Losing virginity at 60

China has discovered what in Europe has been known for decades: the power of media. China is going through the phase all Europeans have gone through once at least: a global grieving for a mass emotional event. The earthquake in Sichuan has shown how powerful the media can be and how influenced people are by the images breaking in the households, shopping malls and office, 24 hours a day. The heartbreaking pictures of mothers crying the loss of their children or the images of the kids taken out of the rubble still alive, are on everybody's minds. China is not the same anymore: China lost its virginity and like us, Europeans, going from virgin to slut it doesn't take much and, inevitably, this will built the same cynicism we have developed in the Western world. When I was a child there was a live event, the first of a series of televised tragedies, about of a little child, Alfredino, that fell in a well and took days to die without anybody managing to get him out of there. Days and nights of misery for millions of Italians, the pain becoming show, people not going to work to stay in front of TV, jesters, midgets, acrobats, inventors, engineers: everybody wanted to be there whether to help or to watch this sad and sadistic show being broadcast from Vermicino, Rome, all over Italy. Alfredino Ciampi, this blond little angel, was only the first of these private pain become public. Think of another event, a short quake that killed students in a school in the small region of Molise: solidarity produced millions of euro that would have been enough to rebuild a full village a few times rather than a school. And there are still investigations about the funds that have disappeared... How about the stories coming from America, about 9/11?
The woman that for solidarity slept with dozens of fire fighters. Or the solidarity marathons that every year take place on TV screens in many countries and produces billions of euros for the research, just because all sad cases are broadcast.

China has joined the rest of the world. I know people that are now planning to adopt a child. People that never thought about having a child, perhaps. A bit like nobody would have take a puppy but seen an abandoned one on TV they are wiling to get one. Or the other person I know that has decided to look for an extra job to send money to Sichuan. These are only cases I know but I am sure that there are many extreme cases showing how hard this tragedy has hit China. The country of the million flags, these days has been the country of the Half Mast flags. China is shown the human face to the world and while the Burma event had no impact on Chinese people, the death of people living in the same country has produced an effect that nobody will ever forget. Most Chinese are dressing in black these days and the 3 minute stoppage for remembrance was the first time in the history of this country. I bet it would not be last because this tragedy has had, accompanied by all the world polemics for the Tibet, the power of unify China and make their identity even stronger.

The TV's send images 24 hours a day and talk about single cases and hails the workers and the government leaders via some films that could well be considered propaganda if there wasn't the good intention of showing the the world that Chinese love their children too.

Sad to say that the earthquake can work as a mitigation towards China's authorities stance about Tibet at the eyes of the world. And it's ironic that Sichuan is one of those regions fighting for independence, exactly like Tibet, but i have never heard any westerner taking on the parts of Sichuan people or even the Uighur population for independence, Tibet is more fashionable. After this tragedy China will be seen with milder eyes and Chinese authorities will have shown the human face of this country and shown, for the first time, an event without hiding it behind top secret files.

If we were in Italy, we would be talking already about whose fault all this devastation was, who will have to pay, why this ever happened and, inevitably, our politicians would be blaming each other in the oldest and most coward of the Italian games. In China despite dams that are cracking, lakes that are going to burst the artificial banks and new buildings collapsed like origami paper, everybody is concentrating on the rescue effort and it is not known whether some heads will fall or everything will be kept quiet.

Beijing 2008 will not be the same after all tragedies occurring this year. China will not be brought to its knees because the damages, around 9.5 billion dollars so far, can be well absorbed by the economy but the Chinese soul will be scarred forever. China will not be the same and all tragedies that will come will be broadcast until a sense of nausea will get the people and nobody will take care anymore of future tsunamis earthquakes or terrorists attacks. Because the step from virginity to becoming a slut is very very close and the skin hardens when one gets hit constantly.

Welcome to the Western World, Me Old China!

A note: to someone's eyes this blog might seem as irreverent or perhaps worse. This is not its spirit. This blog is just a fair analysis of what is going on in the mind of those who have been strongly shocked by the images being broadcast and what will happen if other tragedies will strike again. So, not a criticism towards China but just some considerations about how media can take a tragedy and transform it into an event.