Chindia Alert: You’ll be Living in their World Very Soon
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Xie Haifeng’s story is one of luck and resilience and he has made it his mission to help others through adversity
Professional dancer owes part of his success to the city of Hong Kong and one of its doctors who helped survivors through recovery
Xie Haifeng was 15 when he lost his leg in one of modern China’s most devastating disasters. Photo: Handout
When the rumbling began, Xie Haifeng thought someone was shaking his bed. Perhaps one of the other 800 children in the school dormitory was being naughty. Or maybe it was a small quake. Then came the unmistakable sound of screams.
Xie, then a 15-year-old pupil at Muyi Town Middle School in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan, started running. He fell as the dorm building collapsed around him. When he tried to stand up, he realised something was missing. His left leg was gone.
What Xie thought was a small quake turned out to be one of the most devastating disasters in modern Chinese history.
The Sichuan earthquake of May 2008 left at least 87,000 people dead and shook the country to its core. It was less than three month before Beijing would host its first Olympic Games, an opportunity to show the world its strength and ambition.
Instead, 7,444 schools had crumbled like tofu in an area known to be seismically active. Their rubble was a stark demonstration of the weak foundation of China’s progress and its tragic consequences. At Xie’s school, the shoddily built walls and ceilings crushed 600 children. Only 300 survived.
It still frightens me to recall the earthquake.Xie Haifeng, dancer
Xie considers himself lucky. “If I had run just one second more slowly, I would have been dead. If I had run one second faster, I would have been completely fine. But anyway, I am lucky to be alive,” he said. A dozen years later, his story is also one of resilience. Defying all the odds, Xie is now a professional dancer for a troupe in Sichuan and has made it his mission to help others through adversity.
The journey from his hospital bed to the stage was long and difficult and even though many years have passed, “it still frightens me to recall the earthquake”. But, he said: “I have forgiven fate and accepted the reality that I have only one leg.”
Xie’s trauma was a particularly difficult blow to his family. His older sister was already handicapped, after injuring her arm in an accident. When his mother, a migrant worker in the northwestern province of Gansu, arrived at the hospital a few days after the earthquake, she had no idea of the extent of Xie’s condition.
“When I woke up in the evening, I saw my mother weeping beside my bed. I told myself I should be strong,” Xie said, adding that his mother initially thought he had suffered only bruises. He was sent for treatment to a hospital in the prosperous southern city of Shenzhen, along with other survivors who had been left with disabilities by the earthquake.
Defying all the odds, Xie Haifeng is now a professional dancer. Photo: Handout
It was there that Xie was inspired to make the most of his life. A team of athletes visited the hospital and he was shocked to see one of them, a volleyball player, walking on a prosthetic leg.
Xie began to wear a prosthesis and after rehabilitation training returned to his hometown in 2009 where he was admitted to Qingchuan High School. At first, he was self-conscious and felt inferior to his peers. He did not dare to wear shorts in summer and said he seldom talked to the other students.
The following year he was introduced to members of the Chengdu Disabled People’s Art Troupe, where he found a new and welcoming home. Xie quit school and joined the troupe, despite his parents’ opposition. They were convinced study was the only way for rural students like their son to get out of poverty.
Xie learned Sichuan opera and was soon performing its art of bian lian, or
– a skill that requires rapid mask changes in a dazzling sleight of hand – on stage until the troupe was disbanded in 2011, leaving him unemployed for six months.
China marks 10-year anniversary of Sichuan earthquake
But the misfortune led to an improbable opportunity when he was hired by the Sichuan Provincial Disabled People’s Art Troupe and trained to dance. At 19, and with no experience, Xie found the training far more difficult than those who had started at the more usual age of five or six.
His body was too stiff, he said, and in the first months he spent 10 hours each day just stretching and building flexibility. It was just the beginning of a long and often arduous process.
“That agony is too much to be described,” Xie said about the pain of dancing on a prosthetic leg. “During the first six months’ training, I broke three artificial legs.”
More than once, he wondered whether he had chosen the right path. But, ultimately, his gruelling effort paid off and Xie has performed in Singapore, Hong Kong and Macau. In 2013, he won a gold medal at a national dancing competition for people with disabilities.
“My dances won me applause and recognition from the audience. I feel relieved and I think my heart belongs to the stage,” he said.
