Simon Elegant reports in Time Magazine:
The outpouring of support has been a revelation. For years, China’s citizens couldn’t watch the evening news without being reminded of their darker side, of the grasping, reckless self-interest that has characterized China’s headlong rush to become wealthy and powerful–stories of slave labor and child-kidnapping rings, rampant government corruption, counterfeit products, tainted food, dangerous toys and, lately, the brutal crackdown on dissent in Tibet. But from a monstrous humanitarian crisis has come a new self-awareness, a recognition of the Chinese people’s sympathy and generosity of spirit. The earthquake has been a “shock of consciousness,” as Wenran Jiang, a China scholar at the University of Alberta, puts it, a collective epiphany when the nation was suddenly confronted with how much it had changed in two decades of booming growth and how some changes have been for the better.
On Danwei, Pete Sweeney, a Fulbright scholar based in Chengdu, writes about what he has seen of the impromptu distribution of aid:
Metaphorically speaking, the first week of the earthquake disaster was like the honeymoon of a longer relationship. First the euphoria of survival and the closeness one feels with those you survived with. Then, as the news began to broadcast images of horror from the surrounding areas, a surge of sympathy and compassion as the population mobilized to help. Granted the tone was marred by a few panics, over the water supply for one. But over all optimism and community feeling prevailed.
But by the time Jiao Na arrived, the aid structure was clogged, charlatans and con men had begun to take advantage of the situation, creating fraudulent donation websites and selling stolen donated supplies like tent materials on the side of the road. According to an employee of a local chamber of commerce, the local business community is also confused and exhausted by the unending appeals for aid from a multitude of just-sprung-to-life aid organizations. China has little experience with NGOs; civil society initiatives are the province of the government. Now there are student groups, foreign aid organizations, individuals, and various government agencies all acting at the same time, but not in concert.
