Wuhan Diary

by Fang Fang

  People from Wuhan tend to be quite straightforward; they value friendship, honor, and brotherhood and think it is important to always do the right thing. They are also always willing to step up and help out their government; after all, there are usually only two or three degrees of separation between your average person and local government officials, so how can we refuse to help them? In the face of a calamity like this, even if you feel like you can’t carry on anymore, you have to just dig in and keep moving forward. This is a quality that many Wuhan people have that makes me feel very proud. But even if you keep pushing forward, there are still going to be times when you can no longer hold in that oppressive feeling inside you. During those times other people need to sometimes carry the burden for you, and you have to let others release their anger and frustration. When Wuhan people really go off on somebody, they can be extremely vicious; they won’t leave the other person with any dignity, and they certainly won’t think twice about pulling the other person’s ancestors into the dirt along the way. I’m sure that they are going to be torn to pieces by the curses the people of Wuhan unleash on them. And if your ancestors get dirty along the way, please don’t blame the people of Wuhan; just blame yourself for not taking your responsibility to the people seriously.

  Over the course of the past few days, the people dying from this virus seem to be getting closer and closer to me. My neighbor’s cousin just died. A good friend of mine just lost his younger brother. Another friend lost her parents and grandmother to coronavirus, before she herself succumbed to the disease. The people don’t have enough tears left to mourn all these deaths. It is not like I’ve never lost a friend before; who hasn’t known someone who fell ill, received treatment, but eventually passed away? We all experience that. In times like that, families come together to support their sick relatives, doctors do their best to save their patients, but, in the end, sometimes none of those efforts work. You feel helpless, but we face it and the patient gradually accepts their fate. But this coronavirus outbreak is different: Those people infected early not only die but they face hopelessness. Their cries go unanswered, their attempts for medical intervention are useless, their search for effective treatment proves fruitless. There are simply too many sick people and not enough beds; the hospitals simply cannot keep up with the demand. For those unlucky enough to be denied a bed, what can they do other than just sit by and wait for death? There are so many patients who thought their days would just continue to go on as peacefully as always; they assumed that if they got sick they would just go to the doctor; but they were completely unprepared for the fact that they would be facing death so unexpectedly, not to mention the experience of being denied medical care. The pain and helplessness they faced before death were deeper than any abyss you could ever imagine. Today I even asked my friend, “How could you possibly not be sad and depressed after living with these stories every day?” “Not Contagious Between People; It’s Controllable and Preventable”—those eight words have transformed Wuhan into a city of blood and tears filled with endless misery.

  To my dear internet censors: You had better let the people of Wuhan speak out and express what they want to say! Once they get these things off their chests, they will feel a bit better. We’ve already been locked down in quarantine for more than 10 days and have seen a lot of terrible things. If you won’t even allow us to release some of our pain, if you can’t even permit us to complain a little bit or reflect on what is happening, then you must be intent on driving us all mad!

  Forget it. Going mad won’t solve our problems. If we drop dead, they won’t care anyway. Better to simply not talk about these things.

  For the next few days, things will go on as they have. We will still fully support our government by hunkering down at home and following this through to the very end. I just hope things turn around soon; I’m waiting for the quarantine to be lifted, but praying even harder for those patients to recover.

  As this drags on, the issue of feeding everyone is becoming more pressing. The amazing thing is the number of capable people in various communities who have suddenly appeared to help address this problem. My brother told me that his neighborhood established its own group to purchase food and vegetables. Everyone who joins gets a number and then they put in a wholesale order with a vendor. Each family gets one bag of vegetables. The bags are delivered to an open courtyard area in the neighborhood and people pick them up one by one, according to their assigned number; that way no one has to have direct contact with anyone else. If you have an issue with the quality of the food delivered, you just take it home with you anyway, but there is a number you can call to request an exchange. They even devised an entire strategy for purchasing food so that the entire process would be as streamlined and orderly as possible. That way, no one needs to go out to the supermarket and the issue of getting fresh food into people’s homes is solved. Today I also learned of a colleague whose neighborhood also set up a similar system for purchasing pork, eggs, and other items. They provide all kinds of options, such as shredded pork, ground meat, lean meat, ribs, etc., with prices and quantity all clearly marked. All you need is to get 20 people on board to form a group and they will deliver; you just need to pick it up. My colleague asked me if I was interested in signing up. How could I not?! After all, we still have at least another two weeks to get through before the quarantine is lifted. I ordered Pork Option C, which was 199 yuan. Life is tough, but we always find a way.

