Chinese mourn 5.12 tragedy on Children's Day

As a lone bulldozer slowly worked to clear the rubble from the collapsed Juyuan Middle School, Liu stood in silent protest, along with nine other parents who also lost their only children when the schoolhouse crumbled in the quake. For more than an hour, as tears streamed down her face, Liu, 40, displayed a large photograph of Hui Shan, her daughter. It was a mock magazine cover, done up by the grieving mother and some of her friends in an art class. The photo showed the dead girl wearing stylish black glasses and an impish smile. "Sophisticated," the magazine's title read, just above the photo.

This small, impoverished town 37 miles (60 km) north of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, has become the focal point of anguish over what Chinese now call "tofu schools," nearly 7,000 schoolhouses that collapsed in the quake while other buildings around them remained standing. The government says that nearly 300 children were killed in the Juyuan Middle School alone, and the anger of the parents of the victims is not diminishing, even though this past week the government reiterated its promises to investigate what happened and to include parents on a panel that will oversee the inquiry. Parents say they might hire lawyers to help them seek restitution — to get what a sign on a building next to the Juyuan school site calls "payment of the blood debt" from those who constructed the concrete building in 1988. "We're thinking very seriously of trying to get legal assistance," said one parent, who asked that his name not be used. "We're not convinced the government is serious about this."

But officials are also plainly concerned that protests could get out of control. On Children's Day, there was a huge increase in the number of uniformed policemen in Dujiangyan. At the collapsed middle school, the police didn't prevent parents from gathering and talking to reporters. Uniformed and plainclothes security officials snapped photographs of parents who spoke to journalists.

This is standard procedure for China's public security bureau in sensitive situations. More telling was that another Children's Day celebration planned for a Dujiangyan primary school not far from Juyuan Middle School was canceled.

Schools suffered disporportionally large damage in the earthquake, and because of China's tough birth control policies, many of the students who died in the quake were only children. For many parents who lost a child, they lost all.

According to a new regulation issued by the Chengdu Population and Family Planning Commission, families like Wang Xuegui's that lost their children or had children disabled in the earthquake are permitted to give birth again. Moreover, families of children who were killed or disabled in the quake and have at least one parent older than 50 will now receive an annual government subsidy of 600 yuan for each parent. Earthquake-impacted families (families that sustained injuries, deaths, or whose property was damaged) that have "illegal" children are no longer required to pay their "social rearing fee", a fine imposed on families that have unauthorized children. Families that had illegal children of whom only one survived the earthquake can now qualify for the "Single Child Parents Privilege Certificate" and enjoy government subsidies reserved originally only for single-child-families.