Wuhan Diary #1 January 27, 2020

A Chinese-Australian on Twitter name @Baiducao has started a Wuhan Diary translation project.

Fifth day of Wuhan Quarantine — January 27, 2020

The news of Kobe’s death shocked me when I woke up in this morning. I am not really a big fan of NBA, but i understand how significant he is to many.For a lot of fans, he was a living legend. Can it be more sucks than this for the beginning of 2020？ Koke R.I.P My cousin joined the volunteer group supporting the medic team.He sent me a lot photos of him and frontline medics working together. You can still see their big smiles even though their masks cover the most of their faces. The gravity of the realness in this world consists of the tinder in the bottom of each individual’s heart. That little fire helps people to overcome the painful struggle and fight for their lives. It makes the world lovely and worth living.

It feels like another life when i recall what happened 2 weeks ago. I had a hunch the virus outbreak may go out of control, so I went to buy extra face marks，sanitizing alcohol and hand Sanitizer. But my family laughed at me and call me “ghost hunch”.

Later,I urged my family to stock more food and daily supply for the possibility of quarantine. But，they called me a “drama queen”. I have to go shopping by myself for the extra supply for the coming two days. On the third day, the city lockdown began. Now my family no longer questions my decisions. But does it mean i am more clever ？I dont think so, I just know China’s communist party better, or i shall say i have more “Negative Energy” in me. Not sure if it is for luck or my good calling, there is no one in my family got infected and we have enough supply for now. Anyway, at least my family still can have a normal functioning life. Comparing with those friends with infected members in their family, we do not need to deal with the hospital, we are much better off.

Every day,from this online group to another,so many people are calling for help for their loved ones. Some friends need help for their grandparents. Some school mates needs help for their dad and mom. They are the people i know，they are the people of helplessness. Last night i saw the news that my local supermarket will have special discount vegetable selling from Chengdu’s charity supply.All the vegetable will be sold for 2RMB/500g.I was worried that the special price will bring panic buying.

Today’s photos online did verify my concern. Panic buying happened to several markets，all the “kind heart vegetable”are gone now. Why the hell do they organize such event which will attract big crowds？No idea. For the neighbors outside of the 4th city ring way or those just built recently，they do have trouble to get fresh vegetable.I know it because i saw people calling help from those neighbors. Even for the markets having good supplying，（you can no longer order buying online)，you have to go the store to buy vegetables and they sold out fast. I think for now，the best thing is we have normal price for the vegetables and stable supply for it is really not necessary to have “special selling” campaign. From my observation, self-organized support totally beats any official organizations with much better efficiency and order.

Just now i saw news saying volunteers and their supplying goods got stuck in Wuhan for waiting proper checking from some official body.

I am worried that even self-organized support will be dysfunctioned. They are just volunteering on the jobs. Without proper good PPE supply，they will easily be exposed to the rick of being infected. Moreover, without a proper organization structure to plan the allocation of supply with a big picture, there will be a lot of delay and waste. More bad news today confirmed my concern. Many conflicts were sparked due to the lack of capacity of hospitalizing patients with fever in community centers in some extreme cases,people just move patients in office of community centre and staff from the center was forced to hide outdoors. This is unbelievable that this Wuhan called itself as “almost top” modern city just recently.

From last night’s press conference on national TV, or even since the very beginning of the outbreak of coronovirus，all the accusations are pointed to officials from Wuhan and Hubei.

However, i see it differently！Are they the only ones who shall take the responsibilities？！In 2018（when the Sichuan earthquake happened），i was touched by the slogan of the prime minister,”the more disaster there is，the stronger the country will be”. But now，of course not.

According to the notice I received recently，a propaganda war is coming. Many admins of the wechat group sand QQ groups might be in trouble for the “rumors” spreading among its group members.Maybe CCP shall be more confident.After so many years, the system has cultivated so many blind followers. Trust you puppets more.I am so shocked to see how fast the propaganda reacts to the “rumors”. The truth is twisted and changed by official lies instantly.If you are not living in this mess，it is hard for you to imagine.

For instance, even today，when people try to defend for the eight whistle blowers of this outbreak who got arrested for spreading “rumors”, trolls react swiftly,”reason to arrest them is because they lied. They said the virus is SARS. But look, we call it new pneumonia, so they are spreading rumors！”

Finally，i want to recommend to people under quarantine a Taiwan drama “A Touch of Green”. Let us fight the poison with stronger poison. Maybe after watching it，you will feel less bitterness.

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Ref (Wiki entry) Taiwan TV drama “A Touch of Green” A Touch of Green (Chinese: 一把青) is a 2015 Taiwanese period drama television series produced by Public Television Service, based on the 1971 short story of the same name by Pai Hsien-yung (which was included in his bilingual collection Taipei People). The story follows a group of Republic of China Air Force pilots and their women during the Chinese Communist Revolution (1945–49) in mainland China and the White Terror period (1949–87) in Taiwan.