On the afternoon of May 12,
2008, a 7.9-magnitude earthquake struck Sichuan Province, a mountainous region
in Western China, killing about 70,000 people. It is the worst natural disaster
in three decades in China, which topped thousands of buildings, trapped students
in schools, and killed about 70,000 people, left over 18,000 missing. News
about the earthquake happened in China flooded into the Internet overnight all
over the world. With time went on, more media got involved in the issue and
wanted to release the latest information about Sichuan and the earthquake to
attract their readers. Although all the reports are related to the serious tragedy,
their contents may be completely different for the reason that journalist would
focus on different perspectives and purposes in the same issue. By following the
whole story through news reports in different media, I find out that the
reports showed people’s diverse understandings about this earthquake, different
focuses in the rescue and opposite attitudes toward the Chinese government.
First, as the purpose of different reports related
to the earthquake varies a lot as time went on, people had diverse understandings
about this earthquake in their minds. In the beginning, every media tried to report
the story and provided readers some basic information about the earthquake as
soon as possible to get people involved in the tragedy. On May 13th, the Now York
Times published an article named “Powerful Quake Ravages China, Killing
Thousands” written by Jake Hooker and Jim Yardley after the earthquake happened. In this article, an interviewee Ms. Tang described how she and her
husband escape from a stairwell, and she also wept when describing how a school
for handicapped and deaf students collapsed while the children were in the
class (Jake Hooker and Jim Yardley). Besides, some horrific images also
attached in the article forced the Chinese people to confront the tragedy. For
example, in a picture, a child layered like fossil in the ruin of schoolhouse
only leaving his head on the ground. The two authors wanted to reveal how
serious the earthquake is to readers. I am sure that People’s first reaction of
knowing this tragedy is sadness, and they could not hold their tears on the unbearable
pity for the suffering of their friends in the earthquake, because none of them
have ever gone through this kind of suffering in their life before. At that
time, the story could convey nothing to the public but scariness and
sadness.
As things went on, many
articles were reported online showing people more information and different
perspectives. And referring to reports published later on, Chinese began to
find out that the earthquake gives people more than just scariness and sadness.
By thinking in different aspects, People changed their understandings of the
earthquake.
An essay titled “China: Roused
by Disaster” was published in Times Magazine on May 20, 2008. In this essay, Simon
Elegant exposed volunteer deeds in the rescue. Two men, Wu Guanglei and Wu
Xiangping, reached the core of the devastation by train, car and, finally, on
foot to help victims in the earthquake. They said that Chinese people are
growing closer and closer together. And because of that, the country's morality
is rising too. (Simon Elegan). They felt happy that they could reach Sichuan,
and made contributions to their motherland. The earthquake helped Chinese
realize that they were enjoying a kind of "luxury" happiness every
day. Seeing the disaster area, the huge contrast makes people to thinking about
the meaning of satisfaction, and they got to know that they should be thankful
for what they have earned in the life now. In addition, people also understand
the importance of unity in that tragedy. China has a sentence “Millions of
hearts combine with one mind” in its national anthem. However, Chinese could rarely
feel the force of unity, because they have been living in a peaceful and stable
environment for decades. But the earthquake changed everything. Motivated by
the tragedy, Chinese got together to illustrate the word “Unity” through theirs
deeds. In spite of identity and job, millions of Chinese went to hospitals to
donate their blood until the cities’ blood banks were filled. And a student told
a reporter from the CNN: "as a Chinese, we must unite, China can do
it!" in Tiananmen Square. Like forwarding a story, authors began to shift
the focus of readers away from the old perspective and toward to their new
projects (Harris 38). In the following reports, Writers changed their opinions,
perspectives and examples, since they have different purposes. They thought
that people should not always pay attention to the ruins and people’s bodies in
this event all the time. There are also many touching stories happened every
day in the rescue.
Second, some articles were rewritten
differently because the authors focused on different aspects in the rescue. Experts
in different areas concerned about rescue in different ways, and their articles
about the solution had different focus. Unlike other reports, an article named “Chinese
Soldiers Rush to Bolster Weakened Dams” in the New York Times showed readers different
details in the rescue instead of helping victims directly. In the report, Edward
Wong and John Schwartz focused more on geology issues in the disaster region by
exposing some experts’ warning about the dams built around the well-recognized
Longmen Shan fault. The dams might have sustained damage, because the
earthquake could cause them to fail even weeks later. What’s worse, there is a
dam just three miles upriver from the devastated town of Dujiangyan, northwest
of the provincial capital of Chengdu shown some cracks and was under a
dangerous situation at that time. To reduce the menacing pressure of water
behind the dam walls, two thousand soldiers were sent to the neatest dam
immediately (Wong and Schwartz). People could not fight against the earthquake
successfully if they only value how to dig victims for the ruins immediately.
They also need to consider
Third, reports about Chinese government evaluation were
rewritten differently by media showing their different attitude toward
the Chinese authority.
In Andrew Jacobs’
article “Rescue in China, Uncensored”, he spoke highly of the Chinese
governments’ deeds in the earthquake by exposing the public’s feedbacks to
readers. He declares that so far, commentary on Chinese websites and in chat
rooms has been full of praise for the government’s emergency response (Jacobs).
