Tangshan earthquake

Year: 1976, Month July, Day 28th, Time 3:42am
Place: Tang Shan, 250 miles from Beijing.

The earth shook, killing nearly a quarter million people, many of them in their sleep. Many more injured and rescued in their underwear, hundreds of thousands of children became orphans. Millions were homeless in the storms after the quake, the pouring rain lasted for days.

I was a small child then, along with my brother, living with our nanny in a one room home near the Beijing Railroad station. Nanny was also taking care of a baby at the time, I don't remember how old he was, only that he cried a lot and had to be carried all the time.

In that day and place, taking care of a baby means having the baby living with the nanny during the week, parents only saw the baby on weekends. My brother and I took buses across town to go home and see our parents every Saturday.

The night before the quake, I was out with some kiddie friends at a movie and didn't come home and go to sleep until after 11 -- which was allowed since we were on summer vacation. Nanny woke up first at the first hint of the shock, she yelled at my brother to get up, handed him the baby, and told him to run to the street. He ran out half asleep, no shirt, no shoes.

Nanny couldn't wake me up, couldn't carry me, so she stayed with me till I woke up when the quake was over. Later she told my mom, "I take care of your child for you, when she's in danger, I'll die with her." Next day my mom picked me up to stay with her at the hotel where she worked (sort of fancy concentration camp), but left my brother behind to take care of Nanny and the baby, he was no more than 13 or 14.

One of my mom's uncles lost his son in the quake. His wife woke up and saved her son, but didn't have a chance to save her husband. They were all sleeping in the same bed. That was the only loss in my family.

We camped out for months, for fear of more quakes, and didn't have a regular school campus for over a year, until they fixed up the damaged classrooms. We held classes in people's yards, empty storage rooms, even on the side of a street. The teachers were so happy to have real blackboard again.