When China's greatest modern writer Lu Xun was a student of medicine in 1906, he saw a lantern slide of a group of Japanese soldiers decapitating a Chinese. What dismayed him was the indifference of the Chinese spectators at the scene. Lu wrote, "The people of a weak, laggard country, even though they may enjoy health, can only serve as the senseless subjects of and audience for public executions."

A century later, the Chinese people are no longer indifferent to the sufferings of their compatriots. After the May 12 earthquake, the whole country seemed to mobilize for relief work, showing the generosity and sense of duty expected in a civil society.

The public, officials and soldiers, worked together. Thousands of volunteers went to the quake zone, and tens of billions in cash has poured into Sichuan Province. People queued at blood donation vehicles, and many are seeking to adopt quake orphans.

A month after the 8.0-magnitude earthquake, the official death toll is almost 70,000, with more than 17,000 missing. More than 14million survivors have to rebuild their homes from the debris.

Qiu Hua stares into the distance from the stairs of the Jiuzhou Stadium in Sichuan's Mianyang City. He is assessing his assets. "I have nothing now," says Qiu, 40. "My house in Beichuan collapsed, my crop is ruined. The plant where I worked has stopped production. I don't know what the future holds." He now lives in a tent in the stadium, which shelters almost 10,000 other people who have lost their homes.

"I've got one thing", says Qiu. "I have the affection and care of other people in other areas. If they didn't care, more people would be dead."

Qiu is fortunate, as his wife and son also survived. His son, the 11-year-old Qiu Peng, was flown out of the mountainous area in a military helicopter. "I felt pleased," says the boy, because I saw a lot of kind-hearted people." His shoes were given to him by a volunteer. On the Children's Day, he received stationery, clothes and candy.

In Qingchuan County, Wang Shizhou helps the local government and soldiers distribute food and drugs. Four days after the quake, Wang came here as a leader of a volunteer group from Beijing.

"I saw a lot of disasters when I was a soldier, but what surprised me this time is that such a lot of people, no matter who they are and where they come from, are doing so much to help," says Wang, 26.

"I once thought the Chinese were indifferent, especially in the money-oriented market economy," says Wang, a computer engineer in Beijing before he resigned to work in the quake zone.

On the road from Dujiangyan to Yingxiu, the epicenter, a man in his 60s cooks for displaced survivors everyday. He's uninterested in speaking to the media: "I came here to cook, not to become famous."

In south China's Guangzhou City, people whose houses have been relocated for land development are queuing to complain about their unfair treatment to the city's land resources bureau, but first they put money in a donation box in the office. Land relocation is one of the most intractable issues in China, which often leads to mass protests.

"We are miserable, but the quake victims are much more miserable than us," says an appellant named Wen.

After 30 years of economic reform, the Chinese have been absorbed in making money. In a rapidly developing and competitive society, care for others is viewed as a waste of time by some as relatives, neighbors and colleagues grow further apart. Many feel that society is indifferent.

However, the quake has become the major public issue. Newspapers, radio and TV are all reporting the situation in the quake zone.

"The quake helped us understand humanity and universal kindness are the most important factors for social harmony," says Professor Chen Changwen, dean of sociology and psychology at Sichuan University. "It helped us rebuild communal confidence and a social morality."

Chen points out that the public now has the material basis to help in disaster relief. Thanks to the economic growth over the past 30 years, people have enough money to support others. After the Tangshan earthquake in 1976, when people had too few clothes and not enough to eat, the survivors could only wait for the government to help.

The rising sense of individual independence has been matched by a willingness to shoulder more social burdens.

"The quake showed the Chinese are dependable, with sense of responsibility," says Chen. "If every person has more right to self-determination, the society will fare better."

When an established society loses order, as happened when the quake destroyed towns and cities, conscience and morality become the only guideline, Chen believes.

Originally from Dujiangyan, 90 kilometers southeast of the epicenter, Chen, a sociologist, often studied rural communities in the area.

Most of his friends there are now missing. After the disaster, Chen received a phone call from his brother in the United States, who said most Chinese there had cried after the quake, a message that moved him to tears.

"When you feel the affection of others in a disaster, you feel stronger, maybe stronger than you've ever felt before," says Chen." It is much more precious than economic interests.

"Chinese people are not passive or indifferent," says Chen. "In the debris of the quake, we've seen the hope of humanity and human nature in Chinese society."

(Xinhua News Agency June 15, 2008)