By Chen Liang (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-06-10 08:33

But the 38-year-old says he's an exception to the rule. In his mother's neighborhood, he says, four elderly residents broke out the mahjong table within two hours of the 8.0-magnitude quake. Three days later, his mother, a retired official, joined them.

"Since my father died several years ago, mahjong has been her best companion," Gu says. "After the quake, she stayed with my wife and me in my car for two nights. But she just couldn't wait to get back to the mahjong table.

"Of course I wouldn't accuse these people of being calloused towards the devastation. They just need some way to calm their nerves."

However, Gu says, there is a difference in the way they play since the disaster.

"They aren't using the most popular combination of stakes - 5 (0.5 yuan), 1 (10 yuan), 2 (20 yuan) and 4 (40 yuan, which is eponymous with "death" in the local dialect)."

A week after the disaster, Chen Wenzhong and his wife Zhao Shixu, 72, resumed their mahjong regiment of three gatherings a week with friends, a bid to escape the city's oppressively muggy summer weather.

"I was staying at my brother's summer home in Dujiangyan with my brother and sister when the quake struck," Zhao said. "It scared me so much that I'm still sensitive to trembling and get nervous when people bounce their legs while sitting near me.

"But life goes on. After the quake, my oldest son rushed to Dujiangyan in his car and spent hours locating us among the chaos. My younger son called me from Beijing every day, and relatives and friends called one after another.

"For the first time in the past several years, I felt the true importance of family and friends. The disaster's positive impact on our lives, I believe, is to bring us closer."

Some of their neighbors are still missing at a scenic spot in one of the hardest-hit areas, and one of their friends died while holidaymaking in Yinchanggou, a summer resort in the city's Pengzhou county.

They were surprised to learn an elderly center at which they'd hoped to purchase priority use of a standard room, in Chongzhou district, which was hit hard by the quake, has surged in popularity.

"Originally, the owner offered us the priority use for 34,000 yuan ($4,906) without any auxiliary conditions. Now, he says we must stay there at least half a year every year," Chen, 73, says. "That's because many summer resorts targeting the elderly in neighboring counties were destroyed by the quake."

But the center is among few businesses to benefit from the quake. Locals engaged in the tourism business are grappling with a business slump owing to the "psychological shadow" the quake cast over the city.

Local taxi driver Wang Yong says local cabbies' daily incomes have decreased by 100 yuan to 200 yuan since the number of tourists dropped sharply in the wake of the disaster.

   1 2 3   

   1 2 3