Six Wuhan Stories from the Quarantine

Working in Beijing, I had very early booked a ticket back to Wuhan for the Chinese New Year. On the Preliminary Eve, everything was still in order. Because I would go home for the Spring Festival in the next week, I was very nervous since I got a load of unfinished tasks and could take only one day off. 

On January 19th, some disturbing news began to spread. Everyone was discussing about the coronavirus originated in Wuhan, and some people texted me if I still wanted to go home for the Lunar New Year. Without taking it seriously at that time, I said no matter what, I still had to go back home. But, sometimes, information on the Internet spread alarmingly fast.

When I woke up the next morning, I found my phone overwhelmed with the news of the outbreak of coronavirus in Wuhan. I browsed all the news on my way to the workplace, and then jokingly posted a moment, "In this case, could you all please take good care of me as I'm about to return to the epidemic center?"

From that day on, all the chatting groups seemed to be bombarded with all kinds of news that no one could say whether they were faked or not. All of a sudden, everyone became aware of the severity. Many of my friends and old schoolmates who were living in Wuhan and its surrounding cities, began to discuss issues like refunding tickets and staying behind, but I still insisted on returning home to celebrate the Lunar New Year with my parents.

We are a family of three, and our common practice is to gather at home for Chinese New Year dinner. My parents had prepared the recipes and cooking ingredients in advance, and served a variety of delicious dishes on the dining table for the Lunar New Year even if we only had three persons. Buzzing with excitement, we would have the big dinner bustling with noise and excitement, and then sit on the sofa to drink tea, eat snacks, grab red envelopes, watch Spring Festival Gala, and welcome the Chinese New Year together at midnight without firecrackers. The whole process was quite common, but it should be the most important year-end ceremony for our family.

But in such a situation, it was not easy to make the decision to go home. Since Jan 21st, people successively advised me not to go back. All sorts of sensational news kept coming out, as if going to Wuhan would turn a person into a "biochemical man" full of viruses. I saw all the news and persuaded my parents to put on masks in time and stay home. At that moment, I was cool-headed, thinking that I was in good health, I would be well protected, stay away from the crowd and keep on observing my physical condition to ensure my health; if I was unfortunately infected, I would definitely go to hospital promptly and avoid transmitting the disease to others...

But affected by those public opinions around me, I felt like a sinner who was immoral. Whenever they talked about  "people from Wuhan", I thought they were accusing me. In their opinions, whoever has been to Wuhan should be a "virus bomb" that might explode at any time. It was hard to tell whether their persuasion was out of concern for me or just for themselves.

Fortunately, some friends expressed their understanding. A friend who was studying epidemiology shared with me her experience of being isolated because of H1N1, and she advised me not to panic, but that I should be well protected. And I also drew comfort from the words of another friend. "If I were you, I would go home for no reason. If you ask me whether I will be panic? Yes, I will. Then, why shall I still want to go back? Maybe because I just want to be at my home."

After work that night, I cried all the way on the bus. I knew it was highly risky to go home, and I could understand the concerns of the people around me. But despite the circumstance, I still wanted to go home. Sitting in the far corner of the bus and looking at my shadow on the glass window, my tears flowed into the mask I was wearing, and no one noticed me.

I posted another memo, "Humans don't share the same grief and joy; and I just want to be back with my parents during the Spring Festival."

On the afternoon of January 22nd, I got on the high-speed train back to Wuhan, wearing an impermeable N95 mask along the way, which made me very uncomfortable. At 11 o'clock that night, I got home. After drinking a bowl of soup with stewed lotus and pork rib, and reporting my safety to some familiar friends, I fell asleep soundly. When I woke up the next morning, there was a lot of news on my cell phone informing me that Wuhan was under lockdown.

I thanked my friends for their care and concern. I was in fact very calm and peaceful. I was even thinking that I was lucky to be back; otherwise I would have been left alone in Beijing, being separated from my parents who would have been all the same "sealed" in the epidemic area.

I don't know what the epidemic situation will be in the future, nor do I know what kind of criticism I will suffer when I return to Beijing. But at this moment, I am with my parents in my familiar home. So, I'm not scared.

