What We Lack Are Not Material Goods, But a Kind Heart. (Reflections on the Blizzard)

By Xiao Shu


Before dawn on January 31st, at a friend's invitation, I traveled to the Guangzhou Train Station to look around for a few hours. According to reports there was an extremely anxious crowd there during the day, but the situation had settled down a bit now that the gathering points such as Guangzhou Export Commodities Convention Center had heat turned on; food and medical aid were get on the right track. Although all of this came too late, at least as far as I could see it was nothing like the scene of freezing, starving travelers from the previous day. There had at least been some progress, for this we could be grateful.

But looking down from an overpass in front of the station I still could not avoid being apprehensive. You could not see where the black mass of people ended, there was the occasional intermittent screaming pointing out to those of us onlookers that this was a not an okay spot to linger. It is hard to say in which instant, because when the limit of endurance is reached and one person's hysteria can bring the whole crowd to hysterics, at that time, what use are these ever so solid iron railings in the face of a sudden outbreak of an irrational mob of hundreds of thousands of people?

It is as if the arrow is ready on the bow and the string is taut, ready to release, there is no turning back, fortunately, up to now the situation has been threatening, but not dangerous. In the area where food was being distributed I approached a migrant worker who was taking his child to get some crackers and asked him about his situation, he mistook me for a government employee; a smile filled his simple yet honest face: "It is no problem for us to wait a few extra days. The government has arranged things very well, our thanks to the government." At that moment I could not help but sigh with emotion, how strong my fellow countrymen are, what an enormous ability to endure suffering. Yet, the more ability of enduring of these countrymen, the greater is suffering they are enduring. It is evident that they are absorbing more and more the loss of these suffering, paying the price of their live. They have pretty much no request of the those providing this public service, provide just a little warmth and they are already immeasurably grateful. Thus the cost of providing such a service is suppressed, the socially controlled cost is kept low.

This once again confirmed a prior judgment: our people really are great. With this sort of people, what is there not to trust, what reason is there not to place your confidence in them? The police forces standing at the periphery of the train station ought to be extremely strong, the line of defense layer upon layer, as if to confront a deadly enemy. But in my opinion, this is unavoidably exaggerated, no one denies the need for the police to be prepared, but what is the need for overspend such an enormous amount in defense? Why not use the police to direct and organize travelers to fend for themselves, to guide and organize volunteers to help others? These are what should be seen as a top priority task.

The main thing I noticed while I was on site was the lack of organization. While I was on the main floor of the Guangzhou Export Commodities Convention Center I was surrounded by a bunch of young workers from Dongwan who anxiously told me of their helplessness. They were asked to come here to the Convention Center to wait for their transportation, but after they were here no one paid them any heed or was in charge of the situation. You could ask the police, but they knew nothing; the responsibility of the police was to maintain order, to make sure no great disturbance erupted. As for anything else, such as how to obtain related information, how to make announcements, how travelers would be identified, how to organize, how to help out, well, the police officers never went through that sort of training. On site the police were without any official authority, so even the police
themselves were unable to give definitive information. The entire handling of this crisis was not at a professional level, how could they have resources and the capacity to organize and direct all of these
travelers?

The police were this, not to mention everyone else. Disorder and ignorance became the basic characteristics of this great crowd as each tried to head back to home villages. It looked like a huge community, but actually each person was just an isolated island. Each had to
depend on himself, trust in his luck. If, with just your own abilities, you could get past the layer upon layer of blockade and enter the train station, there would be hope of making it home. But if you could not make it into the train station and just waited passively at the temporary gathering points, then no one would pay you any heed and you pretty much had no hope. This great crowd of people became like a primitive jungle, everyone had to depend on their own courage and strength makes it.

