Mianyang

I know a woman who runs a popular backpacker’s hostel in Chengdu, Sim’s Hostel. After the quake, because of its convenient location, Sim’s Hostel became a meeting and working place for many of the organizations offering relief to the disaster area. Maki invited me to come visit some friends who live in the disaster area, after I had expressed some interest in the earthquake. I was curious to know more, and since I had never experienced an earthquake, she invited me to go with them one Saturday. You can read about the actual earthquake on wikipedia.org. The town we visited was in Mianyang City, about 2.5 hours from Chengdu via minibus. For the most part, the highways were very clear, it was only when we got into the country that the roads became bumpy and unpredictable.

When we arrived, the family we were visiting had prepared us a large lunch. We spent most of the day outside, lighting fireworks with the kids and staying warm near a fire. I was feeling adventurous and did a little hiking on the terraced hills that had been cultivated to grow all sorts of vegetables. The small village probably only had 500-1000 people and was located in a valley, surrounded on both sides by large mountains, that were generally unhabited, except for the first 500 meters was had been turned into farm land. The soil in the valley was wet, and agriculture was very important.

The houses had almost all been rebuilt. Maki and a few others that went with us had helped them enormously with the rebuilding process. They had stayed in the village and worked there for weeks with the local families. The new houseses were very nice and seemed comfortable. Our host’s house had a tv, stereo, a nice leather furniture and glass coffee table, and tiled floors. Most other houses seemed the same. They had constructed a brick factory for making bricks, because of the demand for bricks. Most of the old houses were wooden with slate roofs, all the new houses were brick with tiled walls and floors. The focus of the village was still farming though. Here are some of the pictures. I would like to learn more about the familiy, personally, and would like to go back some time.