Love Letters to Wuhan: Beyond the Coronavirus
Anna Dai-Liu
SAN DIEGO, CA―One of my family’s most valued photos is a picture of three-year-old me, in a pink vest, standing in the middle of the street and clutching a plastic bag with a bloody fish in it.
乡里伢, my parents say, laughing. Like a village kid. It’s not intended to be offensive. Rather, they tell me it’s a compliment because I look like a real Chinese kid, born and raised.
I’m not.
I live in San Diego, California, far from the epicenter of the coronavirus, but my entire family is from―you guessed it―Wuhan. My parents taught me to always value my Chinese identity, to be proud of being Chinese, no matter what people thought.
Well, now the world is shutting themselves off from Chinese people, and Wuhanese? Not even a question. They’re obviously carriers. They’re dangerous, people are saying. I‘m lucky enough to not have suffered from this kind of treatment, but others have, because of fear. And prejudice. And a complete lack of information about what is going on.
So I’m writing a letter with the help of survey responses from thirty kids locked in Wuhan right now, from me (well, rather, us) to you. To explain the truth.
This is our love letter to Wuhan, and I hope that you’ll learn to love it too for the right reasons because, beyond the coronavirus, it is a city as vibrant as any other.
dear language,
I grew up learning Mandarin Chinese at home alongside my English at school. That’s what it says on my school profile: home language: Mandarin. Now I speak what many Chinese-Americans affectionately dub as “Chinglish”, a cross between the two languages so bizarre that my family sometimes has no clue what I’m trying to say.
But alongside the standardized Mandarin, known as 普通话 (literally, “regular language”), I learned to understand 武汉话, or the Wuhan dialect, one of the hundreds spoken in China. (Those rumors about people from different provinces not being able to understand each other? Those are true.)
The Wuhan dialect is a guttural one, the constantly descending tones making it seem like the speaker is constantly complaining. It’s a far cry from elegant. But it’s existed for so long; therefore, I conclude, it must be important.
“It’s very unique and powerful?”, one student tells me, as if it’s a question. I definitely agree that it’s unique; so unique, in fact, that there have been audio guides for outside doctors coming to Wuhan to volunteer.
So why powerful?
I think that because it’s so crude, in a sense, it represents the common people that makeup Wuhan. They built up the city to a point where it was once known as the “Chicago of China”, a buzzing hub of trade and economics. The revolution that ended Imperial China (known as the Xinhai Revolution)? That began in Wuhan too, over a railway dispute. At a certain point, Wuhan was going to be the capital, but it was deemed “too accessible”, as it lies at the center of China, on the major waterway of the Yangtze River. (Ergo, too easily attacked by enemies.) The language represents that history, a story of everyday people like you and me.
But for many years, Wuhan fell off the front pages. No one knew where it was. Most people had never heard of it. Now, the coronavirus has put this city, my family’s hometown, back on the map―for all the wrong reasons.
So I hope that below, I can explain to you some of the right reasons, and hopefully, something will connect with you―and make you realize, dear reader, that there is much more than what you read on a screen.
dear food,
Before anything else, I’m hungry. So let’s start with food. Food is a universal thing.
It may just be sustenance to some, but for a lot of us certain foods carry memories attached to them. Sure, food is part of culture, like a Spanish roscón de reyes or a Jewish latke, but memories, for many, make food part of identity―think about those information sheets you filled out in elementary school, and the questions you had to answer: What is your favorite food? they’d ask. Just as important as your favorite color, your age, your grade.
For the city of Wuhan, food is most certainly a part of a citizen’s identity―so important, in fact, that there is a specific phrase coined in the city dialect to describe the tradition of breakfast: 过早 (guo zao).
Here in America, there’s a huge emphasis on making “Sunday morning breakfast”, but whenever I go back to Wuhan, at least once, I wake up early in the morning and head downstairs to buy breakfast. Beneath every apartment complex, there’s always a group of vendors clustered together, hawking their steaming wares to passersby as enticing smells waft out of enormous pots and bowls, their lids shut to keep them warm.