Xie broke three artificial legs during his first six months of dance training. Photo: Handout
Xie said he owed part of his success to Hong Kong which in 2008 donated HK$20 billion (US$2.5 billion) in aid to Sichuan and sent doctors to treat the injured. Among the volunteers was Poon Tak-lun, a Hong Kong orthopaedist who flew to Sichuan every two weeks from 2008 to 2013 to treat patients.
At a gala show in 2013 to express gratitude from the people of Sichuan to Hong Kong, Xie met Poon and the two became good friends, thanks to their common interest in the arts.
“Dr Poon promised to pay for all the costs of installing and repairing my artificial leg in the future. He told me to focus on dancing without worrying about the leg’s costs,” Xie said.
Xie Haifeng (pictured left with friend Poon Tak-lun) gives a speech to students in Hong Kong. Photo: Handout
Grateful for the help he received from Poon and Hong Kong, Xie has sought to return the favour by doing what he does best.
“I have no other skills except dancing and performing. So I thought of sharing my experience to encourage young students in Hong Kong,” he said.
Xie travels to Hong Kong about twice a year to perform and visit schools. In 2019, he visited the city four times, performing dances and Sichuan opera, and giving speeches at more than 10 primary and secondary schools.
“I encourage them to study hard. I said there are many people in this world who have more difficulties than them but still insist on pursuing their dreams, so they should not give up their dreams,” Xie said.
When he is not dancing and giving inspirational speeches, Xie said he lived a life like everyone else – climbing mountains, swimming and proudly walking on the leg he gained after almost losing everything in Sichuan’s deadly earthquake.
Project will examine whether earthquake and changing wind speeds have affected peak’s snowcap
Survey team hoping the BeiDou satellite navigation system and other Chinese technology can help them find the answer
A Chinese team is preparing to determine the exact height of Mount Everest. Photo: AFP
China is sending a surveying and mapping team to the summit of Mount Everest this month in a bid to end the long-running debate over the precise height of the world’s tallest mountain.
The mission was announced on Wednesday at one of the mountain’s base camps in Tibet, where a team of 53 surveyors has been making technical preparations since March 2. The team will use China’s BeiDou navigation satellite system and Chinese surveying instruments for the project.
Mount Everest – known as Sagarmatha in Nepal and Qomolangma in Tibet – lies in the Himalayas on the border between China and Nepal. The two countries have long disputed whether measurements of the mountain should include its snowcap or be limited to the rock base.
Nepal suspends Everest permits over coronavirus
In 2005, a Chinese expedition assessed the peak and measured the height from both the rock base and from the top of the snowfall. The result, a rock height of 8,844.43 metres (29,017.2 feet), was declared by China to be the most accurate and precise measurement to date.
Nepal has long held that Everest’s snowcap should be included, putting the iconic peak at 8,848 metres, a height which is widely accepted. However, geologists believe the snowcap may have shrunk by several centimetres after the magnitude 8.1 earthquake in 2015. Changing wind speeds are also believed to have affected it.
Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Nepal in October. Photo: EPA-EFE
Following a state visit to Nepal by Chinese President Xi Jinping in October, the two countries agreed to jointly launch a scientific research project to determine the exact height of Everest, recognising the peak as “an eternal symbol of the friendship between the two countries”.
China’s natural resources ministry said the project indicated a new step in the friendship and highlighted the historical significance of the mission, which coincides with the 60th anniversary of the first Chinese ascent of the mountain’s north side as well as the 45th anniversary of China’s first precise measurement of the peak.
The results of the survey will be used for geodynamics research and the precise depth of the summit’s snowcap, meteorological and wind speed data will offer first-hand materials for glacier monitoring and biological environment protection.
In a separate development, China Mobile said on Thursday that the entire peak now had 5G coverage.
In a joint project with Huawei, 5G antennas were installed at the mountain’s advance base camp, at a height of 6,500 metres. Antennas were installed earlier in April at the lower base camp, at 5,300 metres and at 5,800 metres.
Mainland China’s coronavirus outbreak exposed a huge digital divide, with some students from poorer regions lacking resources for online learning
Access to the internet is not considered a daily necessity at China’s policy level, unlike in European countries such as Norway and Iceland
Chinese children attend a computer class in Beijing to learn how to properly use the internet. Those in poorer parts of the country lack sufficient access to the internet, as the switch to online teaching during the coronavirus outbreak in China showed. Photo: AFP
The coronavirus outbreak in mainland China highlighted the huge digital divide that exists between richer and poorer regions.
