The quake menaces the ancient Qiang culture!

The quake menaces the ancient Qiang culture!
Jun 7, 2008 04:08
KEVIN0518 Points: Join Date: Mar 13, 2007 Status: offline	Quake threatens ancient Qiang culture (Excerpt) BEICHUAN, China - Deng Rufu sits on a rock watching the exodus of his people from their ravaged homeland. A young Qiang man with a sweating brow carries his 82-year-old grandmother on a wooden contraption strapped to his back. Another elderly woman climbs painfully with a hand-carved walking stick. A little girl in pink sneakers lags behind the rest. "At this point, we don't know how many we've lost," Deng said as he tapped on one of the few items he had salvaged, a traditional sheepskin drum. "We need to protect our culture. There are very few Qiang people left." One of the many indiscriminate acts of the recent massive earthquake was the destruction of the ancestral homeland of the Qiang, one of the more mysterious of China's minorities. Described variously as descendants of a legendary 21st-century B.C. Chinese emperor or a lost tribe of Israelites, the Qiang number only about 300,000. As their singular misfortune would have it, almost all lived within 100 miles of the earthquake's epicenter, mainly in Sichuan province's hardest-hit counties. Qiang people fleeing through the mountains last week said they walked for 12 hours from a village in Beichuan County called Dengbao, where two elderly people refused to leave. "Houses, roads, our pigs, everything, absolutely everything, was destroyed," said farmer Deng Kaijian, 33, as he hiked up the steep grade out of Beichuan with the others. Some were seeing the outside world for the first time. "We've never been out of our village before," said Deng Jiachang, 68, who sat Tuesday beside his 65-year-old wife, Wu Guangfen, in a Mianyang aid camp, clutching coupons for instant noodles as though they were gold. "I don't know what we'll do next," added Deng, dressed in a blue jacket and traditional brown hat somewhat reminiscent of an oversized beret. Ethnic maps of China show Qiang villages scattered roughly along the fault line of the magnitude 7.9 earthquake. Beichuan, a county where 80 percent of the buildings were destroyed, was home to as many as 90,000 Qiang. Wenchuan County, the epicenter, was home to an additional 30,000. A few minutes away is Taoping, a 2,000-year-old Qiang village of 3,000 people renowned for its ancient stone towers and block houses. The village reportedly sustained heavy damage. Nobody will hazard a guess at this stage how many of the 40,000 confirmed earthquake victims were Qiang. Many of their mountain villages are so remote that more than a week later, rescue workers have yet to reach them.

Jun 7, 2008 04:08

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Quake threatens ancient Qiang culture (Excerpt)

BEICHUAN, China - Deng Rufu sits on a rock watching the exodus of his people from their ravaged homeland.

A young Qiang man with a sweating brow carries his 82-year-old grandmother on a wooden contraption strapped to his back. Another elderly woman climbs painfully with a hand-carved walking stick. A little girl in pink sneakers lags behind the rest.

"At this point, we don't know how many we've lost," Deng said as he tapped on one of the few items he had salvaged, a traditional sheepskin drum. "We need to protect our culture. There are very few Qiang people left."

One of the many indiscriminate acts of the recent massive earthquake was the destruction of the ancestral homeland of the Qiang, one of the more mysterious of China's minorities. Described variously as descendants of a legendary 21st-century B.C. Chinese emperor or a lost tribe of Israelites, the Qiang number only about 300,000. As their singular misfortune would have it, almost all lived within 100 miles of the earthquake's epicenter, mainly in Sichuan province's hardest-hit counties.

Qiang people fleeing through the mountains last week said they walked for 12 hours from a village in Beichuan County called Dengbao, where two elderly people refused to leave.

"Houses, roads, our pigs, everything, absolutely everything, was destroyed," said farmer Deng Kaijian, 33, as he hiked up the steep grade out of Beichuan with the others.

Some were seeing the outside world for the first time.

"We've never been out of our village before," said Deng Jiachang, 68, who sat Tuesday beside his 65-year-old wife, Wu Guangfen, in a Mianyang aid camp, clutching coupons for instant noodles as though they were gold.

"I don't know what we'll do next," added Deng, dressed in a blue jacket and traditional brown hat somewhat reminiscent of an oversized beret.

Ethnic maps of China show Qiang villages scattered roughly along the fault line of the magnitude 7.9 earthquake. Beichuan, a county where 80 percent of the buildings were destroyed, was home to as many as 90,000 Qiang. Wenchuan County, the epicenter, was home to an additional 30,000. A few minutes away is Taoping, a 2,000-year-old Qiang village of 3,000 people renowned for its ancient stone towers and block houses. The village reportedly sustained heavy damage.

Nobody will hazard a guess at this stage how many of the 40,000 confirmed earthquake victims were Qiang. Many of their mountain villages are so remote that more than a week later, rescue workers have yet to reach them.

Jun 7, 2008 04:08

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As well, younger Qiang who worked or studied in larger towns wear Western clothing, like the majority Han Chinese, making it impossible for rescuers to easily distinguish Qiang victims from others. But there is no doubt that the Qiang received a disproportionate blow.

"It is the Qiang who were most severely hit," said Huang Chenglong, a 40-year-old scholar and a Qiang from Mao County. The situation appears bleak, but there is at least some reason for hope. The Qiang's traditional houses are sturdy buildings made of stone. The Qiang survived another killer earthquake in 1933 in Mao, about 50 miles away. Whatever else is in their tradition, they have long experience dealing with a zidum - the Qiang word for earthquake.

On Sunday, Huang helped organize a gathering in Beijing of Qiang scholars and students to discuss how to help.

"The atmosphere was quite sad," Huang said. "There were five or six students who hadn't been able to get any word from their parents."

Colleagues in Beichuan setting up a Qiang research center were killed when a county government building collapsed, he said.

"The earthquake not only reduces the population," Huang said. "It will also have a destructive effect on the culture. During the rebuilding period, many people will move from their mountain communities to the big cities. This will present enormous difficulties for protecting their cultural identity." (Mark Magnier and Barbara Demick, baltimoresun.com)

The collapsed house caused by the earthquake.

Jun 7, 2008 04:09	#2
KEVIN0518 Points: Join Date: Mar 13, 2007 Status: Offline	An old lady stood in front of her collapsed house.

Jun 7, 2008 04:13	#3
KEVIN0518 Points: Join Date: Mar 13, 2007 Status: Offline	No.3 The traditional house of tQiang people.

Jun 7, 2008 04:14	#4
KEVIN0518 Points: Join Date: Mar 13, 2007 Status: Offline	No.4 The ancient castle.

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