Death and Taxes
Mr. Wang was looking intently the screensaver, which I thought a little odd. It was an image of “Beautiful Beichuan” viewed from the surrounding hills. Perhaps a little super saturated to heighten the impact of what was clearly a tourist promotional image, but as Mr Wang was on the Beichuan Mayor’s staff, the choice of image was understandable. What made the scene more poignant is that the Beichuan mayor’s “office” is a tent in Anxian, a totally different county, and the city of Beichuan no longer exists. Mr. Wang showed us pictures of the city as it is now, and skewed buildings and reconfigured hills tell the earthquake story all too graphically. Mr. Wang and the rest of the staff seemed to be going about their work rather mechanically with no particular haste, but then it was Sunday afternoon. They had time and seemed willing for us to view the images from their files. Image after gruesome image rolled across the screen. When we finished watching the slide “show”, Mr. Wang showed us a seven minute presentation of the disaster’s impact on the city. The story line was simple and brought together a propaganda video of happy villagers dancing in a tourist paradise with footage of the immediate aftermath of the earthquake. If that were not enough, the presentation concluded with a contrast between the easy laughter of a schools sports day at the local high school on the 11th, with scenes of overwhelming grief of the same school only one day later. I found it hard to watch but felt I owed to our hosts not to turn away from the affecting images.
In time, my colleagues moved on to business and the minutiae of relief work, all attended to, to this observer’s impression, with frankness and efficiency. I tuned in and out of the conversation as the general direction was obvious, and my role in proceedings marginal. Continue Reading »