  February 10, 2020

  We can expect the overall situation to start improving at any moment.

  Another gloomy day, although the sky is still fairly bright. I’m still talking to friends, hoping to get some good news. I saw one video that said, “What do you think the people of Wuhan will do when Zhong Nanshan gives the green light for people to leave their homes?” And then they cut to a montage that featured footage of several flocks of roosters and ducks soaring into the air, shots of several stylish people making a grand exit out of doorways, and people walking around in all kinds of crazy, exaggerated, and arrogant poses. I guess that the people of Wuhan have many talents; besides being able to push through a crisis and being experts when it comes to cursing at people, they also have quite an imagination.

  Sixteen Chinese provinces have volunteered to each sponsor one of Hubei’s 16 cities. Medical professionals have been lining up to volunteer; they are cutting their hair, some even shaving their heads completely,11 and saying goodbye to their friends and family to come here to help. The videos of those volunteers are so moving. I’m told that besides the volunteers coming to Hubei, they are also bringing all kinds of medical supplies and protective gear with them. They are even bringing their own supplies of salt, cooking oil, soy sauce, vinegar, and other basic supplies like that so as not to add to the burden of these already-stressed cities. Their selflessness has really brought so many people here in Hubei to tears. More than 20,000 medical workers have volunteered to come to Hubei. You can only imagine the dedication and solidarity behind their sacrifice.

  The human losses that Hubei doctors and nurses have suffered have been particularly devastating, which I had heard about some time ago and mentioned in one of my entries a few days ago. Now a massive infusion of backup troops has finally come to the rescue. Thanks to their help, the medical professionals and citizens of Hubei can finally heave a collective sigh of relief. All those local doctors who are no longer able to sustain the exhaustion of this protracted warfare can finally get some rest. Those comedians who have fallen silent these past few days are starting to post their jokes again online.

  This dramatic turn of events was dependent on the country’s standing up to lend its support. Thanks to the expansion of temporary hospitals, the increase of sickbeds, the arrival of backup medical workers, effective quarantine policies, well-organized administration, and the cooperation and tenacity of the citizens of Wuhan who all worked together, this virus’s ability to spread has finally begun to show clear signs that it is waning. All this wil
l probably be much clearer over the course of the next few days. My doctor friend also believes that we are close to a breakthrough. In the end, the reason this quarantine has lasted so long is primarily due to: (1) we lost precious time during the early days of the outbreak, which allowed it to spread; (2) some isolation procedures put in place early on were not effective, which led to further infections; (3) hospital resources have been exhausted and medical workers have fallen ill, which has hampered the ability to provide aid to those who need it.

  But now that we are seeing a change for the better on all these fronts, we can expect the overall situation to start improving at any moment.

