By Koh Hui Theng

IT HAS been a topsy-turvy year for 18-year-old Liu Qinghua.

Before May 12, the lanky Chinese student was a typical youth mugging for exams and surfing the Net. Thinking about the future was not a top priority.

Then on that fateful afternoon, an 8.2-magnitude earthquake struck his Beichuan home in Sichuan province. It flattened his school, Beichuan Secondary, and killed 788 schoolmates. It also left him an orphan.

Six months later, things are looking up for him: He won a scholarship to study in Singapore.

Talking to my paper last Thursday, Qinghua said animatedly in Mandarin: "I was thrilled to board a plane for the first time."

Together with two schoolmates - Zhang Nixi and Xi Zhenpeng, both 20 - and another student from Wuhan, Wei Zhen, 29 - they are starting a new chapter in their lives.

All had topped their local cohorts and will study at Singapore's Nanyang Institute of Management (NIM).

Qinghua is pursuing a diploma in hospitality and tourism management at the private school. The rest are on three-year degree courses.

During an interview at NIM's Shenton Way premises, he calmly recounted the day the quake struck. At 2.28pm, while attending a physical-education class, he saw the basketball net shake violently.

Sensing something was awry, his teacher alerted the 58 students to run to an open field.

Once they reached safety, the group looked back and saw utter devastation. Qinghua described the scene: "Our school building caved in. Dust flew everywhere."

He immediately thought of his mother and kept his fingers crossed.

The 42-year-old was in Mianyang city, where she was running her vegetable wholesale business.

Turning solemn, he recalled: "At first, I thought my Mum was all right. But five days passed without any news from her. That's when I knew she had died."

Till today, her body has not been found.

He was left facing the harsh truth: She was among the eventual 68,000 victims who had died. He and his 22-year-old sister, a factory worker, lost their 46-year-old father to liver illness last year.

Luckily, his relatives took him in, and he had been living with his paternal grandmother and aunt before he came to Singapore.

Asked how he has been coping, Qinghua said stoically: "I can't change what has happened. So I try not to think about it so much."

To this end, he and his schoolmates, Nixi and Zhenpeng, devoted time and energy to searching for survivors and distributing food to those displaced by the disaster.

Still, he admitted, his voice softening: "It feels very lonely now, not having my Mum by my side."

But he vowed: "I will learn as much as I can here, so I can return to Beichuan and help develop my hometown."

For more my paper stories click here.