Asia was hit by two deadly natural disasters early this year: Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar on May 2, 2008, and 10 days later, the Sichuan earthquake in China. The earthquake that measured 7.9 on the Richter scale shook much of the southwestern province and took almost 70,000 lives.

I was in Beijing when the earthquake happened. My friends who were also photographers heard about the news and flew to Chengdu, the provincial capital of Sichuan. I followed suit soon after. At that time, the whole area was so chaotic it was very difficult to access some of the hard-hit areas such as Wenchuan and Beichuan; all the roads had been destroyed and the police and military blocked access for security reasons. Some of the photographers took three full days to reach Beichuan from Chengdu either by foot or bicycles. Cracked buildings stood unstably and desperate family members cried for the people who were still trapped inside. Villagers were hauled by military boats and rocks were falling down from the mountains as the military advanced into Beichuan City. I could not stay in Sichuan too long because my visa was expiring.

Four months later, I was back in Beijing again during the Olympic games. After the Olympics I read a news article about orphaned children in Sichuan province waiting for adoption. That article reminded me of the Sichuan earthquake I covered before and wondered what had happened after all these months. What would have happened to displaced people after that? How were the rebuilding efforts being carried out? How about children who lost their parents? I decided to revisit the province again.

When I arrived in Chengdu again I felt like people in Sichuan had gone back to their normalcy. Chengdu had not been affected too much from the earthquake. I wanted to know if I could go to Beichuan this time since I could not make it the last time. Surprisingly, there were buses leaving for Beichuan from Mianyang Bus Terminal once every eight minutes (since Chinese like the number "8"), and even with dozens of stops it only took two hours to reach Beichuan! The highways had been repaired and people were commuting between the two cities. I even traveled to Beichuan twice a day. It was amazing.

Along the highway from Mianyang and Beichuan, there were new refugee camps with modern temporary houses lined up. Inside the camps there were police stations, playgrounds, schools and sometimes hospitals. Refugees were able to use communal bathrooms, showers, kitchens and laundry room. Thousands of them found their new homes inside the camps. Some camps had local markets and Internet connections.

I looked in different refugee camps for the orphans who had lost their parents. In an earlier news report, there had been almost 532 children who lost their parents in the quake and 88 children were waiting to be adopted. It was difficult to find the locations of the 88 children since they were all dispersed throughout the province. I went to the camps directly and looked for them.

Fortunately, I managed to find at least five orphans in different camps. They were all taken care of by relatives and grandparents. Those relatives were not willing to give their nephews and nieces into adoption since they were able to care for them, but for one family, in particular, this was more difficult: a widowed grandfather who had taken in two orphaned grandchildren – brother and sister – had trouble raising them inside the camp on his own. The children were 11-year-old Wang Xi and 5-year-old Wang Hai Yi.

The Wang family's story was broadcast widely in China and there had been patrons who were willing to give the children monthly stipends in addition to the government aid and one patron will take Wang Hai Yi to Beijing to help continue her education.

Although there were still damaged buildings in Sichuan province, the old city of Beichuan itself was quite untouched since the quake. The earthquake sites were rebuilding rapidly and people who were affected by it were struggling to go on with their lives. Most of all, it was great seeing the orphans living with other family members despite the horrible situations they had to go through.