He also reveals that unlike seeking to cover up in the SARS epidemic period in
2003, the government is more willing to be open to the public now. The official no longer concerned more about how to promote a false
image of stability than with the commonweal; they tried best to have immediately reactions to deal with the event
and save as many victims as they could in 2008. Moreover, Authors also wanted to prove that the cause of earthquake was
not related to the authority. In Jack Hassard’s report “Impact and Cause
of China’s Sichuan Earthquake”, he said that the quake was caused by movement
along a thrust fault located on Longmenshan Fault (yellow line). And the
deformation of the rocks in this region was caused by the collision between the
Indian and Eurasian tectonic (crustal) plates and the continued movement of the
plates relative to each other (Hassard). And based on Hassard’s statement, it
is ordinary for Sichuan to have earthquake more frequently than other regions,
because it is located in an active tectonic area, and there is not such a technology in the world can accurately predict
earthquake. So people may claim that it is not government’s fault.
However, after reading this
report, some writers
questioned that since the Chinese government has already know the specific
situation of Sichuan Province, why don’t they took measures
to minimum the lose by constructing some stronger buildings just
as Japan did. They find the weak part
of others’ argument, and come up with some rewritten report demonstrate
different statements. BBC
published an article called“China
anger over 'shoddy schools'”. The
article paid attention to another perspective, and rewritten the story by representing
the facts instead of the public’s opinions and experts’ analysis. The
journalist emphasis the situation that a school in the disaster
area collapsed, but other nearby buildings
withstood the earthquake. It also
mentioned that one Chinese told the AFP news agency that schools collapsed because they
were shoddily built. Someone wanted to save money and took advantage on it (BBC). In the essay “Two Weeks On…” published on May 26, 2008, Simon Elegant pointed out that the
single most explosive issue is that of the large number of schools that
collapsed, the so called tofu dregs buildings (ie, soft as tofu). It is a very delicate issue for the
Communist Party to punish some of those local officials being blamed for the
poor construction of schools because of corruption/incompetence (Elegant). Actually, there is no definitely right or
wrong in this case. Just as Harris’ opinion countering,
about how to write arguments. The
aim of academic writing should not be simple to prove how smart you are but to
add to what can be said above a subject (Harris 56). The BBC and Elegant did
not simply oppose others’ argument and
deny the government’s contribution in the rescue part after earthquake,
but care more about somewhere that others have
not mention before, and
supplement it with some extend ideas.
The story became much more complete and reliable
after add some new materials, opinion and resources.
After following the story for a
long period, I do realize that as for the same story, once it develops or
authors have different focus and purposes, the rewritten articles would become completely
different compared with the initial ones. In Sichuan earthquake in 2008,
millions of people were involved in it, and countless articles in different
languages were published online every day to influence and combine people’s
opinions all over the world. The materials that I represent in this essay are
only from several most famous media in the world. And because of language issue,
I am unable to display information in Chinese to discuss about it. However, I
believe that these articles from New York Times, BBC and Time Magazine have already
clearly demonstrated the Harris’ opinions about the rewriting. With things
going on, people show diverse understandings about this earthquake, different
focuses in the rescue and opposite attitudes toward the Chinese government.
People do forwarding in the story by illustrating the basic information,
borrowing ideas from other reports and then extending it to form their new
understandings about the earthquake. As for countering, they argued the Chinese
government issue in another side, and found some information about the building
quality problems that the previous argument articles had not uncovered yet to
do rewriting. All in all, I was deeply impressed by the earthquake in 2008, and
pay attention to the whole story at that time.
Works Cited
Andrew Jacobs. "A Rescue in China, Uncensored: News Analysis." New York Times. A.1.2008. Print. Web. May 14, 2008.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/14/world/asia/14response.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0>
China anger over 'shoddy schools'. BBC. Web. May 15, 2008.
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7400524.stm>
Edward Wong and John Schwartz. "Chinese Soldiers Rush to Bolster Weakened Dams:Foreign Desk." New York Times: A.1. 2008. Print. Web. May 15, 2008.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/15/world/asia/15china.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0>
Harris, Joseph. Rewriting: How to do Things with Texts. Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 2006. Print.
Jack Hassard. “Impact and Cause of China’s Sichuan Earthquake” The Art of Teaching Science: Progressive science Education: Geology. Web. May 19, 2008.
<http://www.artofteachingscience.org/2008/05/19/impact-and-cause-of-chinas-sichuan-earthquake/>
Jake Hooker and Jim Yardley. "Powerful Quake Ravages China, Killing Thousands: Foreign Desk." New York Times: A.1. 2008. Print. Web. May 14, 2008.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/14/world/asia/14response.html?pagewanted=all>
Simon Elegant. "Roused by Disaster." Time 171.22 (2008): 26. Web. 22 May 2008.
<http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1808638-2,00.html>
Simon Elegant. “Two Weeks On…” Time World. Web. May 26, 2008.
<http://world.time.com/2008/05/26/two_weeks_on/>
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