On the morning of January 23rd, my brother-in-law suddenly knocked our door, telling us that Wuhan was about to be put on lockdown. It was my dad who first heard the news from a nurse before dawn. He wanted to know whether we could leave the city in time. But since my husband and I both turned off our mobile phones, he called my brother-in-law in a hurry. 

However, we couldn't get away as the flights and the trains were canceled. Later, finding out that we were still in Wuhan, a friend suggested us taking a car to a nearby city and then changed trains or planes there. My elder sister also called us to see whether we would leave. We hesitated and decided not to leave. By noon, a friend in Japan sent me a message via WeChat, "Dong Hua, I don't understand why you decide to stay!" I could feel her anxiety across the screen.

Yes, why didn't we leave? I buried my face in hands, lost in thought.

It was too hasty for a family of five, including three children, to leave in such a short time, not to mention that the second child was still at my elder sister's house. Moreover, the purpose of the blockade was to reduce the flow. Wasn't it counterproductive if people all flocked out? In addition, my dad was still lying in the hospital and it was unknown where he would be transferred to today due to the adjustment of the hospital. I really didn't want to leave like this, without knowing when I would come back again. 

I was relieved after I made the decision. What was done was done, and at least the family was together. By the afternoon, the situation was getting worse. I began to doubt if we had made the wrong decision. I had nothing to worry about myself, but I didn't want my loved ones to worry about me. I was afraid that the children would be affected.

When I calmed down, I began to pray and thought of Xiao Hui, a reporter who was with Caixin Media. During the interview last night, she contacted a large group of people at high risk. At that time, she did not know it. Although she was wearing protective clothing, everything was uncertain. Finally, she decided to stay in Wuhan and isolated herself. She was alone while we were together as a family. I began to weep as I thought of her, and I continued to pray.

"Hurry up, turn on all the lights. We are going to celebrate the Chinese New Year!"

"Great!"

When I turned on the lights, I felt that Wuhan at night looked warmer than at daytime. With the lights on in every household, I instantly felt relieved.

It never occurred to me that I would celebrate the Spring Festival in Wuhan this year, and that "lockdown of Wuhan" would untie the years of knots in my heart.

In fact, I cannot tell since when the relationship between my dad and I have become so tense that our conversation would end unhappily within a few words. And I never knew how to solve this problem.

In early January, we once went to the supermarket to buy electric blankets. It was a public place with mass gathering that we were heading to. In addition, the weather was very cold outside. As soon as we finished dinner, I advised my dad to put on a mask. When I handed him the newly unwrapped mask, he walked out the door arrogantly and said, "I don't want to wear it." "I have already unwrapped the mask, why don't you wear it?" I argued. "I JUST DON'T want to wear it, "he said, "it is so suffocating." "Why do you force me to wear it? I'm not used to wearing a mask." Ignoring my continuous persuasion, he started to yell at me. I was speechless with rage at that moment and folded the mask into my bag, went ahead in a huff and stopped talking to him. After a while, when we approached the supermarket, he murmured, "where is the mask, pass it to me."

Today, we had another argument for something trivial and I habitually walked away first. Later in the evening, when I was eating dumplings and watching the news on TV, I couldn't help crying. The dumplings were eaten with tears instead of vinegar. Then, for some reason, I gathered my courage, suppressed my anger, and prepared to communicate with him calmly. I really did not understand why we originally had both cared about each other, but then always ended up inexplicably in conflicts.

My dad was pacing back and forth in the room. "You don't respect me at all," he ranted, "you always complain I don't wash the dishes clean," "you just don't trust me,"...

Hearing what he had never told us before, I suddenly understood him. Then my mom pointed to the tension between us. "We three persons would always consider more each other as we care about each other, but we are not honest enough with each other." said she. Then I made a small suggestion, hoping that he would not scold me and speak in tender tones. To my surprise, he fobbed me off with the excuse that his bad temper was inherited from ancestors which he couldn't change. He said in his childhood his grandparents had aso been like that. However, he promised that he would try his best to change.

Although today's Spring Festival dinner was simple, I was very happy as my dad and I finally opened our hearts to each. It seems that we are not as panic as yesterday. After all, it is nice that the family are together.