One student talks about sesame noodles (热干面, re gan mian, literally “hot dry noodles”), sold by many different vendors that each have their own flavor. A bean curd filled with rice (豆皮, dou pi) is another favorite. There’s lotus root soup (藕汤, ou tang), a Wuhan dinner specialty, Lu Benwei (卢本伟) mentions. Personally, I love 糊汤米酒 (hu tang mi jiu), a thick sweet soup made with little osmanthus flowers, fermented rice, and sticky rice balls. Not only does it satisfy my sweet tooth, but also it has a double meaning for the people of Wuhan because, in the local dialect, the phrase itself means “stupid”. (As my dad remarks, it’s clearly perfect for me.)
Sometimes, after buying something, a buyer stops to chat with a vendor if business isn’t at its maximum at that moment; even if it’s someone they’ve just met, there is always something to talk about in Wuhan. (In my opinion, food is always a good choice.)
It’s no surprise that for many, buying breakfast is just a routine thing. Routine enough, in fact, that people make their entire livelihoods off of it. For many of these vendors, this is their life; this is how they make enough money to survive to the next day. But the lockdown has changed everything.
In late January, the government announced a shutdown of the city, locking its residents in and blocking everything else out, just before China’s most important holiday, the Lunar New Year. The global response has been a mixed one. “They did badly, for they didn't prepare anything before they made the decision,” sophomore Zhang Bohao says. Some argue that this lack of organization has led to even more deaths than should have happened, as the lockdown has caused people to flood the hospital. Just as the squeaky wheel gets the oil first, it’s no secret that the Chinese medical system has issues with corruption and bribery―those who pay, even if they aren’t sick, get treated, and not only do they put themselves at risk by being in the hospital (a hotbed of infection), but leave those who are sick to remain with other people, endangering everyone.
But inside the city, most agree with a decision that to them, shouldn’t be controversial at all.
“The lockdown is necessary; if you’re not in Wuhan, you don’t understand how bad this epidemic is,” another student argues. “We all support this decision because it’s prevented other cities/locations from breakouts as bad as ours.”
Even if some don’t enjoy the situation they’re in, most recognize it as the best possible alternative, and that its advantages outweigh its disadvantages. One of the most important (arguably, the most important) tenets of Chinese New Year is to return to one’s family to celebrate. Confucianism tradition, sure, but also as a matter of respect. Many Wuhanese weren’t able to do so this year―but many, after returning, couldn’t leave.
Normally, during the New Year season, train services run at elevated rates to accommodate for the elevated amount of people traveling―but if so many people were to return home or come back, not only would that pose a massive danger to people entering, but all those people leaving would be liabilities that the government wouldn’t be able to account for once they left the city. Is that a risk that they’re willing to run? No. So, a student argues, the shutdown was worth it to contain that spread.
Most of the dissenters agree with her as well. The lockdown may be a little extreme, one student explains, but agrees with another student, Jinling, in concluding that “[b]locking the city is certainly a bad option, but it is one of the most effective”.
For the rest of China, the lockdown has been hailed as a valiant sacrifice for the safety of others. On the annual CCTV New Year Gala broadcasted nationwide, announcers saluted the bravery of the people; whether it was intended to appear ironic or propagandized, that’s up to the people to decide for themselves. But as long as the people can bear it, the shutdown continues, and the city remains silent.
dear transportation & education,
New York City is famous for being the “city that never sleeps”, but with all due respect, Wuhan deserves that title.
On a typical night, it’s almost impossible to fall asleep. There are cars honking, construction cranes beeping, and people. Always people coming, going, moving. Of course, that’s no longer true now; instead, everyone stays inside their homes, afraid that even a trip to buy groceries could result in a trip to the hospital instead.
Public transport was one of the first things that shut down.
“No.1 tram is the travel companion and memory of many old Wuhan people. My mother used to be the dispatcher of the tram. She recorded the trip of the tram,” high school senior Zhang Zhuoyan says. Although the subway system wasn’t opened until a few years ago, the public transport system has been around for decades, and the No. 1 tram (or trolley, as I know it) is no exception. With transportation, including the famous array of bridges spanning the Yangtze River, the two sides of the city (Wuchang on one and Hankou/Hanyang on the other) were united, allowing for the exchange of people and ideas in Wuhan and to the rest of the world.
Of course, now there’s something else being exchanged: pathogens.
To further nip the spread of infection in the bud, streets have been shut down, from alleyways and streets selling the aforementioned traditional foods to the river shore, which has been transformed into a popular park.
