Fang Fang - Wuhan Diary - Dispatches from a Quarantined City

Can you believe it? She is 97 years old, living alone, and still manages to do creative writing every day, calmly passing the time during this extended quarantine period. How can you not respect and admire such a strong woman! That said, long term, this is still not the best option for someone like her. In Wuhan there must be thousands and thousands of elderly people like her who rely on caregivers and helpers for their daily needs. They can barely wait for the day that their caretakers are able to return to help them; even I count myself as one of them. Yesterday someone left a message on my Weibo page, stating: “I live in Shanchun County in Huanggang; this is the sixth day since the quarantine was lifted and for the past couple of days they have been arranging for buses to take workers back to the cities. A lot of cities in Hubei are doing the same thing right now. There are also some counties in Hubei that are gradually starting to allow private cars to leave Hubei for work…. In short, after all of Hubei was locked down for so long, things are slowly starting to improve.” This is great news! My housekeeper is from Shanchun; I should get in touch with her today. Although I have heard that not all the roads are open yet, it is probably still a few more days before she can return to Wuhan.

Something else happened today that I need to record: Starting today, Hubei’s medical aid teams have all started to clear out of the city. They all braved terrible dangers during the most critical period of the outbreak in order to help save people’s lives; there is a special place of gratitude in our hearts for what they have done. All told, there were more than 40,000 medical workers who came in to help, and not a single one of them was infected; it’s truly a miracle! Thanks to them, all of us can now breathe a collective sigh of relief. It’s always difficult to say goodbye. Today I saw a video posted in my friends chat group; the video was shot just as the medical aid teams were departing; as they left, all the Wuhan residents who still cannot leave their own homes stood on their balconies calling out “Thank you! We know it’s been hard! Farewell!” Seeing that was enough to leave you in tears. Wuhan people from all walks of life stood together to give these angels in white their most heartfelt salute; after all, these were the people who saved our city—these were the people who saved us . It’s been said that the city of Xiangyang has recorded the names of everyone in their medical aid teams, and they decided to grant lifetime free admission and accommodations to visit the top scenic destinations in the area. I’m not sure if this is fake news or not, but I figure “why not!” In fact, I think we should open up every scenic and tourist location in all of Hubei Province to them for free! Of course, as I am so moved, something funny also happened: As the medical team from Sichuan Province was leaving for Hubei, one medical worker’s husband yelled out to the bus: “Zhao Yingming, once you’re safely back home, I’ll do all the household chores for the next year!” Now his dear Zhao Yingming has finally come home. Almost immediately someone put up a video online calling for netizens everywhere to monitor this husband and make sure he keeps his word for the next year. Everyone got a good laugh from that video. I wonder if they will set up a 24-hour livestream from their apartment to make sure he does his chores.

The hottest topic being debated online these days is all those Chinese who have spent time overseas who are now returning to China. One meme put it this way: China fought half the battle, countries outside of China fought the other half of the battle, but Chinese studying abroad have fought the entire battle . This refers to the fact that a lot of Chinese international students left China just before the Lunar New Year, but now that China has largely controlled the outbreak—even Hubei is now safe—while the coronavirus situation abroad is starting to heat up, all those students are now flooding back into China. Actually, this meme is not entirely accurate, because when the outbreak began most of those international students were already abroad. During the initial outbreak, many of these international Chinese students went all over the place trying to help secure donations and supplies for Wuhan; they really worked hard. And while it is true that many of them have now indeed returned to China, we should still keep the facts straight. What is interesting is how many people have asked me what I think of this.

I feel like these kids are like our own children; we need to be empathetic. If my daughter were abroad right now, I would probably also tell her to return home. Not everyone can be a hero. So I can completely understand why they would make those choices. The fact that they are all coming back home shows that deep in their hearts they know they can always rely on their own country. Doesn’t this say a lot about their sense of trust and patriotism? Actually, back during the War of Resistance against Japan, there was the term “seek refuge.” When the Japanese invaded, large numbers of people all went south to seek refuge. No one blamed them for that; no one asked, “How come you don’t stay behind to fight those Japanese devils?” That’s because the urge to seek refuge is a basic human instinct. Those who stayed behind to fight the Japanese were the ones considered heroes. Those who escaped to seek refuge may not be heroes—none of them would certainly claim to be heroes—but that doesn’t mean they did something deserving of blame. They are now saying that more than 100,000 Chinese currently abroad are all about to come back. China is a large country and all the provinces are now calling their children home. Those who are ill will be admitted to hospitals for treatment, those who are healthy will just go home for quarantine; that’s how it will work. But whether you are seeking refuge or just flying home to China from abroad, it is essential that everyone follows the rules. We need to protect ourselves, but that should never come at the expense of hurting other people; this is, after all, common sense.

One of my old high school classmates just sent me a timeline for the lifting of the quarantine: “On March 22 all personnel outside of Hubei and Wuhan can return. Personnel in Hubei and Wuhan can also leave those regions on the same date. On March 24 all public buses and subways will be disinfected and undergo technical tests to ensure that all public transit is ready to resume service. On March 26 the quarantine in Mendong will be lifted and residents will be able to move about freely within their district. On March 29 the quarantine will be lifted for small residential districts, and residents with a work permit and health certificate QR code will be able to return to work by car, bicycle, or on foot. On March 31 businesses and production enterprises will gradually return to normal operating levels. On April 2 major shopping plazas and malls will resume normal business operations. On April 3 buses and subways will resume operations. On April 4 all airports, high-speed trains, light rail, and highways will return to normal operating status.” My classmate forwarded this and when I passed it on, I made sure to write: “I’m forwarding this, but not sure if it is real or not.” But whether or not it is true, it still gives us a lot of encouragement. It is clear that life is going to start getting back to normal.

I would like to express my sincere thanks to my readers. Yesterday I was unable to send out my daily entry on WeChat; Er Xiang also tried to send it more than a dozen times, but it wouldn’t go through. Later I just put it up as a message without the comments section attached, but that was also deleted. I really don’t understand why. Finally, Er Xiang just logged onto her official account, “Er Xiang’s Eleven Dimensions of Space,” and just posted a short, four-word message: “I did my best.” Just those four words. But a reader saw that and copied my entire post from yesterday in the comments section, one paragraph at a time. That was something I completely didn’t expect, but also something I found quite moving.