Two pieces of melancholy news have just arrived.

1. One of the most famous news anchors of China, the household face of CCTV for two decades and more, LUO Jing, passed away this morning at the age of 48. Before that, in the fall of 2008, he was diagnosed with lymphoma and was given treatment immediately till he died. My mother has kept asking how he was ever since his health problem was heralded. To the audience of Mom’s age, it’s shocking news. He used to be my favorite Chinese news anchor, though later on I realized he had been actually aiding the CCP in propagandizing its people.

2. A sudden blaze aboard a public bus has killed 25 and wounded 76 in Chengdu City, Sichuan. In the city where I’m living can be seen such buses that are bellowing smoke right amongst road traffic. It is these buses in disrepair that are likely to ignite, according to some expert. I’ll share my invention again:

Life is too short to live in absolute safety.

We can complain that the government always throws good money after bad, but we don’t need to complain anymore if our loved ones were on that bus, or if we ourselves were on board.

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“Ensei -Omou Kokoro-” – Tomaru Hanae

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P.S. Here has just come another piece of melancholy news. (20:50)

A landslide has buried 59 (pre-estimated) in Wulong County, Chongqing.

LUO Jing was from Chongqing, and Chongqing used to be a city in Sichuan Province, where the bus fire killed and wounded a hundred today, and where the deadly Wenchuan earthquake occurred in May, 2008.

How come the southwestern part of China should be suffering so many disasters?