Fang Fang - Wuhan Diary - Dispatches from a Quarantined City

A neighbor had told me a while back that there were many members from those senior choirs who had been infected. That’s because during the New Year and throughout the Lunar New Year they tend to have a large number of events and concerts they participate in; and they are all in an age group that makes them particularly vulnerable to infection. Mr. Li’s essay included photos of both Bao Jie and Su Huajian; although they were both retired, they looked quite youthful and full of spirit. If they had been warned about the virus, would they have still participated in all those events? Would they have still attended that concert luncheon? Given their lifestyles and the fact that they both had active hobbies, I’m sure that these two men in their 60s could have easily lived another 20-plus years. “Not Contagious Between People; It’s Controllable and Preventable.” I wonder how many people were driven to their death by those words. When I think about that, I ask myself: For those of us still alive, even if it means disturbing our comfortable lives, how can we not fight for justice for those wronged souls? Holding people accountable is something we must do!

For the past few days, the coronavirus situation has continued to improve. The number of new confirmed cases in Wuhan has continued to stay down in the single digits for several days now. As the number of patients decreases, people’s desire to go outside and return to work has been growing stronger. These days more people are discussing getting back to work than discussing the coronavirus. There are a lot of families and companies that can no longer take this quarantine anymore. It has been way too long and people are way too depressed; at this point the government should consider adopting a more flexible policy. The good news is that things are improving for some locations; today I saw that there are a few districts that have gotten down to zero new cases that are starting to bus people out so they can start working again. And starting tomorrow some of Wuhan’s public transportation will officially begin service for the employees of certain industries that will be resuming operation. This is all excellent news. If we don’t open up the city and get back to work soon, it won’t be a question of economic collapse that we will have to worry about, it will be the more fundamental question of making sure that people are able to eat!

Let me say a little bit about some of the things I have been facing these past two days.

I have always liked Weibo as a platform, so ever since my account was unblocked, I have been posting my diary entries on Weibo each day. However, starting a few days ago there was suddenly a flood of thousands of users who started to attack me online. These trolls have been deployed in mass numbers, and their posts are ridiculous and offensive. I’ve gone from thinking the whole thing was just preposterous to a state of anger and, now, I’m just left numb by the whole thing. Part of the reason is that I have discovered from their posts that the vast majority of them have never even read my diary. All they have heard are a few quotes taken out of context and then framed with a particularly malicious analysis; and that is what they are attacking me on. They curse me just for the sake of it; for them it is like a game. Of course, there are a few who try to package their attacks with arguments that appear more logical; however, those arguments are all rooted in fabricated rumors that they have accepted as truth. They try to argue for truth based on the logic of rumors and lies; how can you reason with someone like that? At first I blacklisted a lot of the users who posted stupid, outrageous messages filled with profanities. But later this afternoon I suddenly had a second thought: Maybe it’s not a bad idea to leave their ridiculous attacks and comments online for all to see.

It is pretty easy to figure out who these people attacking me are; you can view their profile photos, you can see what they have in common, which online clubs and groups they are members of, whom they follow, whose posts they typically forward, and which ones interact with each other. It is actually quite similar to investigating the origin of a virus; you start with where the outbreak began; when did they all begin to post their attacks, who has been instigating them, organizing them, and egging them on behind the scenes? You can also tell whom they have attacked in the past, whom they support, whose direction they seem to follow, where the language they use comes from and whose language it resembles; you can even see how the language they use when they attack people has changed over time, and other things like that. You can learn a lot about this group just by observing them online. You can even reach back as far as seven or eight years ago and find postings calling on students to upload messages advocating “positive energy.” You can even discover the list of names of people recommended to be their advisors. I remember once asking the head of a certain government ministry, “How could you let people like that advise students? Some of these people are thugs!” A shame that they didn’t listen to me back then. But now those people who were once called on to display their “positive energy” online have now been turned into these people who attack me today. A lot of these people would seem decent if you ran into them on the street, but once they log onto the internet their malicious dark side all comes out.

A good thing, then, that the internet has a memory, and that memory lasts a long time. And so I think I should preserve the message thread on my Weibo account as an observation point—a living record of this era to preserve for the future. Preserved in the memory of every era are beautiful and moving things right there alongside those painful and sad things. But what usually leaves the deepest impression is always shame. It is particularly important to preserve those shameful acts of this age, as well. This flood of collective curses and insults serves as a record of the most humiliating and shameful documents of this era. When people in the future one day look back and read these comments posted in 2020, they will see that, as a virus was spreading in Wuhan, another virus was infecting people’s language online and spreading all over my Weibo message board. The spread of the coronavirus led to the unprecedented quarantine of millions of people within this city, while the virus infecting my Weibo account clearly unveiled the true shame of this era.

As a victim quarantined here in this virus zone, I record snapshots of my life and reflections. Most diaries are never preserved, but these thousands of collective curses and attacks will ensure that my diary will last forever.

March 16, 2020

To borrow three words from the great Song poet Lu You: Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Another overcast day, but the blooming spring displays itself in an array of color and forms. Those colors are able to cut through the gloom and relieve some of our depression and sadness. My neighbor out in Jiangxia, Tang Xiaohe, sent another photo from the front porch of my apartment there; my winter jasmines are now in bloom, displaying a glorious yellow, while the Chinese flowering crabapples, which had bloomed earlier, are now starting to shed their petals, which are now all over the ground. That blanket of petals on the ground creates a picturesque scene against the green hanging leaves of the winter jasmine. Tang Xiaohe’s ruby orchids are always gorgeous this time of year; they are so rich and vibrant that even when you pass by on the street the tapestry of crimson flowers can brighten up even the most depressing of days.

In terms of the coronavirus outbreak, there is no big change today from the previous few days. It just feels a bit like we are stuck in this period when everything is operating at a low level, but is not yet back to normal. There are now only a small handful of new coronavirus patients, while there still remain 3,000 seriously ill patients who continue to struggle for their lives. All the temporary hospitals have now been shuttered. Although today some controversial discussions started popping up online, claiming that closing down those temporary hospitals was actually a “political move,” many of the patients hadn’t yet really recovered. But if I remember correctly, even a few days ago I mentioned that there were now more beds available at the regular hospitals, so patients from the temporary hospitals who have not fully recovered could be transferred there for further treatment. Those who have recovered can be transferred to hotels for an additional 14 days of quarantine before returning home. But I’m still not sure if those accounts I read online are merely unsubstantiated rumors, so I decided to ask one of my doctor friends what he thought. He response was quite direct: “That is certainly just a rumor! There would be no reason to shut them down for political reasons, and it is utterly impossible that they would! Right now, the only political angle here is to completely control the spread of the coronavirus; we want to completely eradicate this virus, and do our utmost to treat those infected patients. There would be no political pressure to close those hospitals earlier than needed. When you are dealing with an infectious disease, there is no hiding things! For issues like this, we need to have faith in our government! No matter how fearless you may be, no one can take on the world alone. For a strong and acute virus like this one, nothing short of complete containment will be able to stop the spread. And that is something that no one can conceal!” Those are my doctor friend’s words, even the exclamation mark, and I believe him. This coronavirus has already overturned the notion that politics should be placed above all else; now that we find ourselves at this current juncture, who would dare attempt to conceal the truth? No one wants to relive the terror that the people of Wuhan went through a month ago.