新一代的中国人民志愿军：The Australian上的一篇文章

China\'s soft heart

Rowan Callick | May 23, 2008

A HALF dozen friends from Beijing steer their three new four-wheel-drive cars, now caked in mud, to the side of the rock-strewn road to allow a People\'s Liberation Army mobile generator and a fire brigade rescue ladder to chug past.

An elderly man is carried inside the Qingyang camp for China\'s homeless earthquake victims in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province.

They wave cheerfully at their new comrades. Unlikely as it would have seemed merely days ago, they are now working side by side, engaged together in public service.

The number of volunteers involved in the relief effort in the Sichuan earthquake zone has climbed above 100,000; about 70,000 of them are formally registered, while the others are casual freelance helpers.

This almost rivals the number of PLA soldiers in the region, which peaked at 140,000 and is now declining.

Middle-class members of the Beijing SUV Club collected funds to pack their vehicles with supplies of medicines, clothes and food. They obtained leave from their offices and drove 1600km to the quake area. The journey took them 23 hours.

Their red and yellow banners show their solidarity with the quake victims. Their specially printed T-shirts display candles on a map with Sichuan at the centre. Red Chinese flags cover most of the rest of their clothing and flutter from their cars.

They are classic members - honorary members by definition - of China\'s new people\'s army of volunteers.

They edged their way, as dusk approached, through the worst hit town, the ground zero city of Beichuan, heading for more remote villages in the mountains beyond, where soldiers started to reach more than a week after the quake.

With the emergence of a new wealthy class, philanthropy has been developing apace in China during the past few years. It is helping to fill the yawning chasm in welfare that exists despite the Communist Party\'s rule.

The country now has about 400 private foundations, 70 of them with a national scope, the rest provincially based.

Non-government organisations don\'t have an easy time in China.

Like religions, they are barely tolerated by a ruling party that remains intensely jealous and suspicious of any organisation that does not owe it direct loyalty.

People have greater freedom than before to create their own lifestyles, to consume as they wish. But there is no right of free association. It is possible to gain government approval to register a group activity, but only if the Government agrees with what the group does.

A group of 18 lawyers who signed a public letter offering to act pro bono for Tibetans accused of involvement in the Lhasa riots in March have been told their licences to practise, which require annual renewal, would be suspended.

So this independent flood of volunteers into Sichuan following the quake has taken everyone by surprise: the Government, the NGOs and the volunteers.

No one co-ordinated it. It has been a spontaneous response, mainly by people in their 20s, who are widely criticised for their lack of values and their commitment to making money and having fun.

Some of them were no doubt caught up in the fervently nationalist demonstrations that broke out in response to the pro-Tibet protests during the international Olympic torch relay. But this is a different nationalism, one that provides a unified response to adversity, one that the rest of the world can applaud rather than fear.

The extent of the tragedy and the media coverage of innumerable heart-rending stories of escape, survival, heroism and tragedy touched the hearts of this generation. They have responded in a youthful way, with altruism, optimism and energy.

A generation in the US still weighs its worth to a degree by whether it attended the Woodstock festival in 1969 or joined demonstrations against the Vietnam War. In 2048, older Chinese will be comparing notes about what they did during the great quake of 2008.

Each day the roads from the Sichuan capital, Chengdu, up to the mountainous areas at the epicentre of the quake are lined with volunteers\' vehicles with their bright solidarity banners: Sichuan people, hold on; China, let\'s go. They are waved through the toll gates. Corporate China is getting behind them, which is good for image and for business, with many of the volunteers being among the better educated and higher earning members of the vast population.

As soon as one of the country\'s major banks detects ATM use in Chengdu, it sends a message to the mobile phone of the account holder offering free insurance, presuming the customer is volunteering.

Once China Mobile discerns that its phone user is making calls from Chengdu, it sends a text message saying no roaming charges will be payable while the user is in Sichuan.

In the gardens at the front of the modern city government offices at Mianyang, the administrative centre of the county where the quake damage has been most severe - and now the HQ for the local relief effort - tables are spread under tent roofs.

China Unicom is providing 20 free phone lines for victims, their relatives and volunteers, to call anywhere.

Company employee Zhang Hong-jie, who spends long hours supervising, says the most rewarding part is when people look for the names of relatives on a huge board that lists known survivors and rush to call the rest of the family to tell them that they are safe.

One woman called a friend in another city to say she was now all alone, everyone she knew had been killed, and her house had collapsed. The woman behind her in the queue for the phone invited her to stay at her home as long as she liked.

The Jiuzhou sports stadium on the edge of Mianyang is the biggest refugee camp in the region, with about 30,000 people. It is a heart-breaking scene. People of all ages are sleeping on concrete under the stands. Those who have lost everything have palpable material needs. It\'s more difficult to fill the void in their lives created by the loss of family members, friends, lovers and workmates.

A handwritten note taped to the stadium wall reads: Hurry up! Hurry up Cheng Ding-qi, your sister Ren-ling is missing you! It gives a mobile phone number.

Services are being provided by volunteers from all across China.

People who have driven 2500km from Guangdong are handing out bread they have bought in nearby Mianyang. Workers from a local chicken fast food firm are distributing free rice and chicken soup to hundreds.

In a beauty parlour in nearby Mianyang\'s silicon valley region, young men are cutting hair. Volunteer health workers are dressing injuries and dispensing medicines. Women from the psychology department of the Southwest China University in Chongqing are providing counselling.

For a week Liu Yan-ling has been listening to the harrowing stories of women and children, especially. Children have often told me they really want to go back to school, but it no longer exists, she says.

Liu and her team of volunteers have set up a wall where people can stick notes, often heart-shaped (which the team provides), with messages of regret or optimism. The aim is to help people articulate their feelings, to come to terms with them.

There are now thousands of notes and drawings. My darling brother Gan, I hope you have a smooth ride to heaven, Teacher I miss you, All this will pass, tomorrow will be better and I\'m feeling happy, I have a book to read now.

Shi Kun, 21, a student at Sichuan Normal University, is majoring in finance with a psychology subsidiary. He is applying what he has learned at the Juyuan Middle School site where two classroom blocks collapsed, killing about 400 children.

Some of the bodies remain trapped in the rubble. Parents who have lost their only child still come to the site, now covered in lime, every day to grieve and to talk with others.

On Wednesday, Shi, a Red Cross volunteer, was conducting a survey of the financial needs of survivors. The day before, at Hanwang, he found an elderly man still in the ruins of his collapsed home, weeping as he tried to dig out objects. I told him he was not forgotten.

He delivered the same message to angry parents at Dongqi Middle School where children\'s bodies had not all been recovered. I said, we are all alongside you, we share your feelings, we have to admit it has happened but not get absorbed by grief, Shi says. Many Christian believers are among those who have come as volunteers and relief workers. Their hearts are full of love.

At one of the few late night restaurants in Chengdu - the centre of what is today China\'s most popular cuisine, with its red chillies and fragrant, fever-hot peppercorns - a half dozen young men arrive in camouflage uniforms with the logo of the China Red Cross. It is midnight and they have clearly just returned, grimy and hungry, from a long day in the quake zone. The other diners burst into spontaneous applause.

The new people\'s army is taking its bow.