Unknown heroes to be remembered

Millions of Chinese people stood on queues to donate money, food and clothes after the earthquake devastated much of Sichuan.

Volunteers also rushed into the quake-hit zone, carrying beef from Inner Mongolia, sleeping bags from Shenzhen, tents from Chongqing, and millions of bottles of water and packs of instant noodles

They worked voluntarily to search for survivors under the debris, and give food and water to victims.

The People's Daily said in its editorial that the heroes of the earthquake rescue and relief work should be respected and awarded. But who are the heroes?

Tan Qianqiu, an ordinary middle school teacher in Deyang, was protecting his four students under his arms when the cement ceiling fell on him.

Ma Jian, a teenager at Yinxiu township, rescued his classmate by digging with bare hands.

Meanwhile, those young volunteers wearing T-shirts with "I love China" on them all raced against time to help the victims.

The earthquake is a huge disaster, but it also reflected the growing sense of social responsibility among the ordinary Chinese.

Besides them, the foreigners who help us also should be appreciated.

It is true that we should award our heroes, but the unknown heroes will also get the same respect.

Zhibuzu

on blog.xinhuanet.com

True faces of "karma" clowns

Condemned as "cold-blooded", Sharon Stone has apologized for her "karma" comment on the Sichuan earthquake.

In fact, Stone was not the first one who described the calamity as "karma".

The Apple Daily based in Hong Kong listed the earthquake together with snow disaster, train accident, foot-and-mouth disease this year as "nature's curse", echoed by a well-known Chinese scholar in a metropolitan daily.

However, whoever knows anything of science will brush aside such nonsense as "superstitious". But why did a few celebrities air such absurd views?

In my view, we should start a debate with the clowns who try to spread such rumors. But instead of being over-agitated, we should focus on their purpose behind the rumors.

As biased as Jack Cafferty, those people try to "curse" China's reality by calling the earthquake "karma". Disguised as myths, such rumors really try to cheat some people.

The more people believe that we are revenged by nature, the more they will live on prayers rather than work hard.

This way, the rumors will truly lay obstacles on the road of China's development.

If we are aware of such plots, we can understand better about the troubles in Olympic torch relay and Stone's "karma" comment.

Only after we know the true faces of those clowns can we be sober and calm. It's not necessary for us to be disturbed then. What we need most now is to work hard ourselves.

Dou Hanzhang

on blog.xinhuanet.com

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(China Daily 05/30/2008 page9)