, for sure, would watch the games with our own point of view, emotions and colored glasses. For me, I will absolutely celebrate it! Just like many many many Chinese, and many many many more foreigners all over the world, we love peace more than the fight!
P.s. As I promised earlier, I made the T shirts. This time, only the short sleeves. I heard from many western friends of mine that they prefer my long sleeve design m
ore, becau
se of more Chinese characters on the front. (what a surprising comment to me!) But for now, it's only the map in front. I understand it's
more common design related to this earthquake, but I think it'll help many people know where it's located.
See attached photos for idea. It comes in white, light blue (like sky blue, pastel), light pink (Gentle Rose pink color, also pastel). I plan to sell for at least $35 each. After deduct from the cost for printing, T shirts, and shipping, I will send all the gain from sells to Mercy Corp. Just because I really saw how they work, and I believe it's a good way to use donations.
Thank you for your patience and tolerance for a typical Pingish point of view.
Enjoy the Opening ceremony tonight!!
Go Beijing, Go Sichuan, Go China! Go Peace and Love to the world!!
Many kisses and hugs,
