05.19.08
Earthquake Donation Effort Getting Wacky
A few days ago I reported on China’s earthquake donation effort. Little did I know then that the donation effort would blow up into a full fledged attention grabbing event. I’ve had CCTV1 on for the past few hours. A program just ended where company after company made very conspicuous donations (putting huge packages of money into boxes). This was interrupted by songs and kind words, but the focus of the program was to broadcast the companies that were giving the most. For the record, Tianjin Rongcheng United Steel donated the most, having pledged RMB 30,000,000. This was already the largest corporate donation made but during this live program on CCTV1, as the Tianjin Steel person was putting all that cash into the box, he spoke up to say “I’m now deciding on the spot to raise this amount to RMB 100,000,000.” The company had originally donated 10,000,000 before raising it, to stay ahead of the Jones’, errr, Wangs’. The person (a director of the company) was an orphan from the Tangshan Earthquake 32 years ago.
I have to say, I have never observed anything like what is happening in China with this donation effort. It is becoming nearly as big a focus as the earthquake. From the program on CCTV1, to the plethora of reports on the internet about which companies are giving, to the blogs lambasting various companies for giving too little, to my own colleagues urging one another to donate more, the emphasis on how much money can be given is taking the front seat. I will continue to observe and examine this, as there is a mentality here that is perhaps uniquely Chinese (I dare say that since that is how a Chinese friend explained it to me - she said the emphasis on money raised is to show the foreigners that Chinese are united and that they can’t bully China anymore). I don’t have a firm stance on what all this emphasis on money means, but I don’t recall ever seeing anything like it during other major disasters anywhere. I know by heart what many companies and countries have donated because the information is repeated everywhere, and I think that’s strange.
Tomorrow I will write about the blogs bashing America for donating only US$500,000.
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rosyfuture said,
May 20, 2008 at 00:29
Hi, there, very much appreciate your views on this sorrow event, which enlightened me.
Let’s just purely wish the dead all the best in paradise.
And I’m much calmer than before and I’ll keep on observing what the contury will do in the days to come.