ISSUE 2 | She Bought 100 Masks for the Sanitation Workers

Editor's Note

This issue comes from a conversation between two young feminists in China, Xiao Meili (肖美丽) & Guo Jing (郭晶). Both are known for their advocacy and activism against sexual discrimination, sexual harassment and domestic violence. One of Xiao's most notable campaigns is her 2,000 km (1,240 mile) walk from Beijing to Guangzhou in 2014 to raise awareness of sexual abuse. That was also the year when Guo won the landmark sex-based discrimination case in which she sued a cooking school in Zhejiang province for rejecting her job application on the basis of gender. Currently Guo runs a hotline for women facing workplace discrimination. 

Three months ago, Guo had just moved to Wuhan, the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak. In this conversation with her long-time friend, Guo shares her experience living in the quarantined Wuhan. She discusses how she has managed her personal wellbeing in a stressful time while proactively reaching out and building connections for a purpose. For her, the more “absurd” the world seems, the more one has to find their own place and learn how to coexist with such absurdity.

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She Bought 100 Masks for the Sanitation Workers — A Conversation between Guo Jing and Xiao Meili

Translator: Ariel Tan, Joyce Tan

Conversation first appeared on:

"Into the Fields" (“有点田园”)

X - Xiao Meili

G - Guo Jing

"If the situation then was as severe as it is now, you would probably be locked up for a month!"

G: I’m Guo Jing. I had just recently moved to Wuhan in November 2019, a month before the outbreak of the novel coronavirus started in December. By January it got much worse, and the city was locked down on the 23rd. This measure was rare and didn’t have many precedents in history. 

X: What were your thoughts when you first heard about this pneumonia with an unknown cause?

G: I first heard about it on December 30th. Some said there was a pneumonia outbreak that originated from the Huanan Seafood Market. My eyes were bothering me so I went to Tongji Hospital for a check-up. My friend sent me a message that same night, saying that some infected people were being sent to Tongji Hospital. But I’m not a cautious person; plus there were so many people in the hospital, the probability of me getting infected was very low. So I didn’t pay much attention. For a long period, there were no new confirmed cases, and the official information at the time was that it was a curable disease, so I wasn’t really worried. I even went out on a business trip in January.

Sanitation workers cleaning an empty street in Yichang, Hubei Province.

Source: http://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1657580082917990131&wfr=spider&for=pc

X: You and I even hung out outside of Wuhan. I remember when we met, one of our friends was very careful. She didn’t even want to be in the same room with you once she heard that you recently came from Wuhan and had been to Tongji Hospital. We all thought she was making a big fuss. But in hindsight, if the situation then were as severe as it is now, you would probably be locked up for a month!

G：Yes. I’m very grateful that her friendship prevailed over her fear.

X:  Once we learned that the new virus has the capacity of human-to-human transmission and a lot more people had been infected, you had already returned to Wuhan. How did you feel at that moment?

G: By January 20th, the confirmed cases had suddenly jumped to 100, and at that time I started to panic. Prior to that I would wear a mask but took it off occasionally since I observed others weren’t wearing them. I also met up and went out to eat with some friends.

But when I went out on the 20th, I noticed many people were queuing up at the drugstore to buy masks, and maybe some flu medicine. I learned about Oseltamivir (Tamiflu) during that time, since I saw others were buying it. I was there because it just happened that you passed your cold to me when we met up.

People lining up in a pharmacy

Source: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/Vnv77rXEKcJWcMdmtsuPBA

I woke up on the morning of the 23rd to find out from WeChat (a Chinese social media platform) that the city had been locked down. My first reaction was: I didn’t really know how to react. It was announced that all public transit would be shut down after 10 am, and it felt unbelievably surreal to me.

“The excitement I had was an adrenaline rush of despair, and I found it very scary.”

G: I didn’t want to go out since I hadn’t washed my hair for a few days. I first placed an order on Ele.me (a food delivery app) because everyone was reminding me to stock up on food. But I saw that the app had defaulted to advance booking, meaning the delivery would start at 11am instead of “ASAP”. I worried that there wouldn't be any food left and my order would be canceled, so I went out to do some shopping.

