DUJIANGYAN, China - In a narrow alleyway, family and friends enjoyed a special dinner of fish, duck and pork, as they watched last night's Olympic opening ceremony on television. They'd been waiting years for this night, but truth be told, cast against a brutally trying few months, the celebration also serves as a welcome distraction.
Ke Hong, clutching a bottle of wine tightly, had been enjoying the night enough for all of China. His Olympic spirit, in fact, might result in a headache in the morning.
As an area patrolman, Ke works here in Dujiangyan. His family, however, has lived for years in a village near the epicenter of a horrendous earthquake that devastated this region just three months ago. Eight of Ke's relatives died. Like all of his neighbors here, he lost his home and has been residing the past couple of months in a makeshift refugee camp.
"China is so strong to host the Olympic Games," he said, as the opening ceremony flickered on a nearby television, waving the half-empty bottle of wine in the air. "Now I can see the future for China and for myself! We have the confidence to rebuild our home."
In Beijing, fireworks filled the sky and revelry filled the streets. But the party surrounding last night's Olympic opening ceremony was hardly limited to the nation's capital city. More than 900 miles away, in Sichuan province, an area that's wallowed in grief and grown accustomed to loss found reason to rejoice - even if the kickoff to these Games did highlight disparity.
Since the May 12 earthquake, $10 billion has been devoted to relief and reconstruction efforts, a figure that pales in comparison to the money China has spent preparing for the Olympics over the course of the past decade. When the medals are handed out and the dust settles, the price tag on these Games will likely exceed $44 billion.
The rising toll of damage related to the earthquake is staggering: about 70,000 dead, 375,000 injured, more than 5 million left homeless and as many as 5,000 children left orphaned.
Tales of valor, sorrow, survival and loss have threaded through conversations in the area. They talk of a Dujiangyan middle school that collapsed, killing 50 children. And of a man from outside of Mianyang who was buried under rubble for an entire week but survived by eating toilet paper and drinking his own urine. Another man tied his dead wife to his back with a rope and rode his scooter across Sichuan to find a respectable place to bury her.
