On WeChat, father calms daughter after tremor

A father in Sichuan province has shared with China Daily the touching conversation he had with his scared 5-year-old daughter over WeChat moments after Saturday's earthquake.

Qu Mingquan, general manager of Space Coordinates, an IT company, was in Nanchong when he heard about the tremblor.

Minutes later, he received a voice message on WeChat - Tencent's smartphone app, marketed as Weixin in China - from his daughter, Qu Ruihan, who was in Chengdu, the provincial capital. She was using her mother's cellphone.

"Did you feel the earthquake, Daddy? Are you scared?" she wrote.

Qu Mingquan said he first thought about giving her some emergency instructions, but changed his mind. Instead he decided to reply in a softer way to allay his daughter's fears.

"I'm not scared. It's just a shake," he said.

When she asked when he would return home, Qu wrote: "What are you doing now? Why not go out to play for a while? "

"I am still in bed," she replied.

He eventually convinced her to go downstairs and play, making sure it was easier for her to escape in the event of any aftershocks.

"I didn't want to give my daughter bad memories," Qu explained. "Self-protection is important, but learning how to face an earthquake is more important."

Contact the writer at houliqiang@chinadaily.com