No more tents

Tents are rarely seen at the two biggest settlements, the Dayingjiang Square and the Yinghu Garden, or on the roads of the town. As for those tents that haven’t yet been removed, they have been empty for some time.

The houses damaged in the earthquake three months ago have been dismantled, and the shopping malls have also gone back into business. Basically, the local residents have recovered their normal lives.

Rich cultural events

At dusk and in the early morning, music sounds in the Dayingjiang Square and the Yinghu Garden.

In early mornings, hundreds of elderly people come to do their morning exercises with music as they did before the earthquake, for many years.

After the earthquake on March 10, events in these places stopped for a time. And when night gradually fell, a great quantity of residents would gather at the Dayingjiang Square and the Yinghu Garden to take a walk, chat, exercise or dance.

Life of the people at settlements

Eighty-six households that suffered heavily damages in the earthquake have been temporary settled in the town of Pingyuan.

The makeshift shelters there are built with color steel tiles, wood and bamboo, much better than tents. Some residents built kitchens with bamboo fences and even jointly constructed a bathroom to make their life more comfortable.

Students participate in the national college entrance examination

On June 8, over 700 high school graduates casually stepped out of the rooms of the national college entrance examination.

They are a special group of examinees: in August 2008, they were met with two earthquakes just in the first few days after entering high school, and since January this year they have again experienced several earthquakes.

Learning in their dormitories of tents, they knew clearly that they needed to make much more effort to achieve good scores under such difficult conditions.

Before the examination, they encouraged each other, and the earthquake made them learn more about self-improvement and self-reliance.

They are the hope of Yingjiang and are also an epitome of optimism in the stricken area.