Moment of Silence

Photo: Reuters.
Not since Mao’s death has Hong Kong fallen completely silent and motionless in observance of grief. Then it was grief of the State-sponsored variety, but today it was grief from the heart as the City paused for three quiet minutes beginning at 2:28pm, exactly one week from the moment of the Sichuan earthquake that has taken such a devastating toll on the country. Flags flew at half mast as traffic stood still, the stock exchanges stopped trading, office workers paused and, most surprisingly people actually stopped shopping. At the conclusion of the three minutes there was a huge ruckus of car horns, air raid sirens, and ship horns intended to symbolize the country’s grief. It was very moving to see a City that is typically so caught up in its own goings on to focus on a humanitarian crisis outside its borders. The paper's speak of HK feeling closer than ever to its mother country.

And the moment of silence was observed throughout China. It's wild to consider world demographics and to realize that China's entire population of 1.4 billion people stood silent for three minutes. 1 in every 5 people on Earth in silence and North and South America were likely sleeping in the middle of their night, so roughly half the World was in silence! I can't imagine that happens often/ever.