When schools shut and online learning was made compulsory, many students living in remote areas found they didn’t have sufficient internet access.
There were 1.6 billion mobile phone subscribers in China in 2019, with many people having more than one subscription, and optical fibre and 4G covered 98 per cent of the population, according to official data.
These figures fail to show the large regional disparity between the country’s rich and poor provinces, says Jack Chan Wing-kit, associate professor of the school of government at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou province.
“In poor areas, a family [often] has to share one mobile phone among all members,” says Chan, who has done extensive research on China’s social problems.
It is easier for service providers to offer blanket coverage in densely populated cities where most people live in high-rise buildings, Chan explains.
“In rural areas, people live in bungalows that are widely spread out. It is not economically efficient for phone service providers like China Mobile to install transmission stations there, which explain their spotty coverage,” he says.
While the universal social security net in China covers people including the old and disabled, access to the internet is not considered a daily necessity at the policy level. That’s unlike European countries such as Norway and Iceland, who see the internet as a basic human right and ensure their entire populations have proper access to it.
Though some wealthier coastal cities within the Pearl River Delta recently conducted local surveys to identify less-well-off households and handed out tablet computers, inland provinces in central and western China cannot afford these measures, Chan says.
The Chinese government does not encourage [the setting up of] charities – Erwin Huang, founder of WebOrganic and EdFuture
Philanthropic efforts could help address this problem, as shown by Hong Kong’s experience in tackling the digital divide.
About 900,000 kindergarten, primary and secondary students in the city have been affected by school suspensions that are likely to last until at least April 20.
While families of disadvantaged students have received support from the government through Comprehensive Social Security Assistance and other welfare schemes, many children still lack digital resources as their parents don’t see it as a priority, says Erwin Huang, founder of both WebOrganic, a charity promoting computer access to such youngsters, and education alliance EdFuture.
That has left it up to charities to make sure all students have enough resources at home for online learning, Huang says. For instance, this month EdFuture worked with local mobile service provider SmarTone to give out free phone data SIM cards lasting two months to 10,000 students.
“It’s for those who live in subdivided flats and those who have to go to McDonald’s for Wi-fi access,” says Huang, who is also associate professor of engineering at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
Many students in China’s poorer regions have been left at a disadvantage by the shift to online learning. Photo: Getty Images
The Hong Kong Jockey Club also recently launched a HK$42 million (US$5.4 million) scheme to provide free mobile internet data to 100,000 underprivileged primary- and secondary-school students to help with online learning while schools are closed.
Huang says while such charities help fill gaps in the provision of digital resources in Hong Kong, a similar philanthropic culture is lacking in China.
“The Chinese government does not encourage [the setting up of] charities,” he says.
Huang initiated several digital resources projects in China after the Sichuan earthquake in 2008, but says frequent media reports of scandals involving charities such as China’s Red Cross have made it harder forNGOs to operate in the country, with the government preferring to provide social services through its own departments.
Cheng Qiang was just 12 when a magnitude 8 tremor destroyed his village, but he never forgot the heroism of the soldiers sent to help and swore one day to join their ranks
Now a squad leader, on October 1 he will also be part of the National Day celebrations in Tiananmen Square
Cheng Qiang was just 12 when his home in Sichuan was hit by a massive earthquake and airborne troops were sent to help. Photo: People.cn
A young man who survived the devastating Sichuan earthquake and vowed to one day join the ranks of the soldiers who spent months rescuing people from the rubble will on Tuesday lead his very own squad of airborne troops in Tiananmen Square as part of the celebrations for the country’s 70th anniversary.
Now 23, Cheng Qiang was just 12 when on May 12, 2008 he and a group of friends played truant from school to go swimming in a local river, Xinhua reported on Thursday.
When the boys had finished their fun they returned to their village in the township of Luoshui to find their school and many other buildings had been razed to the ground. The death toll from the magnitude 8 quake would eventually rise to 87,000, with 370,000 people injured.
Cheng says he is ready to “continue the glory of the airborne troops” at Tuesday’s parade. Photo: Thepaper.cn
In the days and weeks that followed the devastation, tens of thousands of people from around China and the world descended on towns and villages across Sichuan to help with the rescue effort.
But the ones who impressed Cheng the most were the soldiers from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) with the word “Airborne” printed on the helmets.
“Sometimes they had to remove the debris with their bare hands which were already covered in blood,” he said.
