the echo remains
when the bells toll the dawn;
Forgetting even when dusk comes
In many layers of autumn clouds…
The romantic image of Chengdu – what the Chinese call a shi wai taoyuan, ‘a peach garden not of this world’ – has lasted for centuries; the city was a sanctuary even during the final years of the Qing dynasty as the country was being carved up into concessions by the Western powers. I can imagine the Sichuanese strolling in parks, playing majiong on the street, and chatting away in teahouses in their provincial capital while the imperial dynasty fell apart 1200 kilometres away. Since that time, the number of teahouses in Chengdu has continued to grow: from 454 in 1900 to 598 just before the Chinese Communist Party’s rise to power in 1949, and up to the present day, when there is one on every street. Every day, one in five Chengdu residents visits a teahouse. And Chengdu’s literary scene also continues to flourish, with poets and poetry lovers alike gathering in clubs throughout the city to recite the poems of ancient masters and exchange notes about their own creative work. Even in the open space in Renmin Park, such a scene can be witnessed. I saw a group of poetry lovers of all ages, men and women, gathered inside the little pagoda, displaying their work on the marble table, some reading their poems aloud as others applauded.
After the earthquake, Chengdu’s authors produced an outpouring of work. The forty-five-year-old writer and poet He Xiaozhu was writing a novel on the second floor of a teahouse in Chengdu when the earthquake struck. He was terrified and tried to find a place to hide. He escaped injury, but when he heard of the deaths, he was heartbroken and wrote the poem ‘Elegy’, which was circulated all over the country:
Thousands upon thousands of anguished cries;
Return to silence and tranquillity;
Heavenly acts cannot be predicted;
The moon over Wenchuan;
Still, a question mark;
Aftershocks extend to Chengdu;
Sorrow engulfs half the world;
Tears turn to ice;
Let candlelight melt them away;
Children, climb on a dandelion
and line up for heaven.
I thought of the words of the ancient poets as I travelled by train to Chengdu – a twenty-five hour trip, across Hebei, Shanxi, and Shaanxi provinces. Though the ancient poets loved the region’s liberalism, they, too, had dreaded the long journey:
The path to Sichuan is filled with hardships,
harder than going up to the blue sky.
– Li Bai
I had boarded the train with my then boyfriend, John Davies, early in the morning. I was fascinated by an array of golden shades outside my cabin window. I climbed down from my bunk bed and saw the dusty land of the Shanxi province unfolding in front of my eyes. The barrenness looked strangely beautiful. I was struck by the magnificence of the country’s landscape as well as by the breadth and depth of its rural poverty. Shanxi, a large mountain plateau some 1,000 metres above sea level, is bound on the north by the Great Wall and on the south by the Yellow River. It was China’s strategic bastion against the ‘barbarians’ from the West for many centuries. The land is clearly poor here along the northern border, eroded by rainfall and by lumbering and ruthlessly scoured by sand and dust moved in constant wind and water, giving the bare earth a distinct yellow polish. The Gobi Desert seemed to spill over into this place. There were no traces of livestock. Many of the houses here are extremely basic – caves built up with mud walls.
When we entered the dining car the next day, we were greeted by restaurant staff in stewardess-like uniforms. Two public security officers sat at the back of the car, chain-smoking and keeping an eye on what went on. We ordered our favourite mapo tofu and minced pork with aubergines, as a first taste of Sichuan.
A young woman and an older man asked to sit with us. She was in her early twenties, a biology student at Chengdu University. The man was in his late 50s. ‘We’ve just met,’ he said. ‘I have a daughter in Chengdu University, too. So we have a lot to talk about.’ Like everyone else, they were curious as to why we were heading to Sichuan at this time, when the province had barely recovered from the earthquake. ‘We visited Sichuan years ago and would like to see it again,’ I said, sticking to our preplanned story. The student nodded.
Then dots of blue came into view outside the window: overcrowded tents, inhabited by villagers who had been made homeless by the earthquake. Not only had the Sichuanese had their homeland and their limited infrastructure destroyed in the eight mountainous counties, and now had to worry about aftershocks and heavy rain causing further disasters, they were also still waiting for their homes and communities to be rebuilt. Although the government had pledged to spend £100 billion ($15 billion at the time) on reconstruction, as reported by international media, no one I spoke to during my journey in China had a clue about this cash, let alone when it would arrive, how it would be spent and over what period of time. In fact, earthquake reconstruction was rarely in the news here, buried under the glory of the Olympics, even after the Olympics were over.
The Chengdu government had estimated that three years would be required for reconstruction to be completed – a frightening length of time for the victims, long enough for their plight to become dormant in the general collective memory, at least until the next tragedy. While the homeless waited in their tents, local officials experienced their share of stress: They’d been ordered by the central government to reduce their expense budgets, for example, by eliminating all ‘unnecessary official banquets’.
I couldn’t help asking the student, ‘Do you think the government is doing enough, or putting enough resources into reconstruction?’
The student seemed offended by my question. ‘Of course! No doubt about that!’ she said. ‘Our government has done all it could to help the victims.’
I said nothing, noticing her rising anger.
Altogether, 4.45 million households had been damaged by the earthquake, including 3.47 million in rural areas. Ten million people were living in temporary housing (tents) three months later. When winter came, the majority of villagers were still waiting for their homes to be rebuilt. By November 2008, 195,000 homes, less than one eighteenth of the total needed, had been completed. Even in May 2009, a year after the disaster, millions were still in temporary housing, and many will continue to live in those tents for years to come. State compensation in money – for those who actually received it – ranged from 16,000 yuan (£1,609, $2,540) and 23,000 yuan (£2,313, $3,651) per family, which most found insufficient to build a home themselves.
‘Maybe you’ve read negative reports about our government,’ said the student, provocatively. Her tone reminded me of students I had known in 1970s Taiwan, who had been deeply indoctrinated by the nationalist ruling party there, the Kuomintang. ‘So, do you support Tibet’s rioters? A lot of the reports in the West are anti-China. They picked on our government about everything.’
This would be my first direct experience of nationalist ideology on the trip, an ideology that wasn’t purely relative, expressed in terms of East vs. West, with the East a victim of Western encroachment, but instead increasingly positive, expressed as Chinese nationhood. It was the year of the Beijing Olympics, and the Chinese press was busy bombarding its viewers and readers with self-congratulating propaganda, including street ads exhorting them to ‘Fight for your Motherland.’ There can be no understanding of the history of modern China without facing up to its nationalism; since the reform era, no other ideology has been as powerful.
My nostalgia for Chengdu proved to be overly romantic. A decade of new development had changed the city. Most of the tranquil avenues dotted with teahouses were gone, along with the little surprises hidden in alleyways, like street snack stalls and sellers of pirate CDs who happily engaged in conversation. The town’s past simplicity and richness had been replaced by a crude and impersonal display of private affluence. Chengdu had become