From farmers to millionaires, Chinese people from all walks of life are digging deep into their pockets to help victims of Southeast Asia's devastating earthquake and tsunamis in one of the country's largest fund-raising efforts in recent history.
Nine days after the December 26 disaster struck, 25 million yuan (US$3 million) in cash and pledges has been collected in Chinese Red Cross donation boxes in the capital of Beijing and over the telephone. The figure is expected to rise significantly in the coming days.
China ``is proving itself to be very generous,'' said John Sparrow, regional information delegate for the International Red Cross. ``Such an outpouring of support from the public is phenomenal.''
The largest individual pledge so far came from an anonymous Chinese businessman who gave 1 million yuan, Sparrow said.
Among the smallest: an farmer from one of China's impoverished provinces called the Red Cross to ask if 10 yuan could be of assistance, he said.
``I learned from TV reports that many kids were dead and I feel very sorry and want to help,'' said 9-year-old Jia Yiwen from Shanghai.
She donated 100 yuan that her grandmother had given her to buy TV game cartridges and clothes.
Yesterday, Beijing-based computer maker Lenovo Group Ltd, the country's largest computer firm, delivered a check to the Chinese Red Cross for US$500,000. The company recently purchased IBM Corp's personal computer division.
While pledge drives for domestic disasters such as earthquakes and floods occur every year, gathering donations for the needy overseas is rare, said Wang Xiaohua, a spokesman for the Chinese Red Cross.
In his 26 years with the organization, Wang can only remember one other drive for a foreign disaster -- the African famine in 1985. At that time, a total of 13 million yuan was collected.
But China has changed since the 1980s.
The spontaneous donations pouring in from all over the country reflect its own prosperity in recent years, with many Chinese earning expendable income for the first time.
``Now more and more people can spare some money to support people 1,000 miles away,'' said Wang.
The public donations have already eclipsed the Chinese government's initial pledge of US$2.6 million.
The Chinese government last week upped the figure to US$60 million, making it the seventh largest donor after Japan, the United States, the World Bank, Britain, Sweden and Spain. It has also sent medical teams and emergency supplies and food to hard-hit Indonesia, Thailand and Sri Lanka.
A cargo of disaster-relief materials donated by China arrived in Bangkok yesterday, adding Chinese aid to the tsunami-hit kingdom to a total worth of more than US$1 million.
The disaster-relief aid includes medicine, food, daily necessities and electronics. China also donated a check for US$300,000 to the Thai government for the kingdom's disaster relief efforts.
The Chinese disaster-relief aid for Thailand now stands at a total of US$1.2 million.
Besides, two medical groups and a team of forensic experts from China are working in Thailand's worst-hit province of Pangnga to help local disaster relief efforts. The five-member Chinese forensic team has worked for three days in the Yan Yao temple dealing with decomposing bodies. Meanwhile, an Boeing 747 carrying relief goods from China for Sri Lankan tsunami-hit areas landed at the Bandaranaike International Airport early yesterday morning.
The relief goods worth 15 million yuan include blankets, tents, bed sheets, medicines, mosquito nets, generators, biscuits and other food.
China sent the first relief items worth 10 million yuan and US$200,000 in cash to Sri Lanka on December 29, 2004.