Before the novel coronavirus outbreak, we had booked a reunion dinner on Chinese New Year's Eve for five families of over 20 members. At the news that Zhong Nanshan, a prominent Chinese scientist who was leading a government-appointed panel of experts to help control the outbreak, confirmed the disease was capable of human-to-human transmission, we canceled the order immediately and agreed to have the dinner separately.

Before the outbreak, my family, my uncle's and my aunt's, were used to gathering at each weekend, having the New Year Eve's dinner together, playing Mahjong and having meals together during Spring Festival holidays if no other family were visiting — our homes are very close, less than 100 meters as the crow flies. This year we had no choice but to stay at our own homes, agreeing to have the dinner together via video chatting on WeChat at 6 p.m.

At 4:30 p.m., my father was just about to prepare the dinner. "How many dishes to prepare？Isn't it too early?" I asked. "Only a few. It's too early, indeed." said he, thinking for a second, then sat down.

By 6 p.m., only four dishes were served on the table: braised croaker, Chinese cabbage and meat balls, stir-fried beef fillets with chilli as well as mushroom and egg soup. I bet it was the least satisfying New Year Eve's dinner I have ever had.

At 6 p.m., our WeChat family group started a video call as agreed before. It took a long while before all of our three families could drink a toast to each other via the WeChat screens. After that, we began our separate dinner. Two little grandsons in my uncle's family were seen romping happily. Seeing that, my father whispered, "kids do liven things up." I wondered if he was hinting that I should start a family. My family of four ate quickly for an after-dinner Mahjong game, while my aunt's family of three had the dinner in silence with their eyes fixed on their own phones. 

In less than half an hour, my family became the first to finish the dinner. We then began playing Mahjong while the other two families were still having dinner. They urged us to continue the live broadcast to feast their eyes on our spectacular Mahjong game. 

On January 24, Chinese New Year's Eve, the megacity Wuhan has been placed on lockdown for the first day when there were only seven days of the countdown to my expected date of confinement (EDC).  

Waking up yesterday morning, I found my phone inundated with messages about the lockdown of Wuhan. Suddenly, I felt that I became an isolated island confined in depression, after all, the fates of numerous families were intertwined with the isolated city. My husband came to embrace me tightly the moment he saw me awake — he had learned the news earlier. His embrace was protested with a kick by our unborn baby. He consoled me that there was no need to worry and it would be the first challenge we could face in company with our unborn baby. Then we spent the whole day planning how to spend our time at home and how to response to emergencies. After that, I finally felt a bit relieved.

When you meet such challenges in our lives, why not take it as an opportunity to slow down your pace? Devote your attention back to your family and daily life. What an opportunity!

Today, my husband, mother-in-law and I, three of us were going to engage in preparation for the traditional Chinese reunion night. We started off by dusting, making a list of dinner menus, pasting spring couplets and preparing reunion dinner. Eventually, we began to enjoy the hearty dinner together. The outbreak of the novel pneumonia was keeping us apart from other family members at the reunion night, but I felt quite satisfied and grateful at such a difficult time. My mother-in-law prepared a ten-course feast all on her own — the number "10" means all things would be perfect. She drank a little at dinner, recalling the old days.  

As her cheeks became rosy, the mother and the son were, with mixed feelings, by turns, happy or angry, sad or joyous, talking leisurely about the past, the present and the future. Seeing this, I caressed my baby moving in my belly and suddenly was aware of the softness and resilience of each wife and each mother.

My baby, you are still in my belly, but we have spent almost ten months together, two in one. I believe that you can feel all my emotions. You might have also sensed the difference of this Spring Festival. What a special experience to you. I will protect you to my best before gradually letting you go on your own way, but my love and my best wishes for you will never change.

January 25, it is the first day of the Chinese New Year of the Rat, also the second day of the city lockdown and only six days countdown to my EDC.

Countless messages, positive, negative, official, hearsay, gave the illusion that I had stayed informed all the time, but the fact was that I still felt isolated. I daren't place too much faith in online messages which could be either too optimistic or too pessimistic. The cyberspace was the only access to the outside world, but it couldn't give me a sense of reality. 