“But they just carried on and eventually pulled dozens of people out of the rubble. I knew then that I wanted to be one of them.”
Cheng said that after the quake having the troops in his village made him feel safe. Photo: People.cn
Having the troops in his village made Cheng feel safe, he said, and he spent his days following them around and doing what he could to help.
Three months later, when the soldiers had completed their work and were preparing to pull out, Cheng said he was determined to show his new heroes just how grateful he was to them.
As the villagers gathered at the roadside to bid farewell to the men who had become their saviours, the young boy held up a handwritten sign. It said simply: “I want to be an airborne soldier when I grow up.”
The moment was captured on camera by a press photographer, and the image soon became a symbol of the gratitude felt by the people who had seen their lives and communities shattered but knew they had not been forsaken.
Cheng said he felt dizzy when he first jumped out of a plane. Photo: People.cn
Five years after the troops rolled out, Cheng was preparing to go to college when he heard the PLA was recruiting and that there were places available with the airborne division.
The teenager did not need a second invitation, and after securing a place on a training course and successfully completing it he joined the ranks of his heroes in 2013.
Not that everything was plain sailing, however.
“When I first jumped out of a plane I felt very dizzy and didn’t really know what was going on,” he said.
Thankfully Cheng managed to overcome his vertigo and went on to become a squad leader.
Tens of thousands of troops will take part in China’s National Day parade on October 1. Photo: Thepaper.cn
When the preparations were being made for next week’s anniversary celebrations in Beijing, Cheng said he and his squad were chosen to take part.
He said that during the rehearsals for the grand parade, he was repeatedly reprimanded by his trainer for not keeping his knees close enough together, for lifting his feet too high and for letting his gun slip off shoulder.
But he was determined to get it right, and after weeks of hard work and 11 years on from the tragedy that devastated his world, he said he was now ready to put his best foot forward.
“The nightmare of earthquake has long gone,” he said. “I am here to continue the glory of the airborne troops. I am ready for inspection.”
At least 13 people have been killed and more than a million forced from their homes as Typhoon Lekima hit China.
Sixteen people were also missing after a landslide was triggered by the storm, state media reported.
Lekima made landfall in the early hours of Saturday in Wenling, between Taiwan and China’s financial capital Shanghai.
The storm was initially designated a “super typhoon”, but weakened slightly before landfall – when it still had winds of 187km/h (116mph).
The fatal landslide happened when a dam broke in Wenzhou, near where the storm made landfall, state media said.
Lekima is now slowly winding its way north through the Zhejiang province, and is expected to hit Shanghai, which has a population of more than 20 million.
Emergency crews have battled to save stranded motorists from floods. Fallen trees and power cuts are widespread.
Image copyright EPAImage caption A worker looks for his belongings at a construction site shelter collapsed by the storm
Authorities have cancelled more than a thousand flights and cancelled train services as the city prepares for the storm.
It is expected to weaken further by the time it reaches Shanghai, but will still bring a high risk of dangerous flooding.
The city evacuated some 250,000 residents, with another 800,000 in the Zhejiang province also being taken from their homes.
An estimated 2.7 million homes in the region lost power as power lines toppled in the high winds, Chinese state media said.
It is the ninth typhoon of the year, Xinhua news said – but the strongest storm seen in years. It was initially given China’s highest level of weather warning but was later downgraded to an “orange” level.
Media caption Typhoon Lekima inches towards China
Chinese weather forecasters said the storm was moving north at just 15km/h (9mph).
It earlier passed Taiwan, skirting its northern tip and causing a handful of injuries and some property damage.
Coming just a day after a magnitude six earthquake, experts warned that the combination of earth movement and heavy rain increased the risk of landslides.
Lekima is one of two typhoons in the western Pacific at the moment.
Further east, Typhoon Krosa is spreading heavy rain across the Northern Mariana Islands and Guam. It is moving north-west and could strike Japan some time next week, forecasters said.
When recycling businesses gravitated to Malaysia, a black economy went with them
Some countries treat China’s ban as an opportunity and have been quick to adapt
For years, China was the world’s leading destination for recyclable rubbish, but a ban on some imports has left nations scrambling to find dumping grounds for growing piles of waste. Photo: AFP
From grubby packaging that engulfs small Southeast Asian communities to waste that piles up in plants from the US to Australia, China’s ban on accepting the world’s used plastic has thrown recycling efforts into turmoil.
