u/Irene-Eng

Yesterday’s earthquake in Japan brought back my memories of the Tangshan earthquake, which happened exactly 50 years earlier. Below is an excerpt from my memoir “Beijing Bathhouse Blues”, which is to be published. 

54. Two Tectonic Shifts

Beijing, July 28, 1976

Before dawn on July 28, 1976, I awoke to the clinking of pots and pans. My bed began to shake. Earthquake, I thought immediately, yet I remained perfectly still while everything around me shifted. Only after the trembling subsided, and I heard doors opening, hurried footsteps, and fretful voices in the hallway, did I climb out of bed. The electricity had already failed. Feeling my way through the darkness, I joined my neighbors as we filed down three flights of stairs and into the street.

It was my first earthquake. Strangely, I remained calm.

I shouldn’t have. 

It was the Tangshan earthquake, one of the deadliest natural disasters of the twentieth century. In less than a minute, an estimated quarter of a million to perhaps half a million people vanished from the face of the earth. Among them was my stepmother of barely two weeks—my father had remarried without telling me. The epicenter lay in the industrial city of Tangshan, about 112 miles east of Beijing in neighboring Hebei Province.

Outside, everyone stood quietly, looking from one face to another, trying to make sense of what had happened. Only one person lost her composure. The mother of the three girls who lived across the hall burst from the building stark naked. Her horrified husband quickly shepherded her back inside, then dashed upstairs again to fetch her clothes.

Across the street stood the Institute's boiler house, its six-story chimney towering above us. None of us seemed to realize we had gathered directly beneath it. Herd instinct had overridden common sense.

As dawn broke, bits of news and official instructions began to trickle in. The epicenter was Tangshan. Casualties were enormous. More aftershocks were expected. We were told to stay away from our apartments and to gather whatever necessities we would need for an extended stay outdoors.

I packed a few books, toiletries, and my folding travel bed, then joined everyone else along tree-lined Zhongguancun Boulevard. Each family claimed a small patch of ground, improvising shelters from bamboo poles, blankets, sheets, and whatever materials they could find. We stayed close enough to the Institute to use its bathrooms and canteen. For weeks the boulevard became our neighborhood.

My little corner quickly became one of the most popular gathering places because of my folding bed—a small consolation for all the years I had spent shuttling between my aunts' homes. Compared with sleeping on the pavement, it was luxury.

That first evening, a young woman who had recently joined the Institute settled herself comfortably on my bed. She belonged to a group of former soldiers in their twenties who had been assigned to the Institute. Many still wore olive-green army uniforms to work, symbols of prestige in Mao's China. I never understood why veterans were being placed in a scientific research institute, but I liked them. They were energetic, confident, and seemed to bring life wherever they went.

She remained on my bed long after everyone else had stretched out to sleep. Only reluctantly did she get up and return to her own spot. I could not help wondering whether she had expected me to surrender the bed out of deference to her military status.

School was still on summer break. We played 100 Points, a card game much like Whist, from morning until night. When it rained, we all took showers together in the downpour. When the blazing summer sun returned, we baked together beneath it. Days blended into weeks until I lost all sense of time.

It may sound heartless, considering the catastrophe unfolding so close to us, but those weeks remain strangely happy in my memory. Life became even more communal than it had been in Guo's Village years earlier. We laughed, played cards, gossiped, and shared whatever we had. Only when autumn arrived and the nights turned cold did we gradually move back into our apartments.

By then another story was circulating in whispers. The great earthquake, people said, was an omen. Six weeks later, Chairman Mao was dead.

One afternoon, as I was playing cards, my partner suddenly looked past me and fell silent. I turned around.

My father stood there.
Crisp white shirt. 
Neatly pressed blue trousers. 

The standard uniform of Chinese professionals. Against our dusty clothes and makeshift encampment, he looked impossibly crisp. My three card-playing companions quietly slipped away. "Don't go," I pleaded. I needed them beside me to face this stranger. 

"Hi, Dad," I muttered awkwardly.
"I'm on my way to Tangshan," he said. "Passing through Beijing."

I said nothing. Why he was going, or even why he had come to see me, scarcely interested me. I simply wanted the encounter to end.

Decades later, after we had both settled in the United States and learned to speak to one another as adults, I finally discovered the reason for his journey. He was on his way to the earthquake's epicenter, hoping against hope to find his new wife, whom he had married weeks earlier. 

Her apartment building had collapsed. She was never found. 

Looking back on that afternoon now, I realize we were standing directly opposite the room at the Institute where my mother had taken her own life eight years earlier. As my father prepared to search for one wife, he was standing across the street from where he had lost the other. 

Yesterday’s earthquake in Japan brought back my memories of the Tangshan earthquake, which happened exactly 50 years earlier. Below is an excerpt from my memoir “Beijing Bathhouse Blues”, which is to be published. 