  I saw a message online from a patient at the temporary hospital set up at Hongshan Auditorium. He said that all three members of his family are at the hospital and they should be able to be discharged within the next two days. He also said that there are a lot of other patients there with mild symptoms that will probably also be released soon. They are using a combination of treatments from both Chinese medicine and Western medicine to treat the patients there, and they are taking both traditional Chinese herbs and Western drugs. All their meals have been provided by Sunny Sky, which is a well-known restaurant here in Wuhan. The food there is excellent and this patient said that it was even better than what he usually eats at home; he even gained a lot of weight! His post gave a lot of people encouragement. I keep hearing that there are a lot of patients who are still afraid to be admitted to one of the temporary hospitals; they are all worried about the conditions there and would rather just stay home. But now that they have had time to address a lot of the details at those temporary hospitals, they don’t seem so bad, after all. At the very least, people can get the professional medical care that they need there, and it is much better than just staying at home. Those temporary hospitals are large, open structures; you could even hold a dance party in one! Since there are a lot of “old aunties” who love to do community dancing admitted there, of course they are going to take advantage of that open space! The video I saw of those aunties dancing in the hospital really brightened me up to no end; those Wuhan aunties are so amazing, not only in their ability to tenaciously fight this disease, but also in their ability to tenaciously get in their ballroom dancing! Shall we call this the “temporary hospital dance”?

  Fearful of being censored, it seems as if I am turning into someone who only reports the good news but ignores the bad. In actuality, these bits of good news are things that I genuinely want to share with my readers. We have been yearning for some good news for so long. Online, there are all kinds of discussions and scary controversies that people are sharing; there are also all these experts trying to analyze everything logically, and then there are all those ridiculous rumors floating around. For those of us here in Wuhan, we really don’t want to hear about any of that stuff. All we worry about is ourselves; we worry about whether or not the number of infected patients has declined, whether or not people who need to be admitted can get a bed in the hospital, whether or not they have received effective treatment, whether or not the number of fatalities has decreased, when will the next food delivery come, and when we can finally leave our apartments.

  The bad news continues to worry me. This afternoon Professor Lin Zhengbin, an organ transplant specialist from Tongji Hospital, passed away. He was 62 years old, full of energy, and had an incredible wealth of experience in his field; it is such a terrible shame to lose him. Tongji Hospital is connected to Huazhong University of Science and Technology. They have lost two top professors in just three days; everyone on campus is quite heartbroken. I also heard that Central Hospital—that is where Li Wenliang worked in the ophthalmology department—now has two more doctors whose conditions have deteriorated to the point that they both had to have breathing tubes inserted. Even worse, because of lingering anger over the death of Li Wenliang, I heard that some donations have come with stipulations not to give any supplies to Central Hospital because of the way they treated Dr. Li. (I’m not sure of the accuracy of this yet.) Right now Central Hospital is in desperate need of more supplies. My goodness, if Li Wenliang were able to hear this news, he would be more upset than anyone else.

  February 11, 2020

  The arrival of a new life is the best hope that heaven can give us for the future.

  The weather today is just like yesterday—still gloomy, but not quite as overcast.

  This afternoon I saw a photograph of some of the donations coming in from Japan, and the boxes had a couplet from an old classical Chinese poem printed on them: “A mountain may separate us, yet we share the same clouds and rain; The bright moon belongs to both my village and yours.”12 I was so moved to see that. I also saw a clip of Joaquin Phoenix’s Oscar acceptance speech where he seemed to be fighting back tears to say how he wanted to use “the opportunity to use our voice for the voiceless,” which also really touched me. I also read a line from Victor Hugo today: “It is not so easy to keep silent when the silence is a lie.” But this time I wasn’t moved; instead I felt a sense of shame.

  That’s right; I have no choice but to go with shame.

