Well, Ningqiang County is Charles’ home town, I was born and brought up there. It is a county in Hanzhong, Shaanxi Province in Northwest China and which is located in the South of Shaanxi Province next to Guangyuan City, Sichuan Province.

I went back to NIngqiang for the last time in July 2008, about 2 months later after the terrible earthquake of Wenchuan Sichuan Province. I firstly arrived in Shaanxi’s capital city in Xi’an, and then took a bus back to Ningqiang, on the Xi’an-Hanzhong highway, I saw a lot of slogans of fighting against the earthquake on both sides of the highway, and a lot of trucks with disaster relief materials for people afflicted in this natural disaster…

It took about 4 hours from Xi’an to Ningqiang, and I finally arrived in Ningqiang, the Toll Gate in the photo is the first one in Ningqiang County. It had been two years since I left and worked in Taizhou, I didn’t know even to get off at this toll gate until the attendant told me… Yes, it’s truth, I couldn’t even recognize my own couty town, but it really changed a lot.

Some mintures later, I got to the center of Ningqiang county town, and although the earthquake had been occurred for 2 months, many people were still living in the makeshift tents because of the aftershocks…

My hotel clerk reminded me to ran out of  if aftershocks happened again during the night, I lived in this hotel for 3 days, nothing happed…