Macao is a little city with its 400,000 residents, three times the size of the population for Wenchuan County in southwestern Sichuan province, which was struck by a devastating earthquake On May 12. These days, the carefree and contented local residents, however, have quickend the tempo of their life in the wake of the Wenchuan quake.
On the first day after the quake, the government of the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) decided to allocate 10 million Renminbi yuan as a relief effort for quake victims, and the Macao Foundation also appropriated 10 million yuan to help quake victims. On the first Sunday following the quake, Macao airline transported the first batch of 20 tons of relief materials to Sichuan free of charge. And a charted plane carrying a 20-member medical team of the Macao SAR government arrived at the quake areas in Sichuan on May 23.
Meanwhile, the Sports Development Bureau and Harbor Affairs Bureau of the Macao SAR government cancelled dinner receptions respectively on May 20 and 21.
Macao is now still busy with its donation activities, after its people from various walks of life donated a total of 350 million yuan to the quake-hit areas, with donation boxes placed at public sites everywhere. At the time when they "presented" their kind attention and loving care, they were again astonished to learn strong aftershooks jolted Sichuan and neighboring Shaanxi province.
Macao is truly a place of fortune and happiness. There were neither wars nor major calamities in the past four centuries or so after it was turned into a trading port. And no tourist group was found traveling in Sichuan at the time of the severe Wenchuan quake. The Macao people's saddest memory of quake, nevertheless, was a minor quake measuring 5.5 on the Richter scale that had occurred 15 kilometers off Macao at the beginning of the 20th century.
After its return to the embrace of the Chinese motherland in December 1999, Macao, "with its smooth flows of wind and water," increased its economic output value by close to 500 percent, and it currently ranks the third in term of per-capita GDP in the Asia-Pacific region.
Macao people often put themselves in others' places and win the hearts of others with their sincerity. "Whenever people are in need, they would like to have others to help them, let alone these people are no other than our flesh and blood, and our own brothers and sisters." Some octogenarians have even drawn some money from their pension fees to aid quake victims. They described the Wenchuan quake as a great nightmare or scourge upon hearting or learning it. TV scenes of tragic lives in the quake areas stabbed them to the heart. They could hardly holding back their tears whenever they learned more quake-related sad news from television.
At 14:28 p.m. on May 19, all employees of six gambling houses in Macao observed three minutes of silence for the quake victims and, therefore, these gambling houses suspended temporarily. But the order inside these houses is normal without any mishaps, and quite a few visitors to the house, too, observed silence for the quake victims.
Chief Executive Edmund Ho Hau Wah, other principal officials and bureau-level officials stood in silence at 2:28 p,m. On May 19 for three minutes at the SAR government office. Business tycoon Stanley Ho, who donated 10 million yuan to Sichuan quake victims, also offered his blessing for quake victimized countrymen.
"We are all people from Wenchuan at this moment."-– When Macao top singer Huang Weilin was inspiring students at the Beijing University of Communications on the evening of May 17, some 3,000 agencies or groups in Macao, including the Macao Association of neighborhood communities, the China Chamber of Commerce and the Macao Women's Federation, were busy with their donations activities.
Today's happy, contented and peaceful life is inseparable from the prolonged, loving care of the motherland, and Macao people will never forget its kindness, and this is consensus of local residents voiced on Macao media, the Macao people will forever keep the blessing of the motherland at heart.
What is more moving and heart-stirring, a Macao resident made an anonymous donation of 20 million yuan for Sichuan quake victims and, from such thanksgiving and cherishing happiness, we can feel the heavy, great compassion and fraternity of the people of Macao for their kinsmen.
Macao, though tiny as it is, has great compassion for the Chinese motherland.
By People's Daily Online and its author is Wang Xiaohui, senior editor of deputy editor-in-chief of China news service.
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