Search China Travel News:

Adriano Madaro, a researcher on China issues and an Italian journalist, arrived in Beijing from Venice on May 24 despite SARS warnings. He gave interviews to reporters, including our staff reporter LIU LI, Monday and talked about his experiences in the capital. Before I came to Beijing, the western media had devoted a lot of attention to the SARS situation in China and especially in Beijing, with mostly negative things to say. I did not know the real situation in Beijing at that time exactly. However, based on my experience from the 114 trips I have made to China since 1976, I was confident the Chinese Government and its people could win the fight against SARS even though there remains no effective medicine and vaccine. I appeared on local television in four talk shows while still in Italy and talked about the reasons why I was not greatly worried about the epidemic condition in China. "Thousands of SARS cases occur among more than 1 billion people in China. If you use your brain, you will find it is a small thing," I said during one of these talk shows. Meanwhile, I learned from western media that some foreign companies had began to adjust their investment plans in China due to fears about SARS. While accepting that SARS was dangerous, I did not view it as a reason to cut relations with the country. Finally I decided to come to China at my own expense in late May in spite of the World Health Organization travel advisory against Beijing. As a journalist I must be where the big events happen. But I did not have many choices of flights from Frankfurt to Beijing as Lufthansa had reduced its schedule because of the reduction in the number of passengers due to SARS. There were only 12 people on the plane here! When I arrived in Beijing, I saw few passengers there and staff all wore face masks. Over the following days, I went everywhere - parks, bookstores, even dinner at a Hunan restaurant. I only did not use the subway as I was afraid it was not ventilated with fresh air. What I saw in the city was quite different from western media reports. I'd been informed that Beijing was like a "dead city after an atom bomb" as people did not dare to go out. But I saw many people in supermarkets, department stores and bookstores in Beijing, although they were not as crowded as before. And I went to the Temple of Heaven, Drum Tower and the Forbidden City. My experiences proved that western media reports of parks being closed were nonsense. And Beijing appeared to return to normal again last weekend. More people went to department stores and dining halls. Traffic congestion was back too. Beijingers seem more relaxed and confident in defeating the disease than I expected. My experiences in Beijing allowed me to reflect on news management. Many Italian agencies only receive information on China from news organizations in the United States and other western countries. So China should strengthen her ability to provide credible information to convince people and the international press of the impending victory against the disease.