The news is that at 2.28 this afternoon there will be a period of three minutes silence to remember the victims of last week’s quake. Since that’ll be the same class we had at the time of the quake, I hope they’ll show the proper respect, although this week it’s my turn to take the IELTS half of the class. The flag at school is flying at half mast.
This morning, Class 16 was late because our students thought they’d still be down in their form room. They had concerns about being up in our classrooms, but I pointed out that they’d been given instructions on Friday about what to do in the event of a quake, and that the damage was slight. Mind you, this was Class 16, so apart from about five kids at the front of the class, the rest may as well not have bothered turning up.
Later. An announcement was made over the PA system at 2.28 this afternoon and we all stood in silence for three minutes as cars sounded their horns and sirens wailed in the background. One of the girls started crying and I could sense the emotional undercurrents in the class, especially afterwards.
Then the class gradually got really noisy in a good way. Perhaps it was some sort of release for them after the serious start to the lesson.[15.08.14. This was all the official remembrance anyone got. A year later, the anniversary passed in silence because the aftermath of the quake, the deaths of so many schoolchildren because of lax building standards, had turned this into another taboo topic.]
This evening. As I passed along the northern side of Tianfu Square late this afternoon, I saw that there were funeral rosettes around the flag pole and the shrubs were festooned with white flowers. There were banners in black and white strung across Renmin Nanlu just north of the intersection with Xin Guanghua Jie and at the southern end of Cheng Gen Nan Jie.
As I was heading home, another convoy of ambulances was heading south through the city centre.
Green Bamboo 