(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-05-22 00:43

Liu Yuanping, a government employee in Tangshan, said he wanted to pass on a message to all quake orphans in Sichuan. "Be strong and be brave. You'll all grow up like everyone else."

Liu was 14 when his parents, brother and sister died in the earthquake. He spent two years in a boarding school for quake orphans in his hometown before he went on to high school.

Throughout his one-hour interview with Xinhua on Tuesday, Liu stopped from time to time to answer phone calls, most of which were from his former schoolmates. "We all want to adopt some orphans," he said. "We have similar experiences and can become better foster parents than those who don't."

HEART TO HEART

Yang Shan woke up to find her legs were gone.

Counseling was not possible because the senior high schooler from Beichuan County, one of the hardest-hit areas where more than 7,000 died, would scream whenever a stranger came near.

"I'm from Tangshan and I know how you feel." These simple words from Dang Yuxin calmed the tearful girl. The 1976 quake, one of the most unforgettable events in China's modern history, made the city known to every Chinese above 10 years old.

Dang was able to approach the girl, hold her hand and reassure her that she was safe. "If you want to cry, just do it and you'll feel better."

When the girl became quiet again, Dang related her own experience.

She was six months old when rescuers pulled her from the rubble of her home. Her parents were dead and no one knew her name, so she was institutionalized at a special school for more than 100 quake orphans. There she was named Dang Yuxin, meaning "the Communist Party gave her a new life."

Yang listened quietly to her account, at the end of which she began to recall the terrible scenes she witnessed after the quake: her dead classmates, textbooks, satchels, pieces of clothing and blood everywhere. She talked until she was exhausted, and finally fell asleep.

When she woke up again she was not scared of the doctors and nurses.

"Just let them face the truth. Don't tell lies such as 'your parents are still alive but have gone away'," Dang told a team of volunteers in Mianyang, where Yang and many other survivors are being treated.

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