For many years, China took the bulk of scrap plastic from around the world, processing much of it into a higher quality material that could be used by manufacturers.
But, at the start of 2018, it closed its doors to almost all foreign plastic waste, as well as many other recyclables, in an effort to protect its environment and air quality, leaving developed nations struggling to find places to send their waste.
“It was like an earthquake,” Arnaud Brunet, director general of Brussels-based industry group The Bureau of International Recycling, said.
“China was the biggest market for recyclables. It created a major shock in the global market.”
Instead, plastic was redirected in huge quantities to Southeast Asia, where Chinese recyclers have shifted.
With a large Chinese-speaking minority, Malaysia was a top choice for Chinese recyclers looking to relocate, and official data showed plastic imports tripled from 2016 levels to 870,000 tonnes last year.
China to collect applications for scrap metal import licences from next month, trade group says
In the small town of Jenjarom, close to Kuala Lumpur, plastic processing plants appeared in large numbers, pumping out noxious fumes around the clock.
Huge mounds of plastic waste, dumped in the open, piled up as recyclers struggled to cope with the influx of packaging from everyday goods, such as foods and laundry detergents, from as far afield as Germany, the US, and Brazil.
Residents soon noticed the acrid stench over the town – the kind of odour that is usual in processing plastic, but environmental campaigners believed some of the fumes also came from the incineration of plastic waste that was too low quality to recycle.
“People were attacked by toxic fumes, waking them up at night. Many were coughing a lot,” resident Pua Lay Peng said.
“I could not sleep, I could not rest, I always felt fatigued,” the 47-year-old added.
Representatives of an environmentalist NGO inspect an abandoned plastic waste factory in Jenjarom, outside Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. Photo: AFP
Pua and other community members began investigating and, by mid-2018, had located about 40 processing plants, many of which appeared to be operating without proper permits.
Initial complaints to authorities went nowhere but they kept up pressure, and eventually the government took action. Authorities started closing down illegal factories in Jenjarom, and announced a nationwide temporary freeze on plastic import permits.
Thirty-three factories were closed down, although activists believed many had quietly moved elsewhere in the country. Residents said air quality had improved but some plastic dumps remained.
Chinese recycling expert breeds thousands of flies to turn kitchen waste into cash
In Australia, Europe and the US, many of those collecting plastic and other recyclables were left scrambling to find new places to send it.
They faced higher costs to have it processed by recyclers at home and in some cases resorted to sending it to landfill sites as the scrap piled up so quickly.
“Twelve months on, we are still feeling the effects but we have not moved to the solutions yet,” said Garth Lamb, president of industry body Waste Management and Resource Recovery Association of Australia.
Some have been quicker to adapt to the new environment, such as some local authority-run centres that collect recyclables in Adelaide, South Australia.
The centres used to send nearly everything – ranging from plastic to paper and glass – to China but now 80 per cent is processed by local companies, with most of the rest shipped to India.
Rubbish is sifted and sorted at Northern Adelaide Waste Management Authority’s recycling site at Edinburgh, a northern suburb of the city of Adelaide. Photo: AFP
“We moved quickly and looked to domestic markets,” Adam Faulkner, chief executive of the Northern Adelaide Waste Management Authority, said.
“We’ve found that by supporting local manufacturers, we’ve been able to get back to pre-China ban prices.”
In mainland China, imports of plastic waste dropped from 600,000 tonnes per month in 2016 to about 30,000 a month in 2018, according to data cited in a recent report from Greenpeace and environmental NGO Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives.
Once bustling centres of recycling were abandoned as firms shifted to Southeast Asia.
How China’s plastic waste ban has left Japan to deal with mountains of trash
On a visit to the southern town of Xingtan last year, Chen Liwen, founder of environmental NGO China Zero Waste Alliance, found the recycling industry had disappeared.
“The plastic recyclers were gone – there were ‘for rent’ signs plastered on factory doors and even recruitment signs calling for experienced recyclers to move to Vietnam,” she said.
Southeast Asian nations affected early by the China ban – as well as Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam were hit hard – have taken steps to limit plastic imports, but the waste has simply been redirected to other countries without restrictions, such as Indonesia and Turkey, the Greenpeace report said.
With only an estimated nine per cent of plastics ever produced recycled, campaigners said the only long-term solution to the plastic waste crisis was for companies to make less and consumers to use less.
Greenpeace campaigner Kate Lin said: “The only solution to plastic pollution is producing less plastic.”
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 