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Yesterday’s moment of silence– three minutes, actually– fell during the time when students would normally be heading to class. When it began, those who were walking around froze in place and turned to face the direction of the national flag (even if they were out of sight range); many students, however, had already gathered near the flagpole. I honestly felt slightly uncomfortable as a foreigner here seeing such a show of nationalism, but more interesting than my discomfort is how this moment of silence reflects the way everything here– every emotion, every tragedy– is converted into nationalism and an opportunity to demonstrate it.

While I know that in the country I come from something similar was done after September 11, this seems to be a more extreme case. The storyline for September 11 is that it was an attack on the whole country; a natural disaster cannot be so easily constructed in such a way. Making humanitarian aid, even within one’s own country, an expression of nationalism takes more work, especially when rescue crews have come from other countries (including Japan, the nation most commonly viewed as the villain in expressions of Chinese nationalism). Perhaps it takes an even greater love of the State to begin with as well.

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