In Between Worlds: Gathering Thoughts on the Coronavirus Outbreak back in China

Jiaqi (Julia) Peng Edited by Joshua Kim Designed by Am C.

Writer’s Note: I wrote this piece around the end of February, when COVID-19 was affecting my home country China the most, and it focuses solely on the situation there. Given where we are now, however, readers will find it different from the global perspective they might expect from the topic.

When I left home the morning of January 20th, everything seemed normal. The country was in the hustle and bustle of getting ready for the Lunar New Year just four days away. I’d probably seen something about an “unknown pneumonia” online but didn’t pay much attention. Even after I landed in the US to hear that a highly respected doctor had just confirmed this new virus could spread between humans, I still didn’t think it was a big deal.

The next day, headlines of the first cases of “new pneumonia” across the country dominated the top 50 trending topics on Chinese social media. Fear lurked behind us.

On January 23rd, the city of Wuhan was in lockdown. Intracity public transportation froze. Highways, train stations and airports were shut down. No one could get in, and no one could get out. That was the day most Chinese people realized that something was very wrong.

A website posted daily official statistics of newly confirmed and suspected cases, as well as number of deaths and cured patients. It also showed a map marking China’s provinces with different shades of red, depending on the number of confirmed cases. Compared to other provinces, Hubei was colored with a very dark red. I watched as confirmed cases grew by hundreds and then quickly by the thousands, until the numbers slowly lost their meaning to their immense size. Eventually, the last uncolored bit of the map disappeared. I was convinced that for a long time onwards, these light and dark red patches would be the first image that comes to mind whenever I see a map of China.

On January 24th, Lunar New Year’s Eve, the day of reunion and happiness, social media was flooded with announcements from hospitals in Hubei requesting medical supplies such as masks and protective suits. Due to their short expiration date, hospitals carry small stocks of supplies, but have to replace any removed mask or suit. Unfortunately, factories couldn’t start production at once since workers were back in their hometown, and the lockdown hindered the transportation of supplies.

Still, people managed to send everything they could find, but only to have their donations disappear into the void of Wuhan Red Cross Society. We watched donated masks somehow find their way to the market. We watched CCTV journalists blocked from further investigations. We watched a driver of a high-ranking official leaving the Red Cross with a whole box of masks, while doctors silently waited outside, unable to access supplies with their “letters of introduction”. We watched all this happen while medical workers covered themselves with plastic file bags and garbage bags, while they begged for supplies in desperate tears as their colleagues were infected, while they were soaked in sweat--not daring to waste any protective suits for the day. They were heroes, but just like you and me, they, too, were scared.

People often quote this saying: “The dust of an age falls upon the shoulders of an individual to become a mountain”. It couldn’t have ever been more true now. A 17-yearold boy with cerebral palsy died 6 days after his father was quarantined because social services didn’t take care of him. A father jumped off a building in constant fear of spreading the disease to his family. A mother, unable to be admitted into a hospital due to lack of diagnostic kits and hospital beds, slit her wrist to end the pain she had been enduring. Migrant workers stranded in Wuhan collected leftover food on the streets and slept in parking lots because they lost their jobs.

I would often read about these events on my way to Blodgett Hall, when I wait in line at Global Kitchen, and before my next class on the French Revolution. Whenever I looked up from my phone, I would have these moments where my mind would freeze, because I couldn’t perceive the simultaneous existence of the two worlds. One in which medical workers worry about supplies, patients die at home, and countless families are shattered. Another in which I worry about my reading assignment for next class and chat about the Oscars with my friends. How can the two possibly exist at the same time? Which one is my world? How do I connect the two?

At first I tried to discuss COVID-19 in China with my friends, but soon found myself at a loss for words. How would I describe the desperate medical workers? What would I say about that 17-yearold boy? How would I explain the stranded workers sleeping in parking lots? I was speechless as I myself could not comprehend what was happening in front of my eyes.

I hardly recognized my country anymore---the country booming with industrial manufacturing, steadily progressing towards a “moderately prosperous society by 2020”, and boasting of the second largest GDP in the world. I’ve never blindly believed in everything about my country, but the living hell in Wuhan still caught me off guard and burst my bubble. It gave me a glimpse of where my country is truly at in terms of wealth, healthcare and administration. To talk about COVID-19 in China is to discuss our flawed social and political structures that led us here today --- the product of

an inefficient epidemic response system, a stratified bureaucracy that puts power before people, and an ideology that prizes stability above everything else.

Do I really want to discuss this with my classmates?

Being at the intersection of the two worlds makes things difficult in a nuanced way. The truth is, no matter how angry and disappointed I am, I’m not ready to criticize my country with people from other countries. No matter how secure I feel about my national identity, I don’t know how others will associate what my government does with who I am, and that uncertainty scares me. Besides, the gap between the two worlds is just too wide to overcome. In Chinese, “新冠肺炎”(COVID-19) is the wailing of the girl chasing after the mortuary van that carried her mother away. It is the cry of the woman striking a gong on her balcony because her infected mother couldn’t receive medical attention. The letter a film director wrote before passing away, after his father, mother and sister all died from infection. It’s the national grief that drenched China’s winter with tears and forever took the spring from many.

In English, “coronavirus” is a time bomb that makes me tense up because I don’t know what will happen next. A mockery against Chinese people for “enjoying bat soup”? A complaint on us for being “dirty” and troublesome? Or perhaps just a normal, harmless discussion?

In the end, it comes down to finding a balance between two worlds: too much of one makes me an “aggressive nationalist”, while too much of the other makes me an “unpatriotic traitor”, and to be honest, I never found that balance. I ended up switching abruptly between the two worlds: I’d put down my phone, close my eyes to the tragedies I’d just read, and immediately engage in a light conversation with people around me. I felt guilty for being able to do this so quickly because it felt like I wasn’t being genuine to either world, but there seemed to be no other way to handle their simultaneous existence. This was disheartening to say the least.

There was one thing that helped me come to terms with myself, though. Throughout the epidemic, I witnessed an immeasurable amount of kindness and courage. Farmers from all over the country, many of them in poverty, delivered their vegetables to donate to medical workers. Women founded organizations to purchase menstrual hygiene products for female doctors and nurses. Volunteers provided free rides for medical workers, delivered medicine to long-term patients and purchased groceries for elderly people. These acts of love transcended nationality and provided something for me to hold onto while I walk across the tightrope over the gap between two worlds. They reminded me to believe in humanity, and offered me strength and hope regardless of where I lie in between the worlds.

I’ve always heard that the city of Wuhan has breathtakingly beautiful cherry blossoms in the spring. When all of this is over, I’ll go visit with my family someday.

I will never forget the winter, but I know spring is coming.