Wenchuan: Salute to the future

Salute Boy Lang Zheng says he's happy he receives fewer salutations now, five years after the Wenchuan quake. Lang became an icon of the disaster in Sichuan province's Beichuan county at age 3, when he saluted the soldiers who pulled him from the rubble and declared: "Thank you, uncles."

Media besieged him in the following years.

"I don't like cameras," says Lang, now 8. "So, I'm happy there are fewer media to interview me."

Lang instead spends his time playing sports, especially table tennis.

Lang Zheng, 3, saluted his saviors after he was lifted to safety in Beichuan county on May 13, 2008. [Yang Weihua/Mianyang Evening News]

The second-grade student, who attends an international school in Mianyang, attained the highest physical education score in his class of 300 and the second highest overall, his father Lang Hongdong says.

"He's no longer traumatized by the quake and is happy," he says. "He used to be afraid of the dark after being buried in the rubble. He couldn't even go to the bathroom by himself. We let him stay alone in a room for a long time to get used to it. But time is what has brought the most change."

The family never mentions the quake around him and forbids reporters from doing so.

"The only other change is our new house," the 38-year-old father says. "It's bigger, and the environment is better."

The boy insists that's not all that has changed. "I'm taller," he says, grinning.

While Lang tries to forget the disaster, he still remembers who saved him.

"He recalls that soldiers rescued him," says Lang Hongdong, who taught his son to salute because he's a police officer. "He likes military stuff and films. Sometimes, he and I play war with toy guns."

Lang keeps in touch with the soldiers, usually by exchanging calls on holidays. And he regularly visits photographer Yang Weihua, who snapped the shot that made him an international icon.

"He's a nice kid," Yang says. "Our families feel the quake brought us together by destiny."

The 49-year-old has continued to photograph Lang over the years. In turn, the boy often snaps pictures with Yang's camera.

"Lang is very lucky," he says. "A teacher 1 meter away from him died. It's because he was so small that he fit between two chunks of the building that fell around him. An adult in his position would have perished."

Lang was injured, though. The tip of his left pinky was amputated, and his ring finger and his shoulder are streaked with scars.

"He almost lost his arm," Yang says. The boy responds by flexing his bicep and giggling. He then grins as he pulls up the sleeve to reveal a jagged scar that twists down his arm.

Only three of the 40 or so children in his kindergarten survived. The other two suffered serious injuries. None would have likely survived were it not for the army.

Lang says he'd like to be a soldier or a scientist when he grows up. "I don't know why," he says.

He has a long time to figure that out.