China wails of grief a year after the earthquake
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http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/05/12/1929156.aspx
It came without warning. Its unexpectedness as stunning as the raw emotion it so clearly expressed.We were wrapping up our interview with Huang Lianhe, a father who lost his only child, 18-year-old Dengfeng, in last year's deadly quake that killed more than 69,000 others in Sichuan, Gansu, and Shaanxi.
He was showing us photos of his son as his own elderly parents circled quietly in the background.
The grandmother, a diminutive but sturdy woman, approached with a friendly expression. She placed her hand on my wrist, her palm soft despite decades of hard farm work, and began to murmur something.
I leaned in expectantly but quickly leapt back when a sad, long wail erupted.
"My grandson didn't die in a natural disaster! He died from the collapsed school – it was bad construction!" cried the 68-year-old Wang Zhenxiu.
Her grief was so overpowering because just moments before she had been smiling and full of equanimity.
"He was about to sit for the university entrance exam," said her husband, 73-year-old Huang Biyuan, tears also welling in his eyes.
Like many others living in a country with a strict birth control policy, the family was grieving the loss of its sole heir. All the family’s hopes and dreams were invested in young Dengfeng, who would have been expected to care for his parents in their old age. He also was expected to be the first one in the family to go to university.
"He died from bad construction!" shouted Wang again, to no one in particular, yet at the same time at everyone.
The student’s father, Lianhe, stood to the side, mute, his eyes lowered to the ground.
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