Behind the mask: Coronavirus writings
Covid-19 has so far tossed out a few virus-related writing scraps but otherwise kept me grounded.
The pick of the bunch was this feature for the Telegraph - Guarded optimism and poodles in face masks: A postcard from China after three months of coronavirus. Here’s an excerpt:
As the UK hunkers down, puts the kettle on and braces itself for what’s to come, in China we’re emerging from our burrows and blinking in the spring sunshine.
The vibe in the Middle Kingdom is one of guarded optimism; that the worst of the virus is behind us. It’s taken almost two months of unprecedented, coordinated action the likes of which, one imagines, few other countries would have the resources or stomach for. Wuhan in Hubei province, a city surely forever to be stigmatized with Covid-19, was sealed off on January 23, two days before Chinese New Year. In Beijing, under snowy skies, the Forbidden City heaved closed its mighty vermillion gates, living up to its name once again a century after it ceased to be a palace and became a public museum. This year marks its 600th birthday celebrations, but the bunting is still in the box.
The Year of the Rat scurried in with an inaudible squeak. After some debate, my partner’s extended family opted not to cancel the annual New Year shindig in Xuchang, a city in Henan province bordering Hubei, and so ensued a chaotic day of dumplings, drunkenness, mah-jong and the giving of red envelopes stuffed with cash. Apart from one daring dinner party since, that was the last time I did anything fun, I realise as I write this. At the risk of sounding facetious, coronavirus is bloody boring. In Beijing, where I live, we’ve been shielded from the worst of it. Official figures report just eight deaths and 496 cases in an area covering some 20 million people. It’s a different story in Hubei province, 600 miles to the south, still barricaded off from the rest of China. There, under perpetual lockdown, disillusionment simmers, despite Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s choreographed visit on March 10, a move to show the Party has got the virus under control. Now, the enemy is without, not within. With cases in China flatlining, the majority of new infections are ‘imported’ – people coming back to China, mostly students and workers deciding that the homeland is a safer prospect than remaining in Europe, Southeast Asia or the United States.
Read the rest over at Telegraph Travel.
And this China dispatch for Lonely Planet.
Tom O'Malley in Beijing, China
Tom has been living in Beijing for 11 years. He researched and wrote the forthcoming 12th edition of the Beijing Lonely Planet guide.
As I write this, Beijing is basking in warm spring sunshine and blue skies, a glorious day to greet the uplifting news that for the first time since lockdown began in January, China recorded no new local infections. It’s taken a Herculean effort to "flatten the curve", as Tom Hanks put it, the sort of militaristic disaster response that an authoritarian, one-party government like China’s is so equipped for.
The mood is gingerly optimistic as Beijingers shake off the collective hibernation hangover and start to venture out of doors. Schools have opened in other parts of China (not yet in Beijing), and though most tourist sights remain closed, the parks are busy just as the first cherry blossoms come into bloom. We’re getting used to the ‘new normal’ of face masks, constant temperature checks, and having our phones scanned to reveal past whereabouts. In a city typically defined by crowds, Beijing is unseasonably free of tourists. Anyone coming into the capital – even if from a neighbouring city like Tianjin – is required to quarantine at a central government facility for 14 days, with family members segregated. Understandably, people are staying away.
Those with tourist-oriented businesses like hotels, restaurants and travel companies have been particularly hard hit. Anyone with premises in the hutong (Beijing’s historic inner-city lanes) has suffered dreadfully; for weeks now, every hutong in Beijing has a checkpoint and gate that only permits residents. Normally at this time of year, we’d be brunching on the roof terrace of boutique hotel the Orchid, or sipping al fresco negronis at Nina, but both are deep in the hutong and impossible to access. Businesses on main streets have fared better; Slow Boat Brewery, a craft beer bar, has kept pouring pints throughout the lockdown, god bless them.
Where does it go from here? With the situation changing day-by-day, it’d be rash to even hazard a guess. But right now in Beijing, the spring warmth brings hope that there is light at the end of tunnel, and life after coronavirus.