But most importantly, for these students, school is closed.
School is now completely virtual. Although it gives them greater control over their schedules, many agree that it’s not as effective because they can’t ask the questions they’d like to or have discussions. It’s like the dreams we had as kids, Zhou Qinru (周沁如) remarks, but it’s not nearly as exciting as it sounded then. “Technology has its advantages,” she goes on to say, “but this is not how I wanted to experience them.”
Those who are hit the hardest are seniors. In China, the university examination is in concept similar to an American SAT, but in reality thousand times more important, and for those preparing for it, this isn’t just a wrench thrown into the most important plans of their lives; it’s a bulldozer. “As a senior three student, I feel very pressured,” Zhang Zhuoyan tells me.
If the city is an electric system, the lockdown has short-circuited it. Everyone is a separate entity now, disconnected from the rest. Those gaps don’t seem like they could be bridged anytime soon.
And yet, the coronavirus has, miraculously, connected people. A student tells me that her neighborhood has a group chat to tell each other information and organize themselves. Over the phone, my grandma tells me about special grocery delivery services for older people sponsored by neighborhoods (since, based on statistics we have, older people are more prone to infection).
Even if on the exterior it doesn’t seem that way, Wuhan has fought to maintain its status quo, to maintain those connections that define its people and give it an identity. “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers,” Emily Dickinson tells us―and if so, then there are quite a few birds in Wuhan right now, roaming those lonely streets and calling out, despite the walls in between.
dear media,
There’s this little green app on my phone with a text bubble as its icon. No, it’s not Whatsapp; it’s WeChat, better known in China as 微信 (wei xin). It pings regularly, with messages from my family in Wuhan. Sporadic news updates. Where are they getting their news from? I wonder. Most foreign news sources are censored in China, so what are they reading?
Most trust the government statistics that are reported on a daily basis. Even if they’re falsified, one student says “falsifying a little more or less doesn’t matter” in the larger scope of things.
However, from an American perspective, there’s quite a bit of suspicion around government-reported statistics. After the 2002 SARS outbreak in China, it was discovered that the government had hidden news of the epidemic for quite a while in hopes of controlling it by themselves. This time, although China has been hailed for its transparency, evidence has arisen that the Chinese government attempted to silence one doctor who raised concerns about the coronavirus long before it hit headlines. That whistleblower is now dead from the coronavirus he reported on.
His name, 李文亮 (Li Wenliang), has become a rallying cry for those asking for China to be completely transparent. A couple of weeks ago, walking out of the UCSD (University of California, San Diego) library, I stumbled across a message chalked in bold characters at the entrance. We will not be silenced, it read. As if he was a martyr, dead for a cause.
Censorship of information in China, as well as faith in the government’s actions, significantly limits the amount of suspicion (in comparison to foreigners) that the people have in government information, so I asked these students: How do you know if the news is fake or true?
The number one response: social media.
Apps like Weibo and WeChat have taken China by storm, where Facebook and Twitter and Instagram don’t exist. Through WeChat, one can create what’s literally translated into English as “friend groups” and group chats, and for some, this is their primary news source, rather than traditional newspapers or news outlets. “If [what my friends tell me] contradicts [the government reports], I’ll compare different sources, rather than immediately trusting it,” a student tells me. Another way, a couple of them tell me, is to look at the public comments posted by people on these social mediums. There are so many responses from people all around the country, says the same student who pointed out that “a little more or less doesn’t matter”. Depending on what people are saying, she then judges to what extent the news is true. Some take it beyond the screens to real people. A few say they ask their parents for information, but a couple tells me that they talk to friends who are experts in the field―doctors, officials, and anyone else whose professional lives have put them in “ground zero”.
Suffice it to say, within China, there’s still quite a bit of faith in the government. For many Chinese-Americans, there’s a fear that this will just turn into another propaganda stunt by the government, and that our families will suffer for it. But for now, as the coronavirus spreads globally, there’s more information, and of course, more suspicion that comes with it. And as for determining the validity of information―everyone, of course, is biased, so then it’s up to you, the reader, who decides what to do next.
dear music,
The last time I was in Wuhan, 3 years ago, one of the last trips I took was to a subway station―well, more accurately, to the garden just outside, the location of a pavilion known as 琴台 (qin tai, literally “instrument platform”).
