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Friday, September 08, 2006

It Hurts Just as Much In Chinese

8:47 PM

The Chinese language online edition of China Daily published a retrospective on the 1st anniversary of Hurricane Katrina last week, and one of the reporters there is a former journalism student at Beiwai and her editor suggested she interview me regarding the Bosco family's experience with that goddamn storm that forever changed our lives. During the interview with Ms. Chen Di (Cindy is her English name) I told her the paper was free to use any of the photographs of 509 Beach Drive, Ocean Springs, Mississippi, that appeared in these pages.

The article was written, and two before-and-after photographs were published along with it. Even though I will receive another derisive missive from "Anonymous" taking me to shameful task for not yet being able to read and therefore translate more than a few Chinese characters, I can only excerpt the "before" picture of the house I grew up in--and love more than I do all but a handful of living souls--below, and cannot even excerpt the opening graph or even headline because my Blogger software won't reproduce Chinese in a recognizable fashion. In fact, every time I try, it destroys the formatting of the site. Surely there is a computer 101 dumb solution, but I don't know it, yet.

This much I can say, regardless of the language, the pain and shock of the visuals are diminished not even a tiny bit. The photo below is from about 1957, judging by my height and Prince being fully grown. My mother Wilma and my sister Sylvia are of course gorgeous. (One strange tip-off is that I am still a bit towheaded; yes, I was a blonde for the early years of my life, go figure.) This was a Sunday go-to-church morning, from when I was still a good little Christian. You don't think I dressed that way normally in sleepy little Ocean Springs, which is often hotter than Hell, and one hell of a lot more humid, do you?

Please read at ChinaDaily.com

8:47 PM / Editor / permalink 4 comments

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4 Comments:

Dear professor,
I just read an article by my classmate Xu Yan saying that you intend to write a book about China.
This article was published by the Overseas Edition of the People's Daily. So I tried to open your weblog to see more about your recent life. But surprisingly I came across this retrospective regarding which I can still remember one year ago almost blew you down.I believe every one of your students including me held the same feelings as you did when the news came. We human beings are nevertheless impotent facing such a devastating natural disaster.However, the fact that the reconstruction work is halting is by no means unacceptable.I know your feelings, professor.Please don't be over worried, and take care of yourself.I'm eager to see you in class, an active and thoughtful you ^^
All the Best!

By Frank, at 10:55 AM

Dear Frank,

Thank you for your very kind words; they mean much to me. I look forward to seeing you in class this coming week.

I have a couple of other books to finish before I get going on the book mentioned in the article : )

All the very best,

Joseph Bosco

By Joseph, at 11:51 AM

I studied briefly at the University of Mississippi, before realizing that I would rather learn to practice law (UK/Australian/Hong Kong) and departed for Australia.

Though I did not stay long in the Deep South, it left its own indelible mark on me, including the first woman I ever truly fell in love with. I watched with horror when Katrina happened, and what happened afterwards.

What I found incomprehensible is the sheer degree of inefficiency and incompetence (if not outright corruption) demonstrated by the United States government in the aftermath of the disaster. If this were Africa or Indonesia, I could understand. But this is America. Things like this shouldn't happen. It leaves me at once disappointed and angry.

On a brief political side note, while I have leanings towards the ideals of small government espoused by the Republican party (ideals which, I am all too aware, they have trampled into the mud in the last 6 years), their mismanagement and general incompetence over the last 6 years has left me rather hoping that they end up tossed out on their ears in the next election.

By Kwok Ting Lee, at 6:20 PM

Sorry for the anniversary. Must be tough.

Hang in there.

By Anonymous, at 10:30 AM