Fang Fang - Wuhan Diary - Dispatches from a Quarantined City

While I’m writing, I’d like to say a little bit about Mayor Zhou Xianwang’s hat. For the past two days everyone online has been roasting him alive over his hat. [2] Chinese Premier Li Keqiang visited Wuhan on January 27, 2020, to inspect the situation on the ground. During his visit, the Wuhan mayor, Zhou Xianwang, nimbly removed his cap and smoothly handed it off to one of his assistants just moments before the premier spoke in public. Videos of what was described as Mayor Zhou’s “disappearing hat performance” went viral on the Chinese internet. During ordinary times I may have also gotten a good laugh out of this, but right now Mayor Zhou has been running all over the city, trying to lead an army of Wuhan city officials in the fight against this outbreak; you can see the exhaustion and anxiety written all over his face. I suspect that he may have even realized what will probably befall him once this thing has settled down. In times like this, people usually face a mixture of guilt, self-blame, uneasiness, and a sense that they should have done more, even though now it is all too late—I’m sure that Mayor Zhou is experiencing all these complex feelings. But he is, after all, still the man running our municipal government; he needs to pull himself together and focus on the pressing tasks ahead that we are going to have to face. He is, after all, just an ordinary person. I have heard people say that Mayor Zhou is a disciplined and pragmatic man; people usually have a very good impression of him. He started out in western Hubei and worked his way up the bureaucratic ladder, one step at a time. He has probably never encountered anything on this scale in his entire life. All this makes me think that we should perhaps look at this “hat incident” from a more sympathetic perspective. Perhaps it is something as simple as his wanting to wear a hat because it was so cold outside, but when he saw that the premier wasn’t wearing a hat he got nervous. After all, he is younger than Premier Li Keqiang and maybe he thought that if he wore a hat but the premier wasn’t wearing one, it might be interpreted as impolite? Perhaps that is why he suddenly took off his hat and handed it to his assistant. Perhaps it is better if we just look at it from this perspective?

Anyway, that’s all I have to record for today.

January 29, 2020

Taking care of oneself is one way to contribute to the effort.

I decided to just let everything go and slept all the way up until noon today. (It is actually not uncommon for me to sleep in like that, but in normal times I would blame myself for being so lazy. These days, however, everyone in Wuhan is saying: “On those sunny days when we till the crops, It’s hard to get a good night’s rest! We sleep all morning; we sleep all afternoon.” [3] This is a reference to a comic coronavirus song that became an online hit in China during the early outbreak. The full lyrics read: “On those sunny days when we till the crops, It’s hard to get a good night’s rest! We sleep all morning; We sleep all afternoon; We sleep today, we sleep tomorrow; and the day after tomorrow too; We sleep for our country and our family; carrying on with the cause no matter how difficult it may be; I’d rather sit home and gain weight, than go anywhere outside; Putting on some pounds is a luxury, going out leads to disaster; I beg you to follow the rules, and take care of yourself; Staying in bed every day is our pride, and it helps the nation save on face masks.” When people are all sleeping in like that, it is hard not to just let things go!)

I was still lying in bed flicking through messages on my phone when I saw a text one of my doctor friends sent me: “Take care of yourself and, no matter what, don’t go out! Don’t go out! Don’t go out!” I felt a bit jittery as soon as I saw the way he repeatedly emphasized the phrase “Don’t go out!” I figured this must mean that the outbreak is hitting its peak. I quickly called my daughter, who was about to go out to the local neighborhood supermarket to pick up a few boxed lunches. I told her not to go. Even if the only thing you have left to eat at home is plain white rice, don’t go out. Back on the first day of the Lunar New Year, when I first heard that the downtown district was shutting down the traffic, I immediately went over and brought her enough supplies to get her through at least 10 days. I suspect she was just too lazy to cook and that is why she wanted to go out. A good thing my daughter has a good fear of death ingrained in her! The second she heard what I had to say, she agreed to stay at home. She called me back a bit later to ask how to cook cabbage (can you believe that she actually put a head of cabbage in the freezer?). I don’t think my daughter has ever cooked a proper meal in her apartment. Usually she finds a way to get herself invited to other people’s houses for dinner, or just orders takeout. Perhaps this was a good way to get her to finally start using her kitchen. But I’m not sure if my daughter’s finally forcing herself to learn how to cook should be considered the silver lining in this situation. Compared to her, I’ve got it much easier. One of my neighbors just brought over a plate of steaming hot buns for me. We were both wearing face masks when she dropped the buns off; although it’s risky, I decided to just brave up and dig in.

The sun is glorious today. The most comfortable weather during the Wuhan winter is when the sun beams down like this, so soft and warm. If not for the coronavirus, I’m sure that the streets around my apartment would be jammed with traffic right now. That’s because East River Garden Lane, one of the Wuhan locals’ favorite destinations, is right around the corner. But these days East River Garden Lane is completely deserted. Two days ago my old classmate Old Dao went out there for a jog. He said that he was the only person out there. If you want to figure out where the safest place in the city is, I suspect that East River Garden Lane might be it.

For those of us here in Wuhan who are quarantined at home, most of us are fairly at ease—that is, as long as no one in our family is sick. But those patients and their families are really having a rough time. Right now it is extremely difficult to get a bed at any hospital, and many people are still suffering. The construction site for Huoshenshan Hospital [4] Huoshenshan Hospital, literally “Fire God Mountain Hospital,” is an emergency hospital facility constructed in Wuhan between January 23 and February 2, 2020. The speedy construction was carried out to accommodate the rapidly rising cases of novel coronavirus in Wuhan. The construction of the hospital was live-streamed nationwide and served as a symbol of China’s aggressive response to fight the coronavirus outbreak. The hospital is run under the management of the People’s Liberation Army and staffed by 1,400 PLA medical personnel. The hospital was modeled after the Xiaotangshan Hospital, which was constructed in Beijing to deal with the SARS outbreak in 2003. is really kicking into high gear, but, as the old saying goes, distant water can’t put out a nearby fire. Those patients without a place to go are the greatest victims of this tragedy. So many families have been torn apart by this. But a lot of media outlets have been reporting on these stories. Freelance journalists have been even more active in covering this topic, many of them quietly documenting what has been happening from the very beginning. All we can do is record what is happening. This morning I read an essay about a family whose mother just died from the coronavirus on the first day of the Lunar New Year and both the father and the elder brother were infected. Reading that essay really tore me up, and this was basically a middle-class family. But what are all those lower-income people supposed to do? What will their lives be like? A few days ago, I actually saw some video clips of exhausted medical workers and patients collapsing, and I can tell you that I don’t think I have ever seen that kind of helpless sadness in my entire life. Professor Liu Chuan’e from Hubei University said that he feels like crying every day. Don’t we all?! I’ve been telling my friends that what we are seeing today allows one to clearly appreciate the true gravity of this human calamity. After pondering things, I really feel that there is no way to forgive those irresponsible workers; they should all pay a price for their incompetence. But for now all we can do is put all our efforts into this fight to get us through these hard times.