Cleaners. Policemen. Soldiers. Party cadres. Students. Everyone
has a reason, and a justifiable one, to sweep, dig and clear the
snow and ice piling up on highways, rail tracks, sidewalks and
every nook and cranny of public space in central, eastern and
southern China. There's a crisis out there - at bus terminuses,
airports, railway stations and roads - a crisis that has disrupted
almost every aspect of life, from transportation to power
supply.
Media commentators have already begun debating whether people
should at all return home for that all-important dinner on Lunar
New Year's eve, given that the bad weather and unprecedented snow
has made traveling so difficult.
Sure, there are those who are vehemently opposed to even such a
suggestion.
Zhu Jingyan is not part of that debate. She is not even aware of
the passion people are wasting on it. She is not waiting to return
home either. She is at home - the most natural place for someone
like her to be because she is all of 96 years and a resident of
Changsha, capital of Hunan, the hardest hit province.
But if you thought home was the safest place for Grandma Zhu in
these snowy times, think again. Hunan being south of the Yangtze
River has no central heating system. But can't her children or
grandchildren close all the doors and windows, switch on the
air-conditioner and maintain a room temperature of 25-plus C? No,
because her home doesn't have an air-conditioner. Even if it had,
it would have stopped working from Tuesday afternoon because of a
power outage. The matriarch lay helpless and frozen in her bed,
with burning candles providing light and heat both.
Children in the family were delighted, though. The candles created
an atmosphere that they had never been witness to before. Overall,
the feeling for them was dreamlike. Hasn't that always been the
difference between the old and the young?
Elders being elders, they realized the dangers that night would
bring. So they began boiling water - thankfully LPG was still
flowing through the pipes - and filled it in the only thermo-bag
they had.
As the family tried to shiver its way to some sleep and the
clock ticked toward midnight, electricity supply was restored. Cold
and tired the next morning, a couple of members went to buy three
more thermo-bags - all for Grandma Zhu. "It's not snowing today;
that's good," one of Zhu's grandchildren said yesterday. "But
forecasts say it's going to snow again tomorrow."
The Zhu family is fighting it out at its home, but Yu Fangyuan
can't even reach his. The 33-year-old sailor has been desperate to
get to Hefei, capital of Anhui, since landing in Beijing from
Chicago on Sunday. On the job for nine years, he has been working
abroad for nine and half months. The only reason he returned to the
country now was to celebrate Spring Festival with his family.
But Yu had never reckoned the weather could be such a monster.
Hefei airport was shut down on Sunday because of snow, no flights
from Beijing to his city on Monday and tickets for the only flight
on Tuesday had been sold out before he even queued up. He was happy
yesterday morning, for he had already boarded a plane scheduled to
leave for Hefei at 8 am. But then came the voice over the passenger
address system: "Visibility is poor over Hefei airport."
After 90 minutes, the airline's officials told Yu and more than
100 other passengers in the plane: "It's impossible to land in
Hefei. Your flight can take off only around noon." Noon came and
went. "1:30 pm,"said the airline. The clock kept on ticking.
"Takeoff at 7:30 pm", he heard.
Finally, the flight was cancelled at 8 pm.
But the words of the spokesman for General Administration of
Civil Aviation of China must have been reverberating in Yu's ears.
The spokesman said on Tuesday that all the airports forced to close
because of snow had been reopened. Perhaps that explains why Yu was
so adamant when he said: "No matter how late it is, I will wait...
as long as I can be home in time for the festival."
Yu's and the Zhu family's experiences have been shared by 105
million people across the country, and the Ministry of Civil
Affairs (MCA) finds itself in the thick of things.
The snow has been falling for more than a fortnight. It has
caused deaths, damaged and destroyed houses and crops. But the
threat to human life has been minimized, as MCA Vice-Minister Li
Liguo says: "Since rain and snow have been forecast to add to the
problems in the next few days, our primary goal is not to let the
weather or hunger claim a single life."
(China Daily January 31, 2008)
