Posted by Since December I have been paying close attention to the ‘Unknown Wuhan virus’ which at that time infected tens of people in Wuhan. Officially communicated not human to human contagious possible. After one week, it was reported that South Korea, Thailand, and Japan also had confirmed the case.
Concerned and worried about my family, I called my sister in mid-January, she told me that later that week she and my brother-in-law would take a train to spend the Lunar New Year with her parents-in-law. My sister and her husband live in Chengdu, about 1000 km away from Jingzhou city, Hubei province (which is 200 km western to Wuhan), where her parents-in-law live. They only meet each other during the Lunar New Year, so do most other Chinese people who work in 1st or 2nd tire cities.
In the end, I did not manage to convince them not to go, but at least they did abandon the option of the train (which literally comes from Wuhan!), instead, they took the car to drive to the families on 21st January. The next day (23rd January) after their arrival, Wuhan city was in Quarantine, a few days passed, so was the city Jingzhou. Until now they have been living day and night with the parents in one apartment for 3 weeks, with the apartment block also sealed for quarantine given the situation, groceries were ordered online and delivered through the apartment block entrance.
My families’ daily activities are reading, exercising in the living room, and browsing through the internet.
Disruption of the schedule
In January, besides busy work during the day, my priority was preparing for 4 exams for my master’s degree during the evenings and weekends. Due to the rapid development of the Wuhan virus, and my worrying about the situations, I was refreshing the news almost every half an hour to get the updates and checking with my families about the situations. Everything on Chinese social media was about it, along with some rumors and the clarities about it. All we could talk about was the concerns, current situation, and future ones in China. It was a stressful month, luckily I passed all the exams in the end.
More contact with families
The only good thing about the quarantines is that all Chinese people have more flexible schedules, they were not buried with work during the day, nor during the weekends (my sister sometimes works on Saturday voluntarily). Normally if I ring my sister in the morning CET time, she would tell me she’s working, if there is no emergency we should talk on the weekends; now she appears very patient and happily tells me about the development of the situation. And apparently, among Chinese people, there was also more video contact during those days.
Most people under quarantine were bored, some of them spend more time on online games, one of the rare booming industries in China during this New Year. Others follow some online soaps, movies, or online courses, reading, or simply slow down the pace and think about life.
Skepticism on meeting other Chinese
During the Lunar New Year, we had a small dinner to celebrate with some other Chinese, before meeting up, we were carefully asking in the WeChat group if anyone recently came back from China, or more seriously, from Hubei province. Only after confirming would we agree to go out with them.
Cancellation on travel schedules
We planned to go back to China end of March until mid-April 2020 so we can have a tour across the country. Although both my husband and myself come from China, we actually traveled less in China than in Europe, as we were both poor students back then.
Last year, a dear friend from Romania who works in Belgium gave a private tour guide for me and my husband within the eastern part of Romania, we figured this is the time for us to return the favor 😀 Four of us booked the ticket half a year earlier and slowly planned the itineraries. Unfortunately, with the situation currently in China, we decided not to risk it. Luckily KLM accepts a full refund in this special condition, thank you KLM!
Racism against overseas Chinese
I am lucky enough to have worked or currently working with highly educated people, I did get some questions orally or by WhatsApp about coronavirus, but only asking if my families in China were OK. After which we all expressed the wish that the epidemic does not become a pandemic, hope life becomes normal soon. I sincerely thank all the people in my network who were kind enough to send me a message asking about my family, in contrast to the offense from others in the different parts of the world.
But other people are not that lucky in Germany, the Netherlands or in the USA, there is some quite offensive message which attacks China or the Chinese as a whole.
Do you still remember the Holocaust?
Last week on 27th January 2020, the world witnessed the 75 years anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz – a Nazi death camp located in occupied Poland where 1.1 million people were killed during Holocaust in the world war 2, of which 90% were Jewish.
Why do I mention Auschwitz at the end of this blog post? Only when you walk in the historical camp, can you experience the bloody, cold, cruel, and inhuman murder at that time, and indeed, it began with one person united a group against another ethnicity. The termination of the 4 million Jewish 7 decades ago was a crime against the whole of humanity, the fact that the victims were Jewish does not change the nature of the crime, if you tolerant the crime again, the next “Jewish” race might be yours!
With all my heart I hope this nightmare comes to an end soon and life is back to normal, people back to peace and normal.
References:
https://www.economist.com/europe/2020/01/26/an-anniversary-at-auschwitz-is-marred-by-disputes
https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-is-the-real-sick-man-of-asia-11580773677
Recommended movie – Flu (2013)
This Korean movie tells a story about how a new virus broke out from a city less than 20km from Seoul, along with the chaos and the government choices.
I’ve also been living with my inlaws for 3 weeks hahaha. They go back to their place on holidays and weekends but this time they stayed with us because of the coronavirus. I don’t know when this will end… right now I’m expecting to be confined at home for at least one more month. At least I can work from here or I would go crazy with so much free time and not being able to go out. Hope your sister can go back home soon! And I’ve been appalled reading the racist attacks people are suffering… such a shame!!
Hey Marta! Yes it is crazy !! I can imagine staying at home with a baby is also not easy 🙁 hope this thing ends soon !