Honoring the Fallen

Somehow, I hadn't heard the news about the 3 minutes of silence honoring the victims of the Sichuan earthquake.  So I was a little surprised, when, at 2:28 P.M. here in Dongguan all the horns and sirens started.  We were at the China Telcom office paying our phone bill, everyone stood, the security guard snapped to a salute, all, including myself bowed our heads and said prayers I suspect each in our own ways. 

There's a lot of discussion going on about China's response to the quake, and I suspect the west was a bit surprised at the completeness and overwhelming competency displayed.  I know a lot of us "twitterati" and armchair China observers and bloggers were very impressed, if not somewhat surprised ourselves.

The next three days will see a period of mourning, something unusual for China, made even more remarkable by the fact that flags will be flying at half-staff to honor the fallen civilian population. This is the first time in the history of China that flags have been flown at half staff for any reason other than a leader's death. A great  blog post by Paul Denlinger goes into more detail about this, as well as reaction to the western media and U.S. based Twitter discussion.  It really points out a lot of misconceptions that stateside-based people have about China.

Also, there will be a 3 day entertainment blackout, all non-news television, gaming websites, and many entertainment venues are to shut down.  Imagethief has an interesting article about the shutdown, as well as some other reactions to some of the Twitter posts of folks such as Robert Scoble and company. Elliot Ng definitely does a bit of a number on Mr. Scoble

As always, our friends at Shanghiist have all the news regarding the 3 days of mourning, as well as some heart wrenching tales of motherly love.

So, keep the victims in your prayers, there will be a long rebuilding road ahead.