May 12th 
7.8R Earthquake at 14:28:04 PM in Sichuan Province. Shaking felt in Beijing area by 14:35 PM.

May 13th
Preliminary statistics came back: more than 12,000 people died in the earthquake, over  26,000 injured, at least 9,400 trapped & 7,800 missing. Two of the worst-hit areas, Wenchuan and Beichuan counties, had been experiencing more aftershocks, sixteen of which were above 5 on the Richter Scale.

May 17th
The 3rd heavy rain since the earthquake. Estimates of death toll had been rising & donations kept going. We stopped talking about who donated how much - numbness to money amount numbers. The blood bank had been full with such intakes. 

Money, Food, Drinking Water, Blood & Warm... whatever it takes, Chinese affords it, even Lives.

Hollywood's most wild imagination in their single-hero movies shall be pale if comparing with what our soldiers could do.
As the earliest rescue mission with dispatch, the soldiers actually jumped from a height of 3-floor, knowing that they had no time to open the parachutes and little luck to expect the crash against water instead of rocks. Probably the public would never hear about  the exact death toll of soldiers in carrying out such rescues. When death is duty, duty'll be done. 

No fuss.

This is a Chinese edition of story, with Chinese heroes, die in Chinese way.

May 18th
According to the evening news report, death toll increases over 30,000.
The money donation domestically has reached RMB 6 billion. 

May 19th
The Chinese National Flag and Regional Flags of Hong Kong SAR and Macau SAR raised at half mast.
A countrywide mourning at 14:28 PM. 



                                                                                                                                                                                            2009年2月

    写下前面这些文字的时候，心情复杂。暴雨给这座城市带来晦暗的天色、沉重的雨滴和冰冷的空气，为感慨者的心情绘声绘色。

    那天这个城市通告：于当日某一时刻向灾区人民示哀。具体形式包括车船和工厂鸣笛，旗子降半，人随便——即在“哀”的主旋律之下可以各出新意、无所不示。

    就象闻到气味可以提前处置剩饭剩菜，大概是基于类似的生活经验，在示哀当日用文字整理心情，收拾干净。

    其后，四下里铺天盖地的馊饭味儿果然来临了。令人一想起自己也炒过这口儿就恶心。

但还是留着这篇日志，理由有二。

今偶遇老米，他的旧话里已经说到了这两个理由。补记，并引言于此：

Kitsch causes two tears to flow in quick succession. The first tear says: How nice to see children running on the grass! The second tear says: How nice to be moved, together with all mankind, by children running on the grass!

It is the second tear that makes kitsch Kitsch.

The brotherhood of man on earth will be possible only on a base of kitsch.

 

"I don't know if China is any different, but our relationship with China is certainly different,"
 
"We're in hock to the Chinese up to our eyeballs because of the war in Iraq, for one thing. They're holding hundreds of billions of dollars worth of our paper. We are also running hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of trade deficits with them, as we continue to import their junk with the lead paint on them and the poisoned pet food and export, you know, jobs to places where you can pay workers a dollar a month to turn out the stuff that we're buying from Wal-Mart.

"So I think our relationship with China has certainly changed, I think they're basically the same bunch of goons and thugs they've been for the last 50 years." 

I would not have a chance to read such wisecrack and get to know this man named Jack Cafferty, were it not for the fuss by the Foreign Ministry of Chinese.
They're holding hundreds of billions of dollars worth of our paper. We are also running hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of trade deficits with them.  This is what I call LANGUAGE. And a demonstration of American wit in language, comparing to their British correspondence, of course.  - Could I live to see such glittering in our Chinese news report / commentary?  

Come on, give his words a good laugh and a "sonofabitch" applause. J.C. definitely is worth of that!  

The National Stadium, also known as “The Bird Nest”
Seating Capacity: 91,000

Usage: 
Built to stage 4 Sports during the XXIX Olympiad. Post-Games use planned for holding sports, cultural and entertaining activities.

Groundbreaking Date: December 2003.

Completion Date: April 2008.

The Colosseum or Coliseum, originally the Flavian Amphitheatre (Latin: Amphitheatrum Flavium, Italian Anfiteatro Flavio or Colosseo).
Seating Capacity: 45,000–50,000 

Usage: 
Function for the traditional gladiatorial games and many other public spectacles, such as mock sea battles, animal hunts, executions, re-enactments of famous battles, and dramas based on Classical mythology. 
Remained in use for nearly 500 years with the last recorded games being held there as late as the 6th century — well after the traditional date of the fall of Rome in 476. 
Today, one of modern Rome's most popular tourist attractions, and the Pope leads a torchlit "Way of the Cross" procession to the amphitheatre each Good Friday.

Groundbreaking Date: Between 70 and 72 AD, under the emperor Vespasian.

Completion Date: in 80 AD under Titus.


Now, what's the similarity of fun between these two? Some simple details could tell:

The Colosseum showed the widom on utilization of structural spaces: using the hypogeum to house animals and slaves (that’s, gladiators), adding gallery as supplement to seating capacity, and even a movable top of canvas for shading the spectators! If you have ever noticed where the athletes warmed up before they entered FOP, or how a broad gallery could be exploited to the stadium,  you would realize that how many nlightenments has modern design taken over from long-died ancestors. –  Well, they cancelled the top of the Bird Nest, that was true, which only made the modern idea even inferior to the ancient’s.

For the  Colosseum, the higher was your social class, the lower level should you seat. That meant a much easier passage walking to your seat and a much better view, e.g.: People on the bottom of social class had to climb up over a hundred steps and seat on the top gallery. Seating Position reverses Social Class, in short. Actually the operation mechanism of today’s whatever events, is branded this very original principium! On that point, the Olympic Games, the largest scale of sports events universally, is just soooo unexceptional.

Boring. I'd stop there. 

BTW: Someone doing well in American educational system should easily pile up tons of dissertations by amplifying on that, on any topic actually. Modern miracles that I could never get.