Today is also a troubled one. In the early morning, we were notified that the hospital we had booked for delivery has been requisitioned by the government to admit patients infected with the novel virus. Hence, we had to choose another hospital temporarily. Then in the afternoon, news came that the traffic of the urban area was closed. All these emergencies sounded the alarm to me that I should never be overconfident in dealing with big things, or put all eggs in a single basket. The Plan B is always necessary.

It never rains but it pours. In the middle of the night, we were again notified that the second hospital we chose had also been requisitioned and the single hospital rooms were all converted into triple ones. After going through all these troubles, I stopped crying and sulking, and just sat there, a vacuous expression on my face, thinking over why we would get into such troubles; or forced myself only to sleep without thinking about anything. 

I always find myself quite minuscule in this vast world. However, when there is a social unrest, each one of us will be impacted, just as no snowflake is innocent in an avalanche. Similarly, as the butterfly effect implies, each individual behaviour can more or less also impact the society as a whole, which can, forming an invisible network, which can capture all the individuals in turn as in the butterfly effect.

When I was still at a loss and in a daze, my husband set out early for field trips to three hospitals and telephoned several other hospitals. He collected all the details of these hospitals, from the positions of the delivery rooms to the food accommodations. After that, he unhurriedly shared these details with me, discussed the pros and cons and worked out suitable and feasible plans. Besides, my husband also reassured my faraway parents who were quite anxious about my condition. It turned out I was far less composed than him in such a crucial time, though I had been praising myself as cool-headed before.  

Finally, he got everything done and poured me a glass of hot water. At that moment, I suddenly found his love handles had become smaller with no idea since when. His hair was quite greasy and dishevelled. Before, I always demanded his sweet words like "I love you" and surprise presents as evidence of his deep love for me. But now, I can feel in my heart of hearts the deep love from his heart through meticulous care during this period of trivial family life staying at home day after day.  

By: Fang Lin

Location: Xiaochang County under Xiaogan, a prefecture-level city in Wuhan

Occupation: Postgraduate student

Translator: Qianqian Wang

Panic is also spreading in my hometown Xiaochang, a potentially affected area, which is one of the nearest counties to Wuhan, where the outbreak of epidemic began.

I know the situation here is not as severe as that in Wuhan, and even not that much to be mentioned, but we still have our own problems — the potential danger hidden here is so hard to estimate because almost all people here had direct or indirect interaction with people in Wuhan before. The problem can be worsened by the slow response of the local government, the lack of medical resources and some villagers' lack of attention.

Like many others, I didn't recognize the seriousness of this epidemic until about a week ago.

That night while I was lying on my bed and browsing the news, I learned that Hankou Railway Station is very close to the Wuhan Seafood Market. Remembering it was from that Railway Station that I started my journey back home twelve days ago and that I was waiting at the lounge crowded with all people for more than an hour. I felt strange things happened to me all of a sudden. I felt dizzy and weak and my nose became stuffy. "Goodness me, no! Am I having a fever?" said I. Then I asked my younger sister to touch my forehead to see whether I had a fever. After touching a cool forehead, my sister mocked at me for being too nervous!

Fortunately, after returning to the family home, I was used to be a home-stayer and had not any uncomfortable symptoms yet. More reassuringly, I should be safe since I was out of the incubation period of 14 days. Since then, I kept myself updated on the epidemic news reported on each media platform, and asked for the first-hand information about the epidemic around my hometown from my relatives. At the same time, I also paid close attention to the prevention and control measures on the epidemic in my family.

At first when I asked my family to wear masks while going outside, all of them thought I was making a mountain out of a molehill and refused resolutely, saying I was too afraid of death, which was funny. It was not until their trusted official TVs such as the China Central Television (CCTV) saying how necessary it was to wear masks that they started to pay attention.

And then all the masks in our county were sold off, leading the price surging several times instantly but fortunately fell back to the normal level thanks to the government's effort. Not long ago, people here in the supermarket doing Spring Festival shopping were still indifferent to the prevention and control measures on the epidemic, hustling and bustling as usual. But just a few days before the Spring Festival, all of them finally got their masks on and also kept a certain distance between each other and tried to be as much silent as possible. 

