Shake, Rattle, and Roll
Welcome to my random musings about the world, on a weekly-to-occasional basis.
Where we are: We have two more days in Taipei, unless I dig in my heels and refuse to leave, ever. This country has been a complete delight.
Shake, Rattle, and Roll
On September 21, 1999, Taiwan was rocked by an earthquake that measured 7.3 at the epicenter. The whole country shook. Nearly 3000 people died. Tens of thousands of buildings collapsed or were damaged. For a country that was just in the early stages of propulsive financial growth, it was devastating.
One of the ruined buildings, a junior high situated smack on top of the fault line, has been preserved as a museum (not a memorial, thank goodness—the quake occurred in the middle of the night). It’s now an epicenter of a different sort: the museum serves as a cornerstone of the public education campaign to ‘earthquake-proof’ this small, seismically active island.
Lee and I, being the mildly macabre voyeurs that we are, wanted to see what an earthquake-ruined building looks like, so we hopped on the high speed rail a few days ago and went to check it out.
It was not at all what I expected.
The collapsed building was, of course. It was a lopsided pile of broken concrete and twisted rebar, which is logical (and deeply sobering, obvi). There were engineering exhibits. (Why were schools especially vulnerable? How can a 101-story tower be safely constructed on shifty ground?) There were seismology exhibits. (How do tectonic plates work? What are the effects of different kinds of earthquakes?) There were hands-on demonstrations of all the scientific concepts. It was a very well-organized, thorough explanation of Taiwan’s specific vulnerabilities, and what’s being done to defend against them.
And it was all very carefully designed to educate both kids and adults.
The coolest part (because Lee and I are really just overgrown children) was the earthquake simulator. We sat on the floor (with a bunch of toddlers and their mothers, because I’m not kidding when I say we’re overgrown children), and the padded room shook for 102 seconds. On screens around the walls, designed to look like a pre-1999 home, things crashed and broke exploded and caught fire. Then the screens reset, to resemble an earthquake-proofed home, and the room shook again. The toddlers were all very amused, and Lee and I walked away hoping we never experience a 7.3.
But what I found most educational about the whole day happened a moment later. The simulator room exits into an exhibit of some really stunning photographs of the 1999 event. At the end of the hall, a television plays a loop of news clips from the rescue operations. The moms and toddlers were in front of us, and we watched as each mom knelt down on the floor, touched her child and whispered into their ear. The children were utterly still, listening and watching.
For a brief moment, Lee and I had a glimpse into this culture that shed light on much of what has impressed us about Taiwan—kindness, respect, community-mindedness.
The public messaging here, which clearly starts at birth, is consistently along the lines of, ‘We’re all in this together, so here’s how we can look out for each other.’
The world could use more of that mindset, I think.
Take care,
Lisa
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