Fang Fang - Wuhan Diary - Dispatches from a Quarantined City

I surfed the web on my phone as I ate lunch but most of the news was more of the same items from the previous few days. Much of it is those fearmongering essays that friends keep forwarding, often the same content, just with different headlines. My phone doesn’t even have enough memory for all these stories, so I find myself deleting a lot of this content, just like the internet censors.

But there isn’t really that much that is new. The outbreak seems to be heading in a positive direction, and the virus that was once exploding seems to be showing signs that it is getting tired. Perhaps the turning point will come any day now, even though those infected early on continue to die at an alarming rate. But I have a kind of uneasy feeling inside. Those patients crying out for help may indeed be fewer than before, but there is also a lot of self-ridicule floating around out there among the Wuhan people. This has left me of two minds: On the one hand, things are finally more organized and the entire system is getting on track. As soon as a patient calls out for help, they are getting medical attention. But at the same time, the people of Wuhan are starting to grow more depressed about the overall situation.

Here in Wuhan it is hard to find anyone who isn’t experiencing some form of psychological trauma from all this. This is something that I’m afraid none of us can avoid. Whether it be those still-healthy individuals (including children) who have been stuck at home for more than 20 days, those patients who have spent time wandering the city in the cold and rain trying to find a hospital to take them in, those relatives who have been forced to watch their loved ones tied up in a body bag and shipped off to a crematorium, or those medical workers who helplessly watch as patient after patient dies while they remain unable to save them. And there are so many more traumatic stories that will continue to be a psychological burden on people for a very long time to come. Once this plague has passed, I’m afraid that Wuhan will need an army of counselors and psychologists to help the people get through the aftermath. If possible, each district should allocate psychologists to visit each and every resident for treatment. People will need a release, they will need a good cry, they will need a place to scream out their accusations, and they will need to be consoled. Shouting political slogans is not going to ease the pain that the people of Wuhan are going through.

Today I am actually feeling quite bad, and I think I really need to get some things off my chest.

Several cities have already sent aid workers to provide support to all the local Wuhan funeral homes. All those aid workers have been showing up with Chinese flags, taking pictures in front of the funeral homes, and then posting the photos all over the internet. There are quite a large number of these volunteers, and seeing their images flood social media has left me somewhat beside myself. As soon as I see those images pop up, I can feel my hair standing on end; it is so painful to see. Of course I am thankful that they have come to help, but I really want to tell them: Not all situations call for you to get all patriotic and wave your flags. Is it really necessary to intimidate us with all of that?

I think it is a great thing that the government has asked public servants to go and help those requiring the most basic needs and services. But then a friend sent me a video link to a group of these public servants carrying a bunch of Chinese flags as they marched down to serve those disenfranchised people. Usually when we take a photo in front of the Chinese national flag it is because we are visiting some famous scenic site while on vacation; it is not the kind of thing you do when you are rolling up your sleeves to volunteer in a region rampaged by disease and suffering. Once they took their pictures, they then just threw their protective gear into a trash can on the street. My friend asked, “Just what are they doing?!” How would I know? I suppose this is just how they are accustomed to operating. Everything they do starts with a good show to prove just how important they are. If going down to the underprivileged classes and helping them out was part of their daily work routine, would they need to wave those flags around? Just as I was writing the previous sentence, another video just appeared in my friend’s feed—it made me even more uncomfortable. One of the temporary hospitals received notice that a certain local political leader was about to visit the hospital, and so several dozen people lined up at the hospital entrance, including officials, medical professionals, and probably even some patients. They were all wearing face masks and went one by one singing to all the patients in their sickbeds, “There Would Be No New China Without the Communist Party!” It is a song that everyone knows, but is there really a need to bust out in full chorus like that for all these suffering patients? Have they even considered the feelings and needs of those patients? Isn’t this a contagious disease we are dealing with? Doesn’t it affect the lungs, making it difficult to breathe? And here you want them to sing?

Why has the outbreak turned so deadly here in Hubei? Why are those Hubei officials being castigated by everyone online? Why have the measures taken to control the outbreak in Hubei been repeatedly marred with errors? Each and every step along the way has been a series of blunders that have only added to the suffering of the Hubei people. And now, after all this time, do you mean to tell me that there is still not a single person in the government who is willing to reflect on any of this? The turning point we keep hearing about still has yet to arrive and our people are in pain, everyone is still trapped inside their homes, yet here they are so quick to raise up their red flags and sing patriotic songs about how great the nation is?

I also want to ask: When will those public officials go do their work without taking any more commemorative photos? When will our political leaders go on a survey trip to a hospital without expecting people to sing songs of gratitude or put on big performances for them? My people, only when you understand common sense will you be able to truly understand how to take care of practical matters. Otherwise, how can we expect the people’s suffering to ever end?

February 13, 2020

Perhaps then they will finally understand what ordinary people are going through.

I opened the window in the afternoon and noticed that the sun had come out again. I believe that today marks the Seventh Day [18] According to traditional Chinese custom, the “Seventh Day” ( tou qi ) is a rite that occurs seven days after a death. It is believed that on the Seventh Day the soul of the deceased will return home. On that day, the deceased person’s family is expected to prepare a meal for the dead and then retreat to the bedroom or somewhere out of sight, so that the wandering soul won’t run into their family members and get nostalgic, which could threaten the deceased person’s ability to be reborn. since the passing of Li Wenliang? The Seventh Day is when those who have embarked on their distant journey return one last time. When Li Wenliang’s soul in heaven comes back to this place of old one final time, I wonder what he will see.

After two quiet days with virtually no real news online, last night things suddenly came to life again. In particular, there were three rather miraculous short essays published in the Yangtze Daily newspaper that really got under the skin of a lot of readers. It seems like everyone got a new injection of energy after reading those essays. This energy comes from the fact that we are all aching for the opportunity to really let someone have it. Actually unloading all our anger on someone or something would be a productive psychological outlet for most of us. My daughter once asked her 99-year-old grandfather what his secret to a long life was. His response: “Eat a lot of fatty meat, don’t exercise, and be sure to curse out anyone who deserves it.” And so the third secret to a long life is cursing people. The people of Wuhan are all locked up at home, bored out of their minds with nothing to do—we all need a release. We can’t get together to talk because of the risk of infection; we can’t open our windows and sing together because we are afraid airborne particles of saliva can still spread the virus; we tried to wail together to mourn the loss of Dr. Li Wenliang, but it wasn’t enough; the only thing left for us to try is to start unleashing our curses on those people who caused us so much pain. What’s more, the Wuhan people have always had a special talent for putting people in their place. Once you have gotten it out of your system, your entire body feels completely refreshed; kind of like the way northerners feel after they have spent time at the bathhouse on a cold winter day. But I have to say that the views portrayed in those three essays were all right on point. So I have to express my thanks to the Yangtze Daily for giving all of us who have been pent up for so long a chance to really just unleash our screams! What’s more, after the death of Li Wenliang even newspapers as far away as Shanghai put commemorative essays about Dr. Li on the front page; and here you are, your editorial office is just steps away from Dr. Li’s hospital, and how much coverage have you devoted to Dr. Li? I suspect that there are a lot of people in Wuhan who are secretly holding a grudge, and I’m sure they will remember this. Of course, at the same time, I know that there are a lot of things we can’t criticize, but we can criticize you guys! When I woke up, the first thing I did was go online to see if the internet authorities had posted a notice stating that they had deleted the post. Guess what, there wasn’t anything! That means that the Yangtze Daily had themselves deleted those essays! Now that really leaves you with something to think about.