earthquake mourning

China grounded to a halt at 1428hrs today. state flags are at half-mast while air raid sirens and car horns were sounded. we held a 3 minute silence to mourn the victims of the massive earthquake in Sichuan (now upgraded to Richter 8).

as China goes into 3 days of official mourning, it seems that the no public entertainment ruling was taken very seriously. our cable channels including HBO, Discovery and NGC, were gone leaving only news channels like BBC, CNN and CNA and local news channels. but Star World was still on so we can watch Friends and American Idol while Discovery was considered entertainment. Even Chinese youtube sites like Youku and Tudou were blanked out except clips on the Sichuan quake. apparently people were told to postpone their weddings. I thought no entertainment meant no public celebrations etc...
Robina grumbled that only in a Communist country that you can pull a blanket ban like this. While everyone should demonstrate respect and mourning for such a tragedy, I am baffled at how not watching documentaries would help the quake victims. Like I told Robina, some AO (or the Chinese equivalent) probably thought that it was a good idea.
Robina was at BreadTalk today and she saw that BreadTalk was donating proceeds from a special earthquake bread series costs RMB10 (about S$2). She bought a frowning panda bun (Note: 3 pandas were reported missing from the Wolong Panda Research Centre and 5 staff were killed)