An abrupt earthquake that jolted Wenchuan county in southwestern Sichuan province on May 12 has put the Chinese nation to the severe test of life and death. Sad, heart-broken news about the quake death toll and grief have echoed around China for days, and 1.3 billion Chinese could not hold back tears, and the nationals of the Chinese origin have also been plunged in a deep grief overseas. The Chinese motherland, which has undergone untold hardships, is not wrecked by difficulties however, and the sons and daughters of the entire nation are filled with a lustrous brilliance intrinsic deep in the hearts of the great nation. Disaster gives rise to great compassion among the people and crisis commends their national spirit.
Some people once lashed out at a negative impact of commodity economy in the present-day China, claiming that people are now living in an "era of fortune and vulgarity". The Chinese people amid crises, nevertheless, have proven with their own blood and lives that the morality and integrity inhered from the 5,000 years of civilization in history are enduring, the benevolence and intuitive with magnanimity have not vanished, those warriors ready to die for a just cause are still around, and the national spirit which serves as the soul of the Chinese nation is immortal.
You may not have personally seen lives under debris race against time, troops of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) plunge themselves into the fight to rescue their fellow countrymen from rubbles, and volunteers join quake victims for their own and mutual rescue endeavors.
Viewers in their hundreds of millions have followed with concern rescue and relief operations aired live on TV as if they themselves would join PLA men in the quake-hit areas to resist to the jaws of death. Countless men and women in the street help quake victims generously and innumerous enterprisers have been busy with fundraising. Overseas Chinese and Chinese expatriates abroad are also excited and clamorous to make donations right after fulfilling the Olympic torch relay they had all along escorted in their regions.
The narrow paths of Sichuan in history have been turned into natural barriers due to landslides during the quake. The 100,000 PLA men and officers have recorded their own moving, heroic deeds and given a qualified, satisfactory answer to the people. A contingent of people from various professions have gone deep into mountains in their prime time to search for survivors, and enable people the world over to know that the people-oriented concept of the Chinese government is by no means an empty slogan.
History will remember that a teacher clutched two kids to protect them during the quake. The kids survived but the teacher did not come to life, and he annotated the honor of "the most sacred career under the sun"; Some PLA men and officers crawled into rubbles to pull out those wounded in the quake from the jaws of death; A beautiful policewoman helps quake relief by breastfeeding. She put down her own baby to leave her breast milk to new lives born in the wake of the quake. President Hu Jintao inspected the hardest-hit areas despite frequent aftershocks. With the raising of his fist as a gesture, he led locals to pledge on ruins that no difficulties could beat the heroic Chinese people.
Linguists tell people that the national spirit is a kind of special spirit or soul for a nation, which can be analogized as the towering Taishan mount, the surging Yellow River, or the hardy but green pines or the Chinese plum flowers which stand unyielding amidst the heavy snows. This is the spirit of people the late Chinese cotemporary writer Lu Xun had depicted as the "spine of a nation" to be mingled with the "bones and blood" of ordinary people. "Everyone is held responsible in the face of disasters." And such simple, pristine affections or feelings also embody the soul of the Chinese nation.
A migrant worker waits for his turn to donate blood, as he said he had nothing to offer but his blood. Thanks to the transmission of these simple, candid words via the websites, people soon
lined up main streets of major cities so local traffic came to a half on some of trunk lines in these cities.
In the first rays of the morning sun, national flags were seen fluttering at half mast in breezes during the three-day national mourning as if they were consoling the quake victims. The strains of China's national anthem, the "March of the Volunteers" were transmitted from the magnicent Tian An Men square in downtown Beijing to chains of mountains ranges across the country and called back the indomitable national spirit with the sounding of sirens.
By People’s Daily Online and its author is Gao Hong, a noted researcher and director of the Politics Studies Office under the Institute of Japan Studies affiliated to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
By People's Daily Online
|
Comment
Tell A Friend
Print Format
Save Article