Disorder and ignorance were not only the basic characteristics of the crowd heading home. The related government departments ought to be the best organized, but you couldn't tell how much organization was going on. Within the structure of the entire command system there was quite a bit of confusion. It was obvious that every day hundreds of thousands of people rushed to get to the train station, and yet by no means did the station have the capacity to provide transportation these people. This sort of situation is without doubt a most dangerous situation, one that should be avoided at all costs. Some friends discussed this and they all felt that the travelers should be divided up by the direction they are heading and the time of their departure and sent off to large public facilities to wait for their transportations. Then let the passengers board the train in an organized fashion according to the actual schedule of departure. Using many of Guangzhou's sports arena's and convention facilities, as well as universities and high schools, which were all on vacation, it should not be impossible to divide up the people and settle them temporarily as they waited for their trains. But it seems that from the beginning the parties responsible never thought of this idea, so it seemed that all the travelers, unaware of the state of things all rushed to the train station, only to discover they could not enter, and only after ran out of choice, to head to the gathering points upon hearing the broadcast announcement. Those who held on to any shred of hope that they could make it all remained in the vicinity of the train station, prepared to charge at any moment. As for those who left the train station and went to the gathering points, after being unable to obtain any useful information or get in contact with the organizers, they often lost patience and then leaving things to luck they would head back to the vicinity of the train station. This caused the high tension and crisis situation at the public area near the train station to continue without being resolved.

Disorder and ignorance were also evident among different government departments, as they each went about things their own way, failing to coordinate. Because actual transportation capacity was limited the local government spent enormous energy and resources to prevent all those who could not depart from Guangzhou on a train to get them to settle down where they were (in the vicinity of their workplace) and ring in the New Year right there. But the Ministry of Transportation did not comprehend their efforts on this front. The Ministry of Transportation was likely trying to follow the pledge it had already made to get the transportation system and transport capacity back online within a limited amount of time. Thus, in a cheery tone they would report good news, everyday telling about how the transportation situation had improved so much, and good news about how the capacity to transport more people was also growing. This gave all those who had already lost hope of going home for the holiday a false renewed hope, leading all of them to make their way to Guangzhou and leading them to the vicinity of the train station. That night I encountered a number of passengers at the Guangzhou Export Commodities Convention Center who had all rushed to Guangzhou full of enthusiasm after hearing the Ministry of Transportation's report of the good news. The Ministry of Transportation was actually more of a hindrance than help, yet the local government could do nothing to prevent it.

Disorder and ignorance was also evident in the relationship between the government and the city dwellers. It should be said that the resources of public welfare stored up within the community are considerable. The day before yesterday I went to the office for work, when I got off the bus I discovered that at there was a young man from the commentary department of Southern Urban News carrying a very heavy sack walking in front of me. I thought that he was carrying his luggage to take home, only after asking him did I find out that the sack was full of daily use items to give to those waiting for trains. Among the Chinese people there is no lack of people so giving as this man. But their warmth and enthusiasm only rarely plays an actual functional role. On site, I saw that many material gifts had been given, in a number of places they were stacked to the ceiling. But they were all wrapped up in bags and had not been opened, and right on the side of all of these unopened gifts, there were many women and elderly sleeping on the ground with just thin bed sheets for covers. The material donations of such giving people were so rarely distributed into the hands of those who needed them. What is the reason? Those responsible for distributing the donated goods are often government workers, and they often have no interest in taking the initiative. They take helping people in a crisis and consider it as only a duty of their job, if they can get away with not troubling themselves, then they won't bother to take the trouble. So they often become watch guards of the donated goods rather than distributors. Online many volunteers posted comments complaining that
when they wanted to distribute some of the donated goods to the travelers they were refused and even berated. It is obvious that a government run humanitarian effort is the most wasteful and the least efficient, if one could fully harness the resources within the community, the situation would have a completely different outlook. But the spontaneous forces of the people, even at a time of crisis, are isolated because of colored glasses and layers and layers of misinterpretation, the money and goods donated can not actually get involved in any large scale fashion. The entire aid effort is basically a government operated one-man show.

