Casey
Courtney's past blog entry brought up a lot of thoughts about major changes that I have seen in China since the recent earthquake in Sichuan. A month ago, I would have said that the level of maturity, or immaturity, of social responsibility in China that Courtney described was point-on. About a year ago, when we were starting Wokai, every time I would talk to strangers about my starting a non-profit, they would scrunch their faces up and reply that I must be trying to steal their money (note the fact that I clearly told them that we were planning on raising funds in the US and using those funds to support loans of borrowers in China).
Last month's earthquake in Wenchuan, Sichuan was an absolute disaster. As of May 29th, Xinhua reported that there had been 68,516 deaths, 365,399 injuries, and 19,350 people were still missing (likely dead). While this has been one of the greatest tragedies in recent history, it has been inspiring to see the entire country mobilizing around the quake releif and showing a level of civic action that is so far beyond what has existed here since, at least, the beginning Open Door reforms in '89 and, more likely, far before Mao came into power in '49.
In the days proceeding the quake, the entire country immediately mobilized into action. Almost every building had a collection box for relief donations and banners expressing support for earthquake victims and compeling people to give. Every Chinese person that I know gave a substantial portion of their salary to the Red Cross or similar earth-quake releif funds. The general feeling here was that anyone that didn't give had a total lack of empathy and love for their fellow country-men. When I was going up the elevator yesterday, my building had posted a fotocopied receipt of their Red Cross donation. All in all, over $1,000 had been donated in the collection box over the past few weeks. On a larger scale, the New York Times reports that Hong Kong Millionaire, Run Run Shaw, contributed $14 million to quake relief.
The over-night switch in mentality from of aide and social welfare, not being something that citizens should have to worry about, but a matter for the government, to the overwhelming sense of civil responsibility and philanthropy is both heartening and fascinating. The depth to which everyone here has internalized the obligation to help those effected by the earthquake makes me think that this is not just a one-time reaction, but a perminant shift in Chinese society. Courtney optomistically predicted that it would take 5 years for China to embrace the important of social responsibility and philanthropy on a large scale. It looks like it took more like 5 hours.
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