Fang Fang - Wuhan Diary - Dispatches from a Quarantined City

I should say a bit about what has been happening with me. Besides the fact that I’m in a very different state of mind than normal, my everyday life is actually not that different from before. During previous years, I spent the Lunar New Year in basically the same way as I’m spending it now. The only thing different is that I normally visit my great-uncle Yang Shuzi to pay my respects and join him for a New Year’s lunch, but this year the luncheon was canceled. My great-uncle is getting on in years and isn’t in the best of health, so we need to take special care not to expose him to the virus. So in the end, I basically didn’t go anywhere during the holiday this year. I actually have acute bronchitis and it usually acts up during the winter months. There was one period of time when I ended up being hospitalized for my bronchitis three years in a row during the Lunar New Year. So these past few days I have been repeatedly reminding myself to do everything possible to ensure that I don’t get sick. I did have a little headache a few days ago, and yesterday I had a slight cough; but today I’m feeling much better. A long time ago, Jiang Zidan [5] Jiang Zidan (b. 1954) is a Chinese writer who published her first essay in 1978. She has gone on to publish dozens of books, including short story collections, essays, and novels, including A Date with Time ( Suiyue zhi yue ) and When I Am Alone ( Yige ren de shihou ). She has also served as the editor for several leading literary journals, including Tianya. (she is something of a specialist in traditional Chinese medicine) told me that, based on my illness, I have a condition referred to as “cold encapsulating fire.” From that point on, every winter I would prepare a traditional medicinal potion of milk vetch root, honeysuckle essence, chrysanthemum, Chinese wolfberry, red dates, and American ginseng, boiled in a pot of mulberry leaf tea. I gave my little potion the nickname “hodgepodge brew” and made sure to drink several large glasses each day. Once the coronavirus outbreak started to get serious, I added a morning vitamin C supplement, a glass of fizzy vitamin C drink, and a few glasses of hot water to my daily regimen. For my evening shower I made sure to let my back soak under the hot water, which was on the verge of scalding. I also went through an entire package of Lotus Flu Capsules. One of my classmates even taught me the “mantra of the closed door” to chant silently to myself: “Close up all of your body’s openings! If you stave off the cold wind, the hundred evils will not befall you! Store up the proper qi inside yourself, so the evil will be unable to assail!” He told me in a manner of all seriousness that this was a chant that had been secretly passed down for generations and was not at all “superstitious.” We had a good laugh about that one! I wonder if anyone really does chant it. In any case, I have already picked up whatever tricks I can from all sorts of people on how to protect myself from this virus, and I am employing them all, except, that is, for chanting the “mantra of the closed door”! But I think all those other tactics seem to be working. I’m in a pretty good state for the time being. Taking care of oneself is one way to contribute to the effort.

By the way, two days ago one of my posts on Weibo was taken down. It actually had a longer lifespan online than I originally thought it would. I didn’t expect it to be forwarded by so many people. I’ve grown accustomed to writing in that small 140-character window afforded one on the Weibo platform, so when I publish things online they tend to be quite informal (I always had a preference for a more informal style!). I just post whatever pops into my mind. I don’t spend much time editing my posts before uploading them, so there are often grammar and spelling mistakes (which is embarrassing, considering that I’m a graduate of the Wuhan University Chinese Department!). I hope readers will excuse me for my carelessness. I actually had absolutely no intention of criticizing anyone during this outbreak. (Isn’t there an old Chinese saying about “Best to wait until spring to settle your scores”?) After all, right now our main adversary is the virus itself. I am dedicated to standing side by side with the government and all the people of Wuhan, fully committed to battle this outbreak together. I am also 100 percent committed to accommodating any and all requests made of me by the government. However, as I write about this I also feel that reflection is required. And so, I reflect.

January 30, 2020

There is no way for them to shirk responsibility on this issue.

The sky is clear and it feels like one of those perfect winter days. This is the kind of weather that really allows you to appreciate the winter season. But the virus has completely destroyed all of that. It may as well be the most gorgeous day in a thousand years, yet there is no one outdoors to admire it.

The cruelty of reality continues to dangle before me. After I got up, I saw a news story about a peasant traveling in the middle of the night who was prohibited from going to his destination. People had built a dirt wall to block the road and no matter how he pleaded, the people guarding the road would not let him pass. Where else could that peasant go in the middle of a cold winter night? It was really difficult to watch. The regulations that they have put in place to prevent the spread of the disease are pretty good, but you can’t enforce them with an iron will that overlooks the basic principles of what is humane. Why is it that all these different levels of government officials are able to take an official document and turn it into something so dogmatic and inflexible? Why couldn’t someone just put on a face mask and take that poor man to an empty room where he could spend a night in isolation? What would be so wrong with that? I also saw a report of a child with special needs whose father was ordered into isolation; the child was forced to live on his own for five days and ended up dying of starvation. This outbreak has exposed so many different things: It has exposed the rudimentary level of so many Chinese officials, and it has exposed the diseases running rampant through the very fabric of our society. These are diseases that are much more evil and tenacious than the novel coronavirus. Moreover, there is no cure in sight. That is because there are no doctors willing to treat this disease. Just thinking about this leaves me with an indescribable sadness. A few minutes ago a friend told me that a young man from our work unit got sick about two days ago and has been having difficulty breathing. He thinks he has the coronavirus but hasn’t been properly diagnosed and there are no hospital beds for him. He is really a good, honest, hardworking young man and I’m quite close to his whole family. I really hope it is just a common cold, and praying that he hasn’t been struck down by this evil virus.

I’ve been getting a lot of messages from people who saw my interview with China News Agency and really appreciated the things I was saying. Of course, a lot of the original content was censored, which is understandable. However, there are a few things that I think should be worth preserving. When I was discussing the topic of “self-treatment,” I also said: “The most important group we should be paying attention to are those who are infected and the families of those people who have died from the coronavirus. They are the ones who are worst off and suffering the deepest pain. Many of them will never truly recover from what they have experienced here. They are the ones most in need of the government’s support….” When I think back and reflect on that peasant who was turned away in the middle of the night, when I think about that boy who starved to death at home, those countless everyday people calling out in vain for help, those people from Wuhan (including children) who have been discriminated against and driven out onto the streets like a pack of stray dogs, I have a hard time imagining how much time will have to pass before they can heal their pain. And that is not even to mention how much we have lost on a national scale.