In 1983, when I visited China for more than three weeks, the country was in transition. I remember writing that it was primed to move from the 19th century directly into the 21st. I remember the “cling-cling” of bicycle bells. I also remember the children. Children were everywhere. Next month, modern China will host the Summer Olympic Games. And there will surely be a moment of silence.
   
Some 25 years ago, we had a chance to question a government official and talked about the still-new one-child policy to control population. It was a controversial subject, but I had to agree with the rationale. Then, as now, China was the world’s most populous country.
   
My opinion about the one-child policy was changed in mid-May in the aftermath of China’s recent earthquake. One of the Los Angeles Times’ many stories of personal horror was about a couple, now probably too old to have children, who lost their 15-year-old – their only child, their college-bound son – to a collapsed school. As I turned in this column, some 5 million people were homeless, and as many as 50,000 were feared dead. That is the size of Rancho Santa Margarita. In the hardest-hit province of Sichuan, more than 22,000 people were dead. That is nearly the size of Laguna Beach.
   
I have often wondered, here in the States, about families that I know who have one child, and how all would seem lost if that child died. I had never carried that thought to China, where having one child  is a state policy for all parents who don’t luck out and have multiples.
   
The source of all that destruction, an earthquake, also hit home. As a product of Los Angeles and a longtime Southern California resident, I’ve lived through earthquakes dating back to 1969. They are sudden, ruthless and sometimes deadly.
   
I try to keep my household well-prepared for a disaster. The rule of thumb is to be able to live without help for five days.
In China, that simple plan today would not be enough.
   
Most often, the disasters far away leave us unblemished. It is a headline, and it is gone. I believe I will always remember that unfortunate couple and their loss, my visit ages ago and how life, as beautiful as it is, is tenuous, as well. n

Craig Reem is a contributing editor.