BBC - China Production Stories

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As I am sure you know, last week there was a massive earthquake in Wenchuan in the Sichuan Province. In tribute to the victims of this disaster the government here announced three days of national mourning.

At first I was unsure of what this actually meant. How does a nation as populated and spread across such a huge area collectively mourn? What does national mourning look like?

Announcement of the mourning on Chinese state television.

So far we have seen a couple of different examples. There was a 3 minute silence across the whole of the country yesterday at 14.28. Beijing, like the rest of China, came to a standstill. We were filming in one of the busy shopping areas and everything froze. Initially there was silence but this was broken by the non stop sounding of car horns and an air raid siren in tribute to the victims. People stood in silence as they watched the massive public screens display images of people across the country doing the same thing as them, standing quietly, reflecting.

The other thing that has happened is that all entertainment seems to have stopped for the duration. The only TV stations which are still broadcasting seem to be news ones, mostly from China but we have access to CNN in the hotel still. Restaurants are quiet - the music has been switched off. Bars and Clubs are closed. Beijing is simply a little bit quieter.

I am sure there are other examples of mourning. These are just the ones I have noticed. That's the difficulty about being here. It's one of the busiest places on the earth but I feel pretty detached from it all. It's difficult to know exactly what is going on.

Gerald's next entry

Today I got sand in my shoes and we are nowhere near a beach.

We were told it might be from the Gobi Desert as deforestation has caused sand to blow over from there to here. The government has been planting a line of trees around Beijing which some wag called the Green Wall of China. It's apparently 130 km long. The sky was a strange orange colour and even the cars were covered with a layer of dust. However, it was a particularly windy day today so a more likely cause could have been dust from construction work, but that doesn't sound quite as dramatic does it?

Maria's next entry

Meeting with the community leader and a translator.

Today we went along to meet a woman who we are going to be filming with tomorrow. She is a community leader of sorts and has a strong interest in the environment. It's her job to... well you'll just have to watch the film when it comes out.

We arrived at her community headquarters at 2PM (we spent the morning working on the website) as she was in meetings until then. Her community have been collecting clothes and other donations for victims of the earthquake and it is taking up most of her time. She actually had a meeting about it at 2 PM but cancelled it to meet with us despite my best attempts to persuade her to go and meet with us later. However, she wasn't having any of it and sent her colleague along.

We chatted for about an hour, explaining who we were, what we were doing and what we are hoping to achieve. It's a very different experience when you chat through a translator. I've done it a few times now in a few different languages and it's still a challenge. You can't do the normal things to you would do to get to know someone. Jokes can be lost or misunderstood. The tone in which you say things can be lost. So, it comes down to body language mostly. Lots of smiles, nods, good eye contact and a lot of pretending to know exactly what someone is saying when you really don't have a clue.

However, I must have done something right as she was really interested in what we are doing. She said she was happy to help in any way she could and that we weren't to worry about telling her to do things or say things again if necessary. She also filled us up with really nice tea, honest it was a never ending flask, before sending us off to pee. No. Really.

To tell you the truth her story isn't exactly the one that we set out to tell but that's what often happens. You imagine saying one thing and then something better comes along.