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Chinese Relief Efforts
May 20, 2008

Like Amy Bowllan, I have been torn between blogging about the tragedy of the earthquake in China and marching on with general blog posts. I chose to blog on, but feel called today to mention coping and comprehending or the lack of both.  I cannot grasp the magnitude of the devastation. The videos seem unreal. The images of wounded children worse than any horror movie. 

The number of people impacted in China, from the hurricane in Myanmar, and from the weather/war disasters that occur throughout the world are staggering. I find it so hard to grasp these numbers. Remember, I went from a hometown of 250 people to the city of Taipei which was around 3 million in the mid-80s. The number of people was staggering to me then and barely comprehensible. I used to think the book How Much Is a Million? was written for me in 1985.
I could not grasp the devastation of the Tsunami in 2006. I stood in New Orleans this year and could not comprehend the miles of destruction still evident. How can this happen and how should we respond? CNN has a website Impact Your World which has links to some of the highest rated charities by CharityNavigator.org.

Recovery is not quick. Years later buildings will still be being rebuilt. People have been impacted forever. Yet the news media moves on to the next story, the next disaster, the next local focus.

When 9-11 occurred, many principals got on intercoms and told teachers to turn off the TV's because this didn't directly impact their students and their instruction that day. It felt callous and heartless then and it still does now. Some administrators want us to hide children from tragedies and those impacted. Adults have difficulty coping so sometimes they want to spare children the agony of experiencing devastation and a sense of helplessness.

We need more literature that helps convey a sense of belonging to one world and making an impact. We need more books about volunteering, helping in communities, and reaching out to others even if there doesn't seem to be an immediate test score gain. Sometimes taking action is enough because it is a symbol of your humanity. After a time period of few titles, publishers are looking at social actions again. Do you have titles like The Teen Guide to Global Action: How to Connect with Others (Near & Far) to Create Social Change?

If you want to make donations to help, CALA, the Chinese American Library Association, has a website for you to donate as mentioned on the SLJ home page. They also published an address to send checks:
Maggie Wang
CALA Treasurer
P.O. Box 6341
Alhambra, CA 91802

How do you cope with tragedies and disasters? Do you ignore it? Do you consider how it intersects with your life (much like the Venn diagrams we teach)? Do you empathize with others to the point of becoming debilitated? Do you need action to solve and work on problems? Do you find a book and offer it to everyone as a solution?

I tend to talk to people. We visited our neighborhood Chinese restaurant Saturday where I was able to practice my limited Chinese with the staff. Our major topic was the terribleness of this disaster. It didn't seem so far away as we chatted about the impact and personal stories we'd heard. As they shared information about people they knew who had family in the region, the world seemed to shrink and the large numbers became individual faces of humans who need our help.

Posted by Diane Chen on May 20, 2008 | Comments (0)