Fang Fang - Wuhan Diary - Dispatches from a Quarantined City

I can’t help but think about those aid groups who have volunteered to come to Wuhan; before they set out to leave, some local leaders delivered some speeches to send them off. The political leaders who gave speeches mostly focused on three points. The leader of one group summed them up as: “Our first task is to preserve the honor of our group, our second task is to do whatever we can to save the sick, and our third task is to protect ourselves in the process!” A different group leader put it in these terms: “Number one is to save the sick, number two is to protect ourselves, and number three is to preserve the honor of our group.” These are both political leaders and there is a perfect overlap in terms of the content; however, from the way they list their priorities you can tell a lot about the value system of these organizations.

Let me say a bit about what has been going on in my own life lately. While I usually sleep in every day, my brother tends to always be an early riser. But last night my brother was up late; he even sent me a text: “You stay up writing your diary, I stay up doing online shopping!” I wondered why he was up so late doing that. He told me that if you don’t act quickly, all those products get sold out within minutes, so you need to stay up and order as soon as items are restocked. After being stuck at home for 31 days, he has eaten almost all the food he had at home. He said that these past few days he was starting to get anxious. Since they shut down the city, people have been buying up everything at the supermarket across the street from him and you have to fight the crowds just to get your hands on anything. Those online vendors list their new stock of items for the next day at 11:30 p.m. and people instantly start snapping them up right away. My brother already filled his online shopping cart with items and was ready to hit the purchase button as soon as it was 11:30, but the system was frozen. By the time he got logged back in, everything in his cart was already sold out. He and my sister-in-law were going crazy last night. At least a few days ago he was able to order some rice, noodles, cooking oil, vegetables, and medicine, some of which have already been delivered, and a few other items he is still waiting for. I told him not to worry too much: “They’re not going to let us starve! Things aren’t that bad in China yet!” His neighborhood is the single most dangerous area for coronavirus infections; it has been listed as the area with the highest number of infections for quite a while now. He is also not in very good health so if he were to catch the coronavirus, the results could be really scary. So everyone in the family keeps insisting that he had better not take a single step outside his door. But we all know that it is really difficult being stuck in a small apartment like that for over 30 days.

I’m fortunate to have a much better setup than my brother, as I have had a bunch of colleagues and neighbors helping me out ever since this thing started. Yesterday one of my colleagues sent her husband over to bring me a few cans of chicken soup; I wasn’t expecting that at all but accepted this gift with a smile. However, there was a catch: In exchange for the chicken soup, she insisted that I send her a copy of my diary each day the second I finish each installment. For me it feels like I’m making an unfair profit! I naturally agreed to her deal. Everyone at the Writers Association has been really good to me; I’ve basically watched a lot of them grow up. This colleague is one of them. When she first joined the Writers Association, she was probably not even 20 years old; she was so cute and stubborn back then. Now in the blink of an eye, she is almost 50.

Just as I got to this point, someone posted in my classmates’ forum: “Wuhan plans to construct an additional 19 temporary hospitals.” Seeing this news reminds me of a message that Mr. Liu from the Wuhan Botanical Garden put up on Weibo. Let me copy Mr. Liu’s suggestion here: “If the novel coronavirus outbreak is not a short-term setback, an extended lockdown in Wuhan will affect the economic national recovery; moreover, the impact of a long-term quarantine will also have a severe psychological impact on the citizens. Instead I would like to propose a ‘River Isle Quarantine Model.’ This is what it would look like: By utilizing the islet areas of Baishazhou, Tianxingzhou, and all those decommissioned passenger ships, we could house 10,000 patients there. Besides this, Tianxingzhou is roughly 22 square kilometers, which is actually two square meters larger than Macau. Macau has a population of 600,000 people. Based on this, it should be no problem to build a massive hospital in Tianxingzhou that could accommodate 150,000 patients. And then there is still Baishazhou and those decommissioned passenger ships. If we can move all the patients in Wuhan to these sites on the river, we will be able to keep the virus off the mainland. Then we can gradually, one at a time, start lifting the quarantines in Wuhan, Wuchang, Hankou, and Hanyang. If people are afraid it will take too long to construct a large hospital, we can start with 100,000 medical tents where patients can be treated. In short, a long-term quarantine is not a long-term solution; the nation won’t be able to handle that, nor will the people.”

I find Mr. Liu’s suggestion to be quite bold and interesting. However, there would still be a lot of issues that would need to be resolved, such as how to deal with all the sewage waste produced there, and I’m afraid that it would be too cold for patients to live in medical tents during this time of year. I’m not an expert in these matters, but perhaps various specialists will have ways of getting around these problems?

People are now starting to discuss more about the timeline for economic recovery, even more than the outbreak itself. A lot of industries are on the verge of collapse and countless individuals who are just hanging on without any source of income are facing the question of how they are going to get by if this continues. All these issues have a direct bearing on our social stability. As we quarantined our sick, we have also locked up the healthy. As more time goes by, the damage this causes begins to multiply. I’ve already begun to hear a lot of people make the appeal that healthy people need to get on with their lives, too.

But I don’t have any answers; all I do is record things as I see them.

February 22, 2020

The spread is so difficult to contain, which is indeed a challenge.

The weather remains clear and warm, yet here I am, lying in bed looking at my phone.

The first thing I encountered online was an audio recording of a woman from Wuhan criticizing her district. She went on and on in her crisp and sharp Wuhan dialect. She didn’t use many profanities, but she littered her speech with all kinds of idioms, which made a lot of people laugh and want to follow her online. Listening to her speak also gave me quite a kick. I’m only all too familiar with that accent of hers; she must be from the area around 27th Street in Jiang’an District, where I spent several years when I was a teenager. It isn’t really the most typical Wuhan dialect; it is a bit off when you compare it to the standard Wuhan dialect spoken in downtown Hankou. But she still speaks it better than me. Several friends all sent me links to this recording today. I asked them if they really understood Wuhan women; she rarely used any profanities, and what she said actually made a lot of sense; I guess you could consider the way she spoke an elegant way to curse someone.

Beautiful weather paired with some good old-fashioned elegant Wuhan cursing really put me in a good mood and helped get this day started off right.

One month into the quarantine and today I did another interview with Xia Chunping, Assistant Editor from China News Agency. We did the interview portion online and then in the afternoon he and his crew came over to take some photos, at which time we chatted a bit more. The guards on duty at the front gate were quite meticulous about following all the rules when Xia arrived. Although Xia Chunping and his crew all had proper press credentials, the guards still made them all officially register and took everyone’s temperature before letting them in. I joked and said it was a good thing they didn’t just show up unannounced. During his visit Xia Chunping not only brought me some additional face masks, he also brought over some milk and yogurt. When I got back to my apartment I also discovered that he had also snuck a box of chocolates into the bag! When I saw the chocolates I immediately called my colleague and told him to pick them up for his daughter next time he was around. Whenever people give me chocolate I usually pass it on to my colleague’s daughter. One day when I saw that little girl she said: “Grandma Fang Fang, you are like a real-life Lei Feng!” After I heard that, I was even more eager to give her chocolate; after all, now I had a theoretical foundation for my actions!