During the winter of 2008, the south of China had been stricken by the worst storm that had occurred in 50 years. According to the authorities data, it caused 111.1 billion Yuan worth of loss in property, resulting in the death of 1699 people and 415 more were missing.

However, my hometown Jingdezheng had just been slightly influenced by the storm. I suffered darkness only for one day and honestly speaking, I had a very good time snow fighting with my friends. In spite of this, I still had a lot of feelings from the storm. It presented me with something we all had ignored before and what’s more, it left me with a serious question.

Everyday on TV came bad news. Many people had no electricity, no water for dozens of days; many people couldn’t go back home for the Spring Festival but were restricted to the airport or train station and many people died. However, through such gloomy happenings, I also saw the following: On the streets, many people volunteered to shovel the snow to make the traffic move. Up the electricity poles, emergency crews were working hours to make the power come back. In train stations, hundreds of policemen kept order. In Guizhou, many private car owners laced a green ribbon on their cars to offer people who needed help a free ride. And many supermarkets and big stores sold citrus from JiangXi for no profit, so as to release the problem of overstocking and sluggish sales. With these happening, we no longer felt cold for our hearts were warm, we could feel the care, the concern from other people and we were no longer helpless.

Many of my classmates called me to complain. Some said that they had candles for light for almost a week, while others had to fetch water very far away for the water mains cracked as a result from the freezing weather. But surprisingly, they all agreed that actually this winter was not that bad and some of them were even thankful for the power failure. As there was no electricity, the whole family had to huddle around a stove and then they talked happily about each other’s childhood and fun experiences, thus they got to know their parents, grandparents and other relatives better. I can just imagine such a warm and miracle moment and feel that deep family love.

However, beyond all these, there still is a question haunting me all the time: why did the storm cause so much suffering in our lives? Admittedly, it was strong but it accounted for nothing, compared with the storms that frequently happen in China and some Northern European countries. And after contemplating all these days, I came up with the conclusion: First, we lack the ability to deal with emergencies. Li Hongxia, a migrant worker in HuBei province, was stamped to death by people behind her scrambling to get on the delayed train in Guangdong and she was only 17 years old. We become panicked so easily when a disaster happens that we don’t know how to calm down and how to take efficient measures to solve the problem. Second, there is a huge problem that exists in our transportation system, so it becomes paralyzed so easily, so completely. Hundreds of electrical poles and towers fell down or collapsed just because of the weight of snow covering them. You can just imagine the quality of this equipment.

Now, the “2008 Storm” has passed and our feelings of it, agony or gratitude, have faded away. But I hope everything we’ve gained from it didn’t vanish. The spirit of helping each other, the warmth of family love and the warnings it gave us. Thus, those tragedies won’t happen again even if the storm comes much stronger next time.