The reported number of people getting infected kept growing. It was not until hearing the news that Wuhan had been placed on lockdown that my family began to be really nervous and worried. On the night before Chinese New Year's Eve, my parents telephoned my grandparents and other relatives, agreeing that all New Year visits needed to be cancelled and all of us should stay at home as much as possible instead. Then my mom said, "it seems we can't share the prepared food with our relatives this year." That's true, this Spring Festival might be the most cheerless one ever; or the best one for ourselves since all the stocks we bought for the Spring Festival would be only enjoyed by our own family in the end, which was the first time.

"Why don't you hang out?" I teased my younger sister who was in her second year of high school.

" I don't want to die," she replied.

I couldn't help laughing at her serious, brief and powerful words, but at the same time, I was also touched. Seeing the photos sent in her classmate group on WeChat, in which an ambulance, carrying infected quarantined people, was led by a police car on the way to her school, she said to me,"sister, there may be infected people on the way to our school."  I could see a sense of worry and shock through her eyes. I was not worried about on which road there were infected people. Instead, I was concerned about the fact that we were still not informed of the epidemic situation going on in our county, leaving all of us racking our brains to ask and guess blindly but still knowing nothing about the detail, which made me feel so feeble.

We spent the eve and the first day of the lunar new year together, only four of us, which was not as cheerful as before. The New Year's Eve dinner was not as rich as previous years, but it was still delicious. We watched the Spring Festival Gala on the sofa as usual, chatting and eating sunflower seeds together. Then at midnight, instead of hearing the laughter of kids playing downstairs and the sound of firecrackers from the villages in county suburb as before, there was nothing but silence all around.

Xiaochang was announced to be placed on lockdown on the New Year's Eve, with all transportations and entertainment venues suspended. The resumption date was uncertain until further notice. It came as no surprise to learn the measures as I knew Wuhan had been placed on lockdown previously.

Just a moment ago, my mother took a look at the outside from the window and said, "our community has never been so quiet before, even so has been the always noisy Mahjong room." Our county has looked also much quieter than ever these days. Some villagers set up blockade on the road leading into the village voluntarily, though they were still hanging the banner behind, which read hoping and welcoming the folks back home, who had gone far away over the year. A village cadre was riding a motorcycle holding a loudspeaker shouting along the roads in the village to remind villagers not to pay New Year visits.

At this moment, I suddenly feel that my county, a little bit backward, being in danger of the epidemic but with little attention from the public, has somewhat dragged itself up by its own bootstraps in the epidemic control work nationwide. Even though we really need more, such as better medical resources and more effective access to details about the the epidemic situation, most people of Xiaochang, just like most people of Wuhan who has been under lockdown in the city, were trying their best to be as cautious as they can to conform, preventing the disaster from putting a new strain.

This noon, when my parents were cooking, they found that the gas was used up. After calling to enquire about the way of charging, we learnt that it could only be charged on site, so my mom had to go out.

I urged her to put on two masks, but she thought it was a bit wasteful. "Your aunt just said that she spent 100 yuan on five packs of masks. But it used to cost only two or three yuan a pack. The price has almost surged ten times." she said.

"How dare they still charge such a high price? Aren't price control measures established?" I asked.

Watching TV on one side, my dad who has learnt the epidemic situation then answered, "how can the price control be carried out here in our small county?"

After going out for about an hour, my mom came back and said that it turned out that the access of our community was also under restriction, though she didn't know it as she had not been out for a few days. There were several guards at the gate. They would ask you where you were going and when you would come back, and they would also take your temperature. After charging the gas card, my mom also went to the supermarket along the way. There was only one large supermarket in the county, which was still normally running with also temperature measurement at the door. You could enter only when the temperature was normal. Of course, you had to wear masks. As what she saw, 100% of the people who she ran into all along the way were wearing masks.

There were not many people in the supermarket. Things were in normal supply without obvious shortage except for green vegetables.

I haven't been downstairs for days and almost forget how cold it was outside. Mom rubbed her face and said that all the places were closed, and the situation seemed to be a bit tenser than that we originally thought. The children of our two relatives had planned to get married in the first month of the lunar new year. But now the wedding ceremonies and receptions would also have to be cancelled because even if they were not afraid, no invited guests would dare to go out to attend the weddings.

The relatives who were working in other cities also refunded their tickets home, waiting for the outbreak to dissipate.