  There are even more videos out there filled with people crying out for help that make you want to scream; but I can’t stand watching them anymore. I know that no matter how rational I may be, I too have my breaking point. And those people who might be somewhat less rational than me are even more prone to losing it. Right now, the single most pressing thing for us to do is to raise up our heads and look toward wherever we might find a glimmer of hope. I hope we can look toward those people who continue to move forward even in the face of danger, like those who built the Huoshenshan and Leishenshan Hospitals. I hope we can look toward those people who continue to do their best even when they themselves are struggling, like those people with so little to their name yet who commit to leaving their life savings to help the poor (I also approve of those appeals not to accept their money). I hope we can look toward those people who stand by their post even when they are on the brink of exhaustion, such as those medical professionals who continue working even with the threat that they themselves might get infected. And I look to those people out there day and night in the streets volunteering to help with all kinds of tasks that need to be done. And then there are so many more. . . . Looking at what they do helps me understand that, no matter what, we cannot be scared and we cannot fall apart. If that happens, everything we have fought for will be for nothing. So no matter how many heartbreaking videos you see and no matter how many terrifying rumors you hear, you must not be afraid and you must not break down. The only thing we can do is to protect ourselves and take care of our families. We need to follow instructions and cooperate completely with whatever is asked of us. Just shut the door, grin and bear it. No one will blame you if you want to have a good cry to just let it out or even stop following the news about the outbreak. Watch some TV or put on a movie, watch some of those lousy variety shows, do whatever you have to do to get through this. Perhaps that is our contribution.

  Things are gradually starting to take a turn for the better, even though everyone knows it will still take some time, but isn’t a slight improvement already a form of hope? Besides Hubei, almost all other provinces in China have begun to see a marked improvement. But now with the help of so many people, Hubei is also headed in the right direction. Just today quite a few patients were discharged from the temporary hospitals. Some of those who have recovered had smiles on their faces as they left the hospital; you could tell they weren’t just hamming it up for the media, those were smiles of genuine happiness. It wasn’t that long ago that you would often see people smiling like that on the street, but it has now been a long time since I have seen that. But I figure this is just the beginning; perhaps before too long we will see the streets filled with smiling faces again?

  Now that I mention it, I have been living here in this city of Wuhan for more than 60 years. This city has been my home ever since my parents brought me here from Nanjing when I was two year
s old, and I have never left. I went to kindergarten here, elementary school, middle school, high school, university, and even stayed here to work after graduating. I have worked here in this city as a porter (I worked at Baibuting!), a reporter, an editor, and a writer. I lived in Hankou, just north of the river, for more than 30 years and south of the river in Wuchang for another 30 years. I lived in Jiang’an District, I went to school in Hongshan District, I worked in Jianghan District, eventually settled down in Wuchang District, and spent a lot of time writing in Jiangxia District. In the 30-odd years since I graduated from college, I attended countless conferences in a variety of capacities. My neighbors, classmates, colleagues, and fellow writers are spread out deep in every corner of this city. When I’m out I run into people I know all the time. There was a girl writing an online diary who was crying out for someone to save her father; I suddenly realized that I actually know her father, he is a fellow writer. I once met him back in the 1980s at a television station. For the past few days I’ve been having trouble getting the image of her father out of my head. If it hadn’t been for his death, I probably would have never remembered him. I’m always saying that all my memories are deeply rooted in this city, each memory planted by the people I met in this city from my childhood all the way into my old age. I’m a Wuhan native, through and through. Two days ago an internet friend of mine sent me an instant message with a short essay attached. Contained in that document were words that I had completely erased from my mind. One year sometime during the last century, Chen Xiaoqing hosted a documentary series on CCTV called One Person, One City;13 I wrote the script for the episode on Wuhan. I wrote: “Sometimes I ask myself, compared to other cities in the world, why is Wuhan such a difficult place to live? Perhaps it has to do with the terrible weather here? Then what is it that I like about this city? Is it the city’s history and culture? Or is it the local sites and customs? Or is it the natural scenery? Actually, it is none of that. The reason I like Wuhan starts with the fact that this is the place I am most familiar with. If you line up all the cities in the world before me, Wuhan is the only place I really know. It is like a crowd of people walking toward you and amid that sea of unfamiliar faces you catch sight of a single face flashing you a smile that you recognize. To me, that face is Wuhan.” I remember when that episode first aired, the painter Tang Xiaohe14 called me to tell me how much he admired those lines I wrote for the show’s narration. That’s because Mr. Tang and his wife, Mrs. Cheng Li, understood exactly what I was trying to say; the two of them have lived in this city even longer than me; they are true Wuhan natives.