54. Two Tectonic Shifts
Beijing, July 28, 1976

Before dawn on July 28, 1976, I awoke to the clinking of pots and pans. My bed began to shake. Earthquake, I thought immediately, yet I remained perfectly still while everything around me shifted. Only after the trembling subsided, and I heard doors opening, hurried footsteps, and fretful voices in the hallway, did I climb out of bed. The electricity had already failed. Feeling my way through the darkness, I joined my neighbors as we filed down three flights of stairs and into the street.

It was my first earthquake. Strangely, I felt very calm.
I shouldn’t have. 

It was the Tangshan earthquake, one of the deadliest natural disasters of the twentieth century. In less than a minute, an estimated quarter of a million people vanished from the face of the earth. Among them was my stepmother of barely two weeks—my father had remarried without telling me. The epicenter lay in the industrial city of Tangshan, about 112 miles east of Beijing in neighboring Hebei Province.

Outside, everyone stood quietly, looking from one face to another, trying to make sense of what had happened. Only one person lost her composure. The mother of the three girls who lived across the hall burst from the building stark naked. Her horrified husband quickly shepherded her back inside, then dashed upstairs again to fetch her clothes.

Across the street stood the Institute's boiler house, crowned by a six-story chimney. None of us seemed to realize we had gathered directly beneath it. Herd instinct had overridden common sense.

As dawn broke, bits of news and official instructions began to trickle in. The epicenter was Tangshan. Casualties were enormous. More aftershocks were expected. We were told to stay away from our apartments and to gather whatever necessities we would need for an extended stay outdoors.

I packed a few books, toiletries, and my folding travel bed, then joined everyone else along tree-lined Zhongguancun Boulevard. Each family claimed a small patch of ground, improvising shelters from bamboo poles, blankets, sheets, and whatever materials they could find. We stayed close enough to the Institute of Zoology to use its bathrooms and canteen, but for weeks the boulevard became our neighborhood.

My little corner quickly became one of the most popular gathering places because of my folding bed—a small consolation for all the years I had spent shuttling between my aunts' homes. Compared with sleeping on the pavement, it was luxury.

The first evening, a young woman who had recently joined the Institute settled herself comfortably on my bed. She belonged to a group of former soldiers in their twenties who had been assigned to the Institute. Many still wore olive-green army uniforms to work, symbols of prestige in Mao's China. I never understood why veterans were being placed in a scientific research institute, but I liked them. They were energetic, confident, and seemed to bring life wherever they went.

She remained on my bed long after everyone else had stretched out to sleep. Only reluctantly did she get up and return to her own spot. I could not help wondering whether she had expected me to surrender the bed out of deference to her military status.

School was still on summer break. We played 100 Points, a card game much like Whist, from morning until night. When it rained, we all took showers together in the downpour. When the blazing summer sun returned, we baked together beneath it. Days blended into weeks until I lost all sense of time.

It may sound heartless, considering the catastrophe unfolding so close to us, but those weeks remain strangely happy in my memory. Life became even more communal than it had been in Guo's Village years earlier. We laughed, played cards, gossiped, and shared whatever we had. Only when autumn arrived and the nights turned cold did we gradually move back into our apartments.

By then another story was circulating in whispers. The great earthquake, people said, was an omen, which might be true: Chairman Mao would pass away in six weeks. 

One afternoon, as I was playing cards, my partner suddenly looked past me and fell silent. I turned around.

My father stood there.

He wore a crisp white shirt and neatly pressed blue trousers, the standard uniform of Chinese professionals. Against our dusty clothes and makeshift encampment, he looked impossibly clean and composed. My card-playing companions quietly slipped away despite my protests. I wished they would stay. I needed them beside me to face this stranger.

"Hi, Dad," I muttered awkwardly.

"I'm on my way to Tangshan," he said. "Passing through Beijing."

I nodded but asked nothing. Why he was going, or even why he had come to see me, scarcely interested me. I simply wanted the encounter to end.

Only decades later, after we had both settled in the United States and learned to speak to one another as adults, did I discover the reason for his journey.

He had been traveling to the earthquake's epicenter in the desperate hope of finding his new wife, whom he had married less than a month earlier.

She never returned.

Within just eight years, fate had taken both of his wives—his first by suicide, his second beneath the ruins of Tangshan.

This tennis tourney is from September 30 to October 6, 2026.

I’m trying to buy the last few days on StubHub, but tickets are mostly gone by now.

Is anyone attending, and where did you buy the ticket?

Any info is greatly appreciated. TIA

This tennis tourney is from September 30 to October 6, 2026.

I’m trying to buy the last few days on StubHub, but tickets are mostly gone by now.

Is anyone attending, and where did you buy the ticket?

Any info is greatly appreciated. TIA