Fang Fang - Wuhan Diary - Dispatches from a Quarantined City

Today one of my doctor friends called and we spoke for a very long time; he probably had a lot of bottled-up things he needed to get off his chest. He talked about how difficult it was for medical professionals early on when the outbreak first began. He talked about the incredible amount of energy that goes into saving even a single patient. After engaging in lifesaving intervention with a seriously ill patient, the biosuits worn by doctors and nurses will be covered with dangerous germs and need to be taken off immediately. But early on during the outbreak, when they were short of staff and supplies, they had no choice but to watch helplessly as patients died right before their eyes, yet there was nothing they could do. People dying in hospitals is a common thing, but seeing a patient who is clearly capable of being saved and yet you are unable to do anything because you are so utterly exhausted so you simply no longer have the strength to save another person or because you have run out of all the necessary medical supplies—now, that is something different. “You’ll never be able to understand what that feels like,” he said. “Doctors usually stay focused on their own area of specialization, but this time we all just put everything out there and worked together to save these people.” I completely get what he was trying to express to me. During this outbreak we all saw images of doctors sacrificing everything to save these patients. Some of them even went online to scream about how terrible the situation was. It was those cries that finally exposed a lot of the problems and started to allow for donated medical supplies to start getting funneled directly into the hospitals that needed them most. A lot of peoples’ lives were saved by those doctors’ public cries for help—it was only because they spoke out that some of those patients were able to survive. My friend said that the temporary hospitals were constructed very well. If they had been built even sooner and more patients had been quickly quarantined, they would have been able to reduce the number of mild cases that later turned critical; that would have also saved a lot of lives. I suppose that a professional like him must know what he is talking about. It was precisely the quarantine policy that was able to put a halt to the rapid spread of the disease that we had been seeing. But now the people of Wuhan are much calmer than before. We are all starting to shop for food and get back to our lives a bit, but still we patiently await a true turning point.

A few days ago I wrote about a nurse named Liu Fan and her family who died from the coronavirus. (My apologies, I initially wrote her name with the wrong Chinese character. When the news was first breaking there was some confusion about her name and I went with the version provided by a doctor I know.) Well, it now seems that someone else online is claiming that story was nothing more than a “fabricated rumor”! What can I say? Sometimes those people who appear to be the defenders of truth online turn out to be the greatest fabricators of them all! Chang Kai, the film director from the Hubei Film Studio who died, was actually Liu Fan’s little brother. I believe this already has been reported in the media. Chang Kai’s last will and testament is an extremely reserved document. But I guarantee you that there is no one out there who can read it without feeling his deep pain. My doctor friend told me that the two siblings each assumed the surname of one of their parents—that’s why one had the last name Liu and the other Chang. Their parents both worked in the medical field. Members of each of their families also seem to have been infected by the coronavirus, but so far they all seem to be doing okay. The people of Wuhan will never forget the tragedy that befell this family. I wonder after writing all this whether or not those people who are always attacking me online will start accusing me of spreading rumors? Actually, these people who have been attacking me are the same group of people who criticized my novel A Soft Burial [26] A Soft Burial ( Ruan mai ) is a novel by Fang Fang published in 2017. It explores the decades-long trauma and pain of the Land Reform Movement on a family, using amnesia as a metaphor for the loss of historical memory. The novel was subject to vicious attacks by ultra-leftist groups in China and was subsequently banned. a few years ago. I wonder if they will seek out some high-ranking officials to provide them with protection like they did a few years back. Whether they do or not, I’ll first make it clear right here: If they come after me I’ll be here to fight back, just like I did before. I’ll also make sure that their names are dragged through the mud, just like that earlier group who came after me.

Today there is something I want to get off my chest that has been weighing on me for a long time: Those ultra-leftists [27] In China the term “ultra-leftists” refers to political groups with strong nationalist views and ties to the leftist movement of the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). They represent the more conservative faction of the Chinese Communist Party and are often critical of capitalism and the West. in China are responsible for causing irreparable harm to the nation and the people. All they want to do is return to the good old days of the Cultural Revolution and reverse all the Reform Era policies. Anyone with an opinion that differs from their own is regarded as their enemy. They behave like a pack of thugs, attacking anyone who fails to cooperate with them, launching wave after wave of attacks. They spray the world with their violent, hate-filled language and often resort to even more despicable tactics, so base that it almost defies understanding. But what I really just don’t understand is: How is it that they are able to publish these ridiculous things online and repeatedly turn the truth upside down, yet their posts somehow never get censored or deleted and no one ever stops their flagrant actions? Maybe they have relatives working in the internet censorship office?

These past few days I have been utterly exhausted and have a bad headache. A reader named TA left a message on one of my WeChat posts yesterday, saying that she could sense my exhaustion from my writing. TA’s intuition is really spot-on. I need to start reducing the amount of time I spend writing and take more time to get adequate rest. I’ll stop here for today.

But in closing, I wanted to respond to Huanggang XYM’s post by saying: Here in this quarantined city the people are anxious, amid the outbreak the people weep. We are all facing similar difficulties, why do we need to push one another?

February 19, 2020

The specter of death continues to haunt the city of Wuhan.

It isn’t as sunny as yesterday, but the sky is still quite bright. It started to turn a bit overcast by the afternoon, but it isn’t too cold. According to the weather forecast, the next few days will be relatively warm.

Before I even got out of bed I received a phone call from my painter friend in New York who just donated 100,000 yuan a few days ago (I certainly hope no one accuses him of “colluding with the enemy” since he is living in the US!). He told me that another Chinese painter living in Germany with the surname of Su also committed to donating 100,000! He told me that this painter from Germany said that he knows me and had actually visited my apartment once! “These past few days he has been reading your Wuhan Diary , and his wife decided that they should do something for the people of Wuhan,” he told me. Since they have faith in my friend’s philanthropic plans, they decided to toss money his way. My friend had been quite anxious about raising enough money for a shipment of medical supplies that was about to arrive and was ecstatic when he heard this news. This Su family also originally hails from Wuhan and they have been extremely concerned about the situation here. For a lot of people originally from Wuhan, no matter how far they wander and no matter how long they have been away, Wuhan will always be their spiritual home. Special thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Su.