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May 21, 2008
Posted: 1939 GMT
FULING, China – Today marks the third and last day of China's official national mourning. 
The Red Cross booth in Chongqing.
 When official mourning began two days ago, I'd just arrived at a waste water treatment plant in Fuling, a district of Chongqing, across the border from Sichuan province where so many people have been killed by last week's earthquake.I was part of a group of 12 Asian and U.S. journalists visiting the plant as part of a trip to western China to study its development boom. Our hosts at the Chongqing Municipal Three Gorges Water Fuling Drainage Co. had wanted us to be there before 2:28 p.m. in order that we mark the one-week anniversary together with the rest of the nation. Minutes before, we gathered in a line in the parking lot, facing the Yangtze River as it wound westward and more specifically facing in the direction of Sichuan and the devastated area of Wenchuan County, the quake's epicenter. Some of us expected a three-minute silence. But it became clear that the truck and our bus, whose motors had begun running, had a purpose. At 2.28 p.m., the men behind the wheels placed their palms on the horns and pressed for three minutes. As the horns wailed and pierced the air - a collective cry across the nation - we reflected on what must have happened at this moment a week earlier. My own experience of the quake was an insignificant one: Wondering whether the wind was strong enough to cause the giant chandelier to swing back and forth above our heads in a museum lobby in Beijing. A colleague said he believed it was an earthquake. And after we ended our museum visit, he confirmed that there had been one - 100 kilometers from Chengdu. It would be several hours before initial reports of "no knowledge of casualties" gave way to the first report of deaths. In Chongqing on that first night of official national mourning, we saw candles lining a bridge in memory of the earthquake victims. We drove by Chinese flags drooping at half-mast. Near Liberation monument the Red Cross had set up a donation table. As young and old, parents and children came to donate money, volunteers would clap, yell "thank you," and bow their heads. My parents called from the United States: "This is our homeland. We want to give as much as we can." Our family's donation went into one of those Red Cross boxes. In return, I got a yellow heart-shaped sticker that read: "The earthquake has no heart, people have love, we have compassion for Wenchuan, angel of love." At Chongqing's Wal-Mart on Monday night, every bench in front of a single TV was occupied by people watching quake coverage on state-run TV. I don't know whether the benches were always there or whether they had been set up for this occasion. It was like walking into a community living room. During this mourning period, doors have been closed to Internet cafes, where many young people find enjoyment in video games. Channels devoted to entertainment programs have gone to black, with apologies from the government. In neighboring Yunnan, the Prague Cafe and the Naxi Orchestra in Lijiang, where we are now, have been shuttered through Wednesday in honor of the earthquake victims. It is a scene repeated in many, many parts of the country in a collective bow to the dead of the Wenchuan earthquake. Posted by: CNN digital news producer, Elizabeth Yuan |
 
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