Actually, this blizzard that halt Spring Festival traffic, is really a social dysfunction, but anything else. Thus, even though from beginning to end there was no obvious improvement in the situation, but from beginning to end no riots or chaos erupted, society was basically stable. One should allow all of society to fully participate in incidents that have such social ramifications. What you need most is to
intervene for the sanity of those going through the crisis. At this point, either no problems emerge, or if problems do emerge, it is definitely of a psychological nature. On site, the greatest crisis is of those having a mental breakdown from the high-tension atmosphere. This means that on site what is needed most is not a team of police officers closely guarding the facility, but rather a team of social
workers who are good at treating psychological problems. A team of such social workers, if NGOs were ordinarily allowed to develop naturally and freely, then it would not be difficult for them to step right up in a time of crisis. Social workers could come ready to help, and would be far more useful than the know-nothing police who are decked out in full gear, and the cost to society would also be lower. But up until now, a strong contrast to the endless police troops on site, is that there is no single appearance of the social workers. The cutoff between government forces and community forces in ordinary times led to a cutoff at the critical moment, which meant that at the key moment they were unable to join forces.

So what problem do these describe? Actually, this problem is pretty simple, it is a problem of the software in our society. Because of continued economic growth it is not as if we lack the proper hardware, on the matter of hardware we can even compete with some advanced countries. But if we follow other countries in only the development of this infrastructure hardware, what is the use? For example, take this Spring Festival's rescue effort for stranded travelers, there was certainly no lack of donated goods: food, cloths and blankets. The people donated more than enough goods, and the government had plenty of funding, you could say that financial resources poured in continuously. But how to take these donations and distribute them to the people, how, when these travelers are in the greatest need, to distribute these goods into their hands, and how to alleviate, to the greatest extent
possible, the suffering of these travelers caught in the storm, especially psychological suffering. Through this you also ease the pressure on society, yet this is not something that well-developed infrastructure hardware can resolve, this mainly relies on the software, on people's enthusiasm and kindness; and the organization of the community and the organization of the government. It is exactly these aspects that we often pay little attention to and coincidentally are wasted most. Thus when that critical moment comes, we are at a loss, we are overwhelmed with problems. This is actually the most fatal crisis of our society. Because of this most critical crisis in society other crises are not restrained in a timely manner and resolved, so they end up maximized the problem. When I saw Premier Wen Jiabao on TV after he rushed to the train station, seeing his recognition of the
severity of the situation, as well as the other provincial leaders of Guangdong, I became emotional at his obvious exhaustion from overwork and I sighed that things could be in such a state! How could it be like this! If one does not live life such that in general you only see stuff and not people, if one regularly uses a little effort on these software matters, especially matters of the heart, how could it be so fragile that something like a snowfall could reach the point of upsetting the entire country?

Without a doubt, our government has always been formidable, but a government should not only be strong and powerful, it is even more important that it be effective. Whether or not a government is
effective, the key indicator is its ability to administer and govern the public, especially its ability in handling public crises. If one can have a soft heart, and sympathy for the suffering of one's fellow man, and if you can treat the community-based forces of the people with a broad mind and with warmth, and you can allow them to freely grow to the greatest extent possible and to participate in administering to the public, this sort of amiable government, this sort of human government can definitely solidify the entire society, it can definitely be a powerful government, and it can definitely be an effective government, one that in the end can govern with benevolence. With this sort of government it is not difficult to have a vibrant society of community- based organizations, the software problem of our society would then not be so difficult to actually solve.

This of course is a big task over a long period of time, but it is also something we should do without a moments delay, it requires us to start over from the beginning, to start from just one little drop. First,
lets start by improving the mechanism of providing assistance during this blizzard.


(The author authorizes Tian Yi to publish, when republished elsewhere please notes the source: www.tecn.cn. The Wei Jingsheng Foundation is responsible for the English translation of this essay.)