by Fang Fang
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.
A lot of people in my friends group have been forwarding an essay by the writer Yan Geling17; a few friends also sent it directly to me. The title of the essay is “To Borrow Three Words from the Great Southern Song Poet Tang Wan: Conceal, Conceal, Conceal.” Yan Geling, who lives in Berlin, has been closely following the events in Wuhan from afar. Many years ago the Hubei Writers Association organized a conference of women Chinese writers from around the world. Yan Geling came to Wuhan to attend; we even invited her to deliver a lecture at Wuhan University. I wasn’t there for her lecture, but I heard it was a full house. Yan Geling has a great sense of intuition; she was able to latch onto the most important keyword that has been in play from the very beginning of the outbreak up through the point it transformed into an unmitigated disaster. That word is: Concealment. While a lot of effort went into controlling the outbreak later on, if you pull apart and examine the key points in the development of the outbreak, you will discover that there is one concept that is e
ver-present: Concealment. But why did so many things need to be concealed? Were they concealed on purpose or due to some kind of oversight? Or was there some other reason? But let’s put that discussion off for the time being. Dear Geling, I read your essay and was quite moved; it also gave me a lot to think about; however, before I had time to forward it to my friends group online, it was deleted from the internet. You probably also already know that here in China concealment is the brother of censorship. We’ve already been tortured by this brother named “censorship” to the point that we are wooden and numb. You never know when it might happen or why it happens or what rules you may have broken to be censored, because no one ever tells you. You have no choice but to just accept it.
Another piece of shocking news in the literary world today is that all of Mario Vargas Llosa’s books have been ordered to be taken off the shelves of bookstores. Could this be true? It is really hard for me to believe. I started reading Llosa back when I was still a teenager. Almost all writers from my generation back then were reading him. A lot of people really liked the tone of his writing and his experiments with structure and form. But actually, I don’t think I have read more than three of his books, and those were all his most popular novels. When I heard this news, I went through the same emotional cycle as a lot of other writers: I started out shocked, then I was angry, and finally I just felt depressed. I just don’t know what else to say anymore. Besides grumbling about it a bit, what else can you say? No matter what Llosa may have said, he’s not a politician; he is still a writer. I remember reading an essay a few days ago that used the following words to describe what a writer is: “The greatest and most fundamental mission of a writer is to vanquish falsehoods, bear testimony to the truth of history, and restore dignity to mankind.” I’m not sure who originally spoke those words. Llosa must be in his 80s now. Is this really necessary? Conceal, conceal, conceal—those three words are from the love story between Tang Wan and Lu You; it is a story that most Chinese know. But here I would like to borrow three words from the poet Lu You: Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Today I learned that the medical personnel who came to Hubei to help with the aid effort have already begun to leave in groups. Yet when it comes to when the city might reopen, there is still almost no news. There are all kinds of sensational things floating around the internet. There are a lot of rumors too. But no matter how fierce this virus may be, there is something even more terrifying that is now rushing out in front—there are a lot of people who simply can’t go on anymore. Today a reporter in Beijing sent me an appeal written by someone here in Hubei. It reminded me of that telephone recording I heard a few days ago. Rereading this appeal now, I feel it is actually quite objective and sensible. Part of the appeal mentioned some issues that the author hopes the government might consider. I would like to cite a portion of that appeal here:
I take legal responsibility for everything I am saying here. As you fought the coronavirus, average people like us were extremely supportive and gave you our full cooperation. But after having been locked down for so many days, more than 50 days, even those who may have been sick to begin with should have recovered by now. You should arrange some chartered buses for us, but how come you government people haven’t taken any action?
We keep staying at home wasting time every day and you won’t even give us a clear answer as to when it will end so we can at least have a target in mind. The end of March? The end of April? Whatever the case, you need to give us a time frame! Right now, without any time frame for when the quarantine will end, we have nothing to hope for; instead we just sit at home waiting. Day after day, we all have living expenses and we have families to raise; how is a breadwinner supposed to make money to support a family?
Each and every day we need to eat, drink, we need oil and salt for cooking, and all this costs money. Of course, everything ends up in our stomachs, but it still adds up as part of our expenses. Every morning we get up and the first thing we look at are the headlines from all the major newspapers; we check whether the number of infections has gone up or down. We look at the statistics all over, but it only seems to be here in Wuhan that the number of sick people is higher. But that doesn’t mean that all the other cities in Hubei Province also need to go through the same torture as Wuhan; it really doesn’t.
