Fang Fang - Wuhan Diary - Dispatches from a Quarantined City

I realized that this was precisely why we were all so angry about the death of Li Wenliang. After all, he was the first to speak out, even if all he did was warn his own friends, but by doing that he revealed the truth. But after he spoke out, Dr. Li Wenliang was punished, forced to sign a confession, and later he sacrificed his life—no one ever apologized to him before his death. When that is the result of speaking out, moving forward, how can we expect anyone else to speak the truth? People like to say “silence is golden” as a way of showing how deep and profound you are. But what was the cost of silence in this case? Will we again be in a place where we need someone to speak out, but all we hear is silence?

Everything in the city of Wuhan is still quite orderly. But, compared with a few days ago, the optimistic people of Wuhan seem to be a bit more stifled and depressed. Everyone has been locked up in their tiny, cramped apartments for too long. Sure, everyone has the boundless resources of the World Wide Web to explore, but you can only surf the internet for so long before you get bored of that, too. Besides that, everyone is facing their own set of problems in life. Take my two brothers for instance: They both suffer from diabetes and their doctors want them to get in enough walking each day. My older brother used to keep track of his steps on his phone and would often walk more than 10,000 steps a day. My other brother was even more strict, and he would go on two walks a day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. But now it has been 16 days since either of them has been able to even leave their apartments. Even me, I have some medication that I’m supposed to take daily. For the last few days I have been just taking one pill every other day because I am running out. Now I only have one pill left for tomorrow. Should I make a trip to the hospital to get more? I hesitate about that.

I just saw a video of a group of Wuhan citizens driving a motorcade of eight cars as final send-off for Dr. Li Wenliang. Each car has a Chinese character on it and each character represents one of the eight whistleblowers who were disciplined for speaking out. People’s eyes are overflowing with tears and many are so choked up that they can barely speak. Not everyone is a tough guy and not everyone is able to remain completely calm and logical all the time. I’m afraid that during the days to come the people of Wuhan will be facing a lot of mental health issues that will require professional support. The witty black humor we all enjoy reading online can only go so far in distracting us, and it certainly cannot solve the devastating problems to come.

February 8, 2020

The war against this plague continues. We are still holding on.

Today marks the Lantern Festival, the fifteenth day of the Lunar New Year. Originally I thought that we would have reached a turning point by now, but it is now obvious that this is not the case. The war against this plague continues. We are still holding on. Even though I am locked down at home, I continue to write and record what I am seeing. Even though each one of my posts ends up getting deleted by the censors shortly after being posted, I continue to write. A lot of my friends have been calling to encourage me to keep going; they all support what I am doing. I also have some friends who are worried that things will get difficult for me, but I think everything will be fine. I even joked with my friends by telling them that even in the old days those underground Communist workers somehow managed to sneak their intelligence reports out from behind enemy lines; now that we are in the age of the internet, how hard can it be to get an essay posted online? Moreover, our enemy this time is a virus. I always stand on the same side as my government, cooperating with all official actions, helping the government in convincing people who are not quite on board with various policies, and aiding the government by consoling all those anxious citizens. The only difference is that I use an alternative method and, occasionally, over the course of writing, I also reveal some of my personal thoughts on various issues; but that is really the only difference.

It should be stated that the overall situation has greatly improved from before. Both the community leaders and people in charge at the cultural unit I work with have been very thorough. Yesterday someone from the local government office called to ask some basic questions like whether or not I had a fever and how many people were here living with me. I patiently answered all their questions. Today Xiao Li from the office at the Hubei Writers Association called to check on how I was doing and whether or not I was sick. One of my colleagues heard that I had run out of medicine and volunteered to refill my prescription for me. But today I received the sad news from my brother that one of the best professors on his campus passed away because of the coronavirus; he was only 53 years old. It is such a shame. The university president, Li Peigen, sent me a text saying that the deceased was a diligent professor who often worked so late that he would just sleep in his office sometimes—a true honest and hardworking “scholar-type.” I send my condolences and hope he rests in peace.

The sky is much brighter than yesterday, and in the afternoon I finally mustered up enough courage to make a trip to the hospital. If you suffer from diabetes, it is always best not to interrupt your treatment regimen. The endocrinology department was not open but a doctor there helped me get the medicine I needed from the pharmacy. There were many fewer people in the hospital than normal, and I had never seen the parking lot there so empty. There was a big delivery truck parked outside the entrance to Building 4 that was unloading supplies donated from other provinces. There were a lot of people helping unload the supplies, and I couldn’t really distinguish the physicians from the workers. The nurses in the lobby were all lined up waiting for the elevator, and they were all pushing medical carts filled with fruit and snacks, which also looked like donations from other provinces. I suspect that they were bringing these items to the patients upstairs. I didn’t see many patients wandering the halls of the hospital; mostly it was just medical professionals who were bustling around. I asked someone about the situation there, and the answer I got was that everyone at the hospital was busy fighting the war on this virus. I suppose that is indeed the only important thing facing us right now.

Outside in the streets everything was just as orderly as always. There were still some cars and pedestrians, but many fewer than normal. I took some time to take everything in and realized that most of the people I saw fell into three categories: The first were food delivery boys; most of them were weaving through the streets on mopeds. The second group were policemen; the majority of them were stationed at various intersections, and there were a few standing at the hospital entrance. It was freezing outside so I can’t imagine how hard it must be for them to just stand there all day long. Those cops working the beat really have it tough; they have to face all kinds of different people and carry out their required tasks. I even heard about a patient so sick that she couldn’t walk down the stairs at the hospital, so a policeman carried her down on his back. When they got downstairs the patient was already dead and the police officer broke down in tears. The third group of people I noticed were the sanitation workers; they are really something else. Since there aren’t too many pedestrians outside, there isn’t much garbage in the streets, besides some leaves on the ground, but those sanitation workers still carry out their jobs sweeping the streets with such zest in order to keep the city clean. From the moment the coronavirus outbreak began all the way up until now, I have noticed their consistently calm attitude. They are the group that always gets overlooked as they quietly carry out their jobs, but somehow they are always there to set the heart of this city at ease.