Men and Women of the hour

The Chinese blogosphere is buzzing with one name Tan Qian Qiu 谭千秋.

On May 13, Tan's body was found sprawled over a desk in a classroom he taught in at a local secondary school. He had used his body to block the impact from four students who had amazingly survived.

His wife stood over his body, cleaning the dust that had settled over her husband's face. “ I heard on the news yesterday that a teacher had saved four students. How was I to know it was you?”

She held his arm and noted how rigor mortis had hardened it. “ It was still soft yesterday. (the day the quake struck)”

The Chinese have a saying, “ Teacher for a day, a father for life.” Teachers may be poorly paid, but in traditional Chinese culture, they have always retained a position of respect. Tan's story is just one of the stories that demonstrate why.

29-year-old teacher Zhang Mi Ya 张米亚 was found half squatting, with his arms spread open over two primary school children. They survived, he didn't. Rescuers wept as they saw off his hardened arms to release the children.

Secondary school teacher 吴忠洪 would have been alive if he had not rushed back into the rubble to save his trapped students.

Three-year-old Song Xinyi, 宋欣宜, was rescued after being trapped for forty hours. She was found underneath her parents who had linked their arms at the elbows to form a pyramid-like shelter over her. They did not make it. Xinyi's condition is stable but she has had to amputate her left leg at the knee. She will now be taken care of by her uncle.

Amazing stories have emerged, and from this human tragedy, testament to what it is that makes us human.





In the background of this montage of scenes from the last an erhu plays, sorrowful-sounding strings that create a most melodious of tunes.