I returned home on January 21; you can calculate just how many days that it has been now. Every day since then I have been sitting at home eating and sleeping, eating and sleeping. The main thing is that I just don’t know when this will all end. At first they said the quarantine might be lifted on March 1, then they pushed it back to March 10, then March 11; later they said March 15; now Zhong Nanshan is saying it might last until late June.
If you continue on like this, where is the end?
You can quarantine the sick; however you want to quarantine sick people, we will cooperate. But you need to quarantine the virus, not the people of Hubei Province! What’s more, since you have us all quarantined at home, and if we leave Hubei we would also be quarantined, then why not just let us leave and be quarantined somewhere else? We could leave Hubei, self-quarantine for 14 days, let local officials confirm we are healthy, and then let us get back to work! We need to create income; things need to get back to normal! Instead you have us quarantined at home, you want us locked down until late May or late June, then after that we’ll have to be quarantined for another two weeks; are we going to get any work done at all this entire year? What kind of people waste their time like this?
You people in charge need to hear what the people are saying; you need to pay attention to what we are requesting. I’m not speaking just for myself; most members of the public all feel the same way, and I am speaking for all of us. We are not trying to cause trouble; we are just trying to make a living. We need to put food on the table. You need to try to think about the situation from our perspective, the perspective of ordinary citizens.
What family isn’t facing this burden? All day from morning until night we put up with the loudspeakers blaring: “Do not go outside! Do not go outside! Do not go outside!” How long is this going to last? How far are they going to take this? What are the conditions that aren’t allowing us to go outside? What are the reasons? All day long they are trying to attend to big and small affairs at once with a one-size-fits-all strategy. “Do not go outside, no matter what happens, do not go outside!” You have to realize that we should be quarantining the coronavirus, not the entire population of Hubei Province! Only after you really understand this and let it sink in will you be able to truly carry out the spirit of all those documents you send down.
One more thing: Everything costs money. Let me tell you, if pumpkin seeds are 15 yuan for every half kilo, are you going to buy any? When meat is 32 yuan for every half kilo, would you pay that price? What about cucumbers for 7 yuan a half kilo, any takers? Potatoes are also 7 yuan, cabbage is 8 yuan . . . so how about it? Are you buying? If you don’t, you still have to eat . . . so in the end, everyone buys. But then you have to pay. Without a job, where is that money going to come from? Who is thinking about us here?
My god . . .
That last frustrated exclamation at the end really makes your heart break. The people have already done everything they can to cooperate and be reasonable, but the question of taking care of their basic living needs is dangling right there before us. We have been relying on the government’s great resolution to bring the coronavirus outbreak to a screeching halt. My impression is that many places throughout Hubei Province are already down to zero new infections, yet they still have not yet lifted the quarantine order. Back when I was in college, one of my professors taught a course on Modernism and I remember us reading Waiting for Godot. Two men sitting there waiting for Godot, but he never arrives. As we now sit here waiting for the quarantine to be lifted, I am suddenly reminded of that play. Stand in the shoes of the people and think about the issue of the people’s livelihood; it is all right there on the table before you. There are a lot of things
that can be handled simultaneously; you don’t need to necessarily line them up and take care of them one after another.
It is now day 54 of the lockdown; this hand of poker is over.
March 17, 2020
It is clear that life will gradually start getting back to normal.
Day 55 of the Wuhan quarantine.
The weather is nice and clear. I stepped outside to empty the trash and through the branches caught a glimpse of the peach blossoms in full bloom on the slope across the way. I’m reminded of a line of poetry: “The shrubbery conceals not the colors of spring, as a branch of crimson peonies hangs over the wall.” Besides the fact that there is not a single person outside, the rest of the Literary Federation courtyard looks the same as always.
According to the daily coronavirus report, there was only one new case of infection today. We are getting close to the point where everything can start over. An increasingly large number of patients who had been suffering from severe symptoms have been saved, but there is still a long road ahead for them before they will be able to fully recover. I know it is hard, but I hope they are able to hold on and get through this; they can always take their time recovering, once they get through this critical stage. Currently, the government is officially reporting that the death toll from novel coronavirus in Hubei Province has reached 3,000; this is indeed a depressing number to have to face. Now that the outbreak is over, I’m afraid that the job of consoling family members of the deceased should now be our most important task. Looking broadly now at the trajectory of the entire outbreak, ever since the moment the nation committed all their efforts to saving Hubei and began to enact a variety of measures to control the virus, it is clear that their methods have been very powerful and effective. It hasn’t been easy for us to get to this stage.