As I’ve mentioned, Wuhan is a city of stories, and those stories stretch back years and years, all the way to imperial China. Poet Qu Yuan (屈原), who hailed from the province of Hubei (of which Wuhan is the capital), is now known as “China’s first patriotic poet”; after his suicide in the river, villagers threw in silk packets of rice to ward off demons, and those rice bundles evolved into present-day 粽子 (zong zi), now eaten annually to celebrate the holiday known as the Dragon Boat Festival. But my favorite story is a different one, one connected to that subway platform and that park.
When you step off the subway platform at Qintai, the walls are silver and engraved with characters. Legend has it that one day, musician Yu Boya (俞伯牙) sat at this very location on the riverbank and played his 古琴 (guqin), and a man, Zhong Ziqi (钟子期), stayed to listen because he was the only one who understood his music. The two promised to meet each other again, but by then, Ziqi had died; when Boya found out, he played a final tune over his friend’s grave and broke his instrument, never to play it again.
From this story, we get the Chinese phrase for friendship, 知音 (zhi yin); literally, someone who understands your music. In English, we would use the word “soulmates”, but I find this Chinese phrase deeper than that because as a musician and artist, this is what I strive to find in other people and create in an audience.
But with the rise of the coronavirus, friendship is on the decline and discrimination is back on the rise―this time, against Wuhan people and Asians in general. I think it’s not hatred, necessarily, but a lack of knowledge, which in turn, leads us to be afraid. Many of these Chinese students aren’t as aware; after all, they’re trapped. So I asked them: What message would you like to deliver to teenagers around the world to [challenge these thoughts]?
Here’s what they have to say.
“I think it’s not hatred or hostility to the people, but fear of the virus.”
“Our lockdown was to prevent other people from getting sick. By doing so, we protected everyone else from this danger.”
“Diseases shouldn’t divide nations, no matter what nation it is.”
“Even though the virus is scary, most Chinese people are sick, so I hope you judge people individually by their merits, and not their race.”
But my favorite, by far, is this one:
“Would you like to try?”
dear flowers,
Wuhan may be a city of stories, but those stories only exist because of dreamers―and even today, even now, there are still people who are willing to dream.
It’s almost spring now. The cherry blossoms will be coming out soon. And for one student, that means something a little more.
“No matter how busy I am, every year I go to the Wuhan University gardens to see the flowers,” Zhou Qinru says. “They’re not just flowers to me. They represent the dreams I’ve had since I was a kid of going here, and when I’m 18, I want to be able to come and look at them as a real student.” I can feel her resolve through the screen. I’m determined to do it, she says, despite everything. Despite the virus. Despite all these challenges. I’m determined.
That seems to be a common sentiment―that we will get through this because these hardships are only temporary. So I ask them, will things go back to normal? Or will Wuhan change after its stint in the spotlight? Mostly the same, they say. But one little difference: the city will be more united. There will be more connections between people because we all went through the same thing, Qinru adds. Another student, sophomore Xia Weiqi (夏瑞琪), adds that she hopes people value their time with their family and friends more, now that they know how precious it is.
One phrase crops up over and over: 团结 (tuan jie). Loosely, it’s defined as unity, but it’s about the connections and links developed between a team of people. Because of this, they say, we’ve become more connected. Wuhan is better. Or at least it will be.
Right now, the plum blossoms in Wuhan should be beginning to bloom.
They’re the city flower, my mom tells me. It represents pushing through hardship because unlike the rest, the plum blossom blooms in the dead of winter, surviving through harsh snow and freezing weather. Metaphorical, no? But it really is something true: from these students’ words, I can feel their hope. They are kids, bright, dreaming, hoping for futures ahead of them that they’ve so desperately worked for.
It’s obviously impossible for me to visit Wuhan this year, but hopefully next year, during the lunar new year, I’ll get a chance to go back again. The plum blossoms will be in bloom then. A reminder of a city that has suffered―
―but also, a reminder of a city of stories, of dreams, of history, and of people that survived it all.
acknowledgments
thank you to:
the many students who took the time to answer my survey―you are why this article exists, and thank you for being willing to voice your opinion.
the many professionals (doctors, officials, etc.) working around the world to combat this virus and save as many lives as they can
and of course, my family, for inspiring me to write about home.