My father-in-law, currently in Luoyang (which has been under lockdown for the past three weeks), tells me that the coronavirus which has been impacting central China so badly is starting to show signs of abating. Today Chinese hospitals discharged a record number of patients, who no longer show any signs of infection. Also, long-distance bus transit from Luoyang to other nearby cities is starting to run again. I’m not sure I entirely believe the coronavirus is completely contained and in remission; I’m not sure he entirely believes it either. But it’s a hopeful sign, a sign of improvement, and I pray things continue to improve.
This is not a detached or unemotional issue for me. I am a Chinese son-in-law. More than that, I am a son-in-law of the Chinese interior. One of my wife’s first cousins and her husband live and work in Wuhan, and they were among the people who were stranded from going back there when they came home to Luoyang over the Spring Festival. They’ve been under quarantine since the public response to the coronavirus outbreak began. Thank God, neither of them has shown any symptoms or has suffered in any other way apart from the frustrations of quarantine.
There are, as there have always been, two possible responses to the coronavirus impacting China. The healthy and helpful response is to support the doctors, nurses, medics and other health workers and volunteers who are fighting it in whatever ways are feasible and possible, to cheer those who are fighting it and to offer them moral support, and – again – to hope that the situation there improves. To the people staying up late and giving of their time and energy, blood, sweat and tears, risking infection themselves to fight the virus and cure as many people as possible, particularly those in Hubei Province, God bless you all. And to the people worldwide who are supporting the health workers putting themselves at risk this way, thanks and salutes to you as well!
But then there is the far less helpful response. As I’ve noted before, the less healthy response does not merely consist of the abuse, taunts and threats that mainland Chinese people living abroad – or even in places like Hong Kong or among the diaspora – receive. It also consists in wild speculations about the coronavirus’s origin. It also consists in using the coronavirus as an excuse to criticise Chinese culinary habits, hygiene or environmental record. It also consists in intimations that the government is somehow responsible for the spread of the virus. All of these things – whether they are meant to or not – feed into the schadenfreude and racially-coded collective victim-blaming mentality that gives rise to the abuse in the first place.
In keeping with this – I will continue praying for the virus’s victims and their peace, health, safety and length of days. I will continue praying for the skill and labour of the doctors, nurses and paramedics as they treat the sick. And I will ask readers of my blog to join me in donating to the Global Giving Coronavirus Relief Fund, or to the Hubei Charitable Foundation, which is one of the biggest and most active distributors of needed aid and hygienic products (including face masks), to keep fighting the good fight against the outbreak.
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