“…To the cheers of local farmers, the Olympic torch passed swiftly through Xunlu Friday as part of a determined campaign to cultivate national pride in the Beijing Games despite the May 12 earthquake that devastated central China and plunged the country into mourning…”

By Edward Cody
Source: Washington Post

To the cheers of local farmers, the Olympic torch passed swiftly through Xunlu Friday as part of a determined campaign to cultivate national pride in the Beijing Games despite the May 12 earthquake that devastated central China and plunged the country into mourning.

The go-go girls who once swayed on flatbeds trucks along the route were gone, and Friday’s departure ceremony in nearby Jixi included a minute of silence to honor the estimated 80,000 people killed in the tremor. But Xunlu’s 2,000 residents, joined by visitors from surrounding fields, nevertheless found something to exult about when the flame, dimly visible behind the windows of a minivan, raced by in a long convoy of police cars, buses and television platforms.

“We have to go on,” said Fang Xiaobing, 31, a local truck driver who took time out to enjoy the moment. “The Olympics are a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It won’t come around again.”

The attitude of Fang and his neighbors in these steep, terraced hillsides, in Anhui province 200 miles southwest of Shanghai, suggested broad popular support for Communist Party leaders in their decision to go ahead with the Olympic torch relay despite some complaints that the festivities are inappropriate in the face of so much grief in the earthquake zone.

Xi Jinping, the Politburo Standing Committee member in charge of Olympic preparations, said in a speech Wednesday that China was determined to overcome the disaster without backing off from its commitment to stage a spectacular Olympic Games. Dismissing the critics, he described the decision to push ahead with the relay as one way to support victims of the quake.

The Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games, which works under Xi’s guidance, suspended the torch relay during a three-day mourning period for quake victims last week and has ordered communities to tone down festivities associated with its passage. It has also delayed until August plans for the torch to pass through Sichuan province, the hardest-hit earthquake zone where millions of survivors will be living in tents for months to come.

But the committee rejected suggestions from a number of commentators that it is in poor taste to solicit Chinese to cheer on the Olympic torch while Sichuan is still digging out. “I think the Olympic torch in a situation like this represents hope,” said Jeff Ruffolo, a committee spokesman in Beijing.

Li Shijun, a People’s Armed Police officer who participated in rescue operations in Sichuan’s rugged hills, said listening to his fellow policemen making a similar argument led him to overcome his doubts and accept an offer to carry the torch Wednesday for a leg of its passage through Hefei, the Anhui province capital 150 miles north of here.

“They told me this is also a way to pass along spirit and care, and after thinking it over, I agreed to carry the torch,” he told the official New China News Agency.

Similarly, four earthquake rescue workers were enlisted to carry the torch as it was carried through Shanghai a week ago, including the Shanghai fire chief, Chen Fei, and a soldier from the People’s Liberation Army, Yu Qian. They also told reporters they wanted the relay to be seen as a gesture of solidarity with earthquake victims.

Many other Chinese disagreed, however, prompting a broad debate on the Internet even as the torch continues to wind its way across the country heading for an abbreviated one-day passage through Tibet and finally a triumphal entry into Beijing in August.

One prominent commentator, Huangfu Ping, former deputy editor of People’s Daily, the official party newspaper, maintained it was inappropriate to continue the attempt at festivity while so much sorrow is afflicting Sichuanese. In addition, he said, whatever energy and resources China’s 1.3 billion people can muster should be directed toward earthquake relief and reconstruction, not merrymaking and ceremony.

“Any kind of nonproductive activity, including the Olympic Torch relay, should be reduced as much as possible and the money and material should be used toward rescue work,” he wrote.

“What China needs now is not fake, grandiose ceremonies,” he wrote. “What it needs is for the earthquake victims to get reasonable help.”

The farmers gathered in Xunlu, however, seemed to find no reason to let the earthquake overshadow what for them was a rare moment of distraction. With hundreds of police deployed along the route leading into and out of Xunlu, people stood in little knots for more than an hour to see the parade come by. Along most of the route, police were more numerous than spectators.

While far off the beaten track, the Jixi area laid claim to the torch relay partly on the strength of its role as President Hu Jintao’s ancestral home, local residents said. Hu was born in Taizhou, in neighboring Jiangsu province, but his grandparents came from Jixi, a renowned center of commerce during the Ming and Qing dynasties.

As Xunlu waited, some residents waved little Olympic flags passed out by local authorities. Others carried the Chinese flag. Teenagers wore T-shirts with “I love China” painted across their chests. Cellphone cameras and miniature video recorders were aimed at the road leading down a soft slop from Jixi.

“We must go on with this,” declared Guan You, 72, a leathery, retired farmer who watched the commotion and waited for the torch while sitting on a handmade bench. “Our government is going ahead. China is great.”

In Jixi, the county seat where the day had begun four miles up the road, about 80 runners carried the torch for short stretches around town. They included Ding Junhui, a champion snooker player who is a local favorite, and Zhao Minsheng, the local Communist Party chief. But by the time the relay reached Xunlu, the running was over and the torch had been put into a minivan on the way to the next big stop at Huangshan city.

The little crowd here shouted when the convoy approached, and young men held their cellphones high to snap pictures over the heads of those in front. But suddenly a moan of disappointment went up. It became apparent the flame would not be carried past by an exultant runner, like in all the television reports. Instead, it was in the white minivan with Olympic markings on the side and zipped through Xunlu in about three seconds.