A Message from My Friend in Wuhan to the West

“On January 23rd, 2020, Wuhan as a city shut down. We weren’t allowed out of our apartments except to pick up delivered food at residence gates (CAREFULLY socially distanced under pain of imprisonment) for two entire months. Spring Festival—the largest human migration on the planet, a celebration that combines the importance of the USA’s Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter all rolled into one!—was cancelled. Period. We couldn’t even go visit friends or relatives in the same neighbourhood, not to mention across the country as is the usual norm.

Did I mention that China doesn’t get holidays scattered around the year? That for many people Spring Festival is, effectively, their only holiday? That for many it is the ONLY time that (migrant worker) parents can see their children? I didn’t? Consider it mentioned now.

Tens of thousands of students at university were stuck in residences without their families and without their social outlets. Businesses were shut down at the time of year they made the most money, especially in the hospitality industries. Layered on top of that was the burgeoning dread of an unknown disease of unknown properties that had already infected tens of thousands and killed thousands.

That was two months of a living Hell for me, and I’m not even part of the culture. The people that missed out on their most important holiday, their chance to see their children, their ability to feast together with family, the ability to earn enough money to last another year: these all had it a lot worse.

And yet, despite that all (and despite the crap that was broadcast all over Western media at the time via their narrative-distorted lenses) there was a whole lot less whining about this most important of all holidays in China being obliterated than I’m seeing from North Americans over Thanksgiving in the USA and Christmas in the USA and Canada both.

To say that I’m . . . disappointed in . . . my heritage is putting it very mildly. (The more accurate way to word it might be “disgusted by” or “repulsed by”.)

And the worst part is that this is all self-inflicted.

Wuhan didn’t get a choice. We got nuked at ground zero by a hitherto-unknown virus of unknown properties. It came out of nowhere and by the time we realized what was happening around us the only thing that could be done was a brutal, scary, mind-damaging (I’m still recovering!) lockdown: in effect a two month period of solitary confinement complete with all the psychic damage that entailed. Canada, the USA, and Europe all had a chance to dodge this. All they had to do was three simple things:

1. Wear a mask. A few ounces of fabric or paper on their face.

2. Wash their hands. Something they should already have been doing anyway!

3. Keep their distance. For a month, two tops, just stop going out and about. They knew enough, by the time the shit hit the fan in Canada, to not have to lock people into their homes. They knew enough that they could go outside (something I missed BADLY in my two months of Hell!). That they could go for walks in the park, go shopping provided they wore their masks and kept a safe distance. That they could get out and DO things, even if it wasn’t the social things they wanted to do. And they could do it in a time of year not festooned with festivities.

That’s it. Three simple steps. Three things that aren’t particularly onerous. And they didn’t do it. They were too selfish to be mildly inconvenienced for a couple of months (to the point of throwing ABSOLUTE GOD-DAMNED TANTRUMS over wearing a couple of ounces of fabric over their face!). And now they’re whining about Thanksgiving in the USA and Christmas in the USA and Canada (and probably all of Europe too—I’m not bothering to watch there; it’s too heart-breaking).

Remind me to feel sorry for them while I’m celebrating Spring Festival 2021 in style because we took things seriously and suffered a while. Remind me to feel sorry for them when I walk home tonight through streets that are almost back to their pre-plague levels of social and economic activity (with added masks). Remind me to feel sorry for their self-inflicted injury. I won’t, but remind me anyway.”—Michael Richter