My initial thought was to get some basic food for survival like rice and noodles since I didn’t know how long the lockdown would last. The notice of the Wuhan lockdown had been sent out around midnight and it really caught people off guard. As someone who goes to sleep early, I didn’t see this news when it first came out. The notice also didn’t explain how people need to prepare during a city lockdown like this, and the government didn’t provide much support to help people meet their basic needs. There was no information about any of this, so it was nerve-wracking. 

I ran into a man at the supermarket who was buying salt, lots and lots of salt. When people asked him why he was stocking up on salt, he answered, “What if the lockdown lasts for an entire year?”

A corner of a supermarket on Jan 30

Source: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/RWpZvANAzEoSbx-RtAe2-w

X: What were your thoughts when you heard someone saying that?

G: I certainly didn’t think it would be that terrifying. When I first left the house to buy groceries, I just wanted to take a look around. I only grabbed some rice and noodles. Buying vegetables required you to weigh your purchases and the line was really long, so I didn’t bother to line up. However, when I got back home, I felt that I didn’t have enough food, so I went out again.

When I went out for the second time, I reflected on my previous shopping trip: I had an adrenaline rush of despair, and I found it very scary. Although I temporarily secured some food, I still had a sense of panic and desperation.

I later contemplated the situation and concluded that the lockdown wouldn't eliminate all the food supplies, and I still had some rice that could last me a month. Worst case scenario, I’d be having porridge and pickles every day. I thought everything would be OK, and I mainly bought some things like honey and yogurt during the second trip.

An illustration made by BBC for Guo Jing’s diary

Source: https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp/chinese-news-51306998

“There is a sense of disconnection from reality, as well as the desire to confirm reality”

X：I usually watch the Spring Festival Gala every year, not because I want to watch it, but because I want to roast it. But this year I didn’t even have the energy to make fun of the show. I saw something online like this: “A boy’s mother asks his grandma, ‘Wanna watch the Gala or a TV show?’ And grandma says, ‘I wanna see how people in Wuhan are doing.’”

G：Oh gosh…

A photo of Xiao Meili wearing a t-shirt that says “This is what a feminist looks like”

Source: Image courtesy of Xiao Meili

G: I also had lots of complex emotions after this incident. Behind these feelings are the loss of control and a sense of helplessness, when suddenly the world was turned upside down. Since this was supposed to be the beginning of a new year, everyone could have some new year plans and goals that they’d be hopeful about, but the outbreak interrupted everything to the point where people’s basic survival has become a problem.

I think information is very important: what information people gather from the government about this virus and its symptoms, what protective and preventive measures have been taken, how to maintain the function of the city, etc. Transparency of information is critical. A big factor that caused people’s panic in the beginning was the lack of information.

I still went out every day after the lockdown. For the first few days, I just wanted to make sure that the supermarket had adequate supplies. Once I had enough information about my basic survival, I started to think that life shouldn’t be just this. So I started to expand the range of my daily activities, and I started to take walks by the riverbank. One of the reasons was to expand my physical environment, and another was to learn more. For example, what was life like further from here? There’s also a layer of disbelief. Every day, even now, I am in the state of, “Is all of this real? How did it happen?”. There is a sense of disconnection from reality, as well as the desire to confirm reality. 

People shopping for vegetables in a supermarket

Source: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/RWpZvANAzEoSbx-RtAe2-w

“I bought 100 masks and shared them with the sanitation workers”

G: Our environment isn’t just the physical space we occupy, but also the mental and psychological space. I think life needs to be relational and connected to others since people are social beings, so I started to try different things. When everyone was discussing the current situation for sanitation workers, along with other workers who were maintaining the basic functions of this city, I wanted to learn more about them.

On the first day I talked to sanitation workers, delivery workers, and supermarket cashiers, and found out that sanitation workers struggled the most. They were still wearing old masks from the previous days, and some who didn’t have masks were using cloth to cover their mouths. They were so kind. But from the bottom of the social pyramid, they didn’t have many choices. For example, they were afraid to go out, but what were they supposed to do if they didn't work? No work meant no income or even getting fined.

A retired sanitation worker interviewed on TV who had donated his life savings

Source: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/CX4MV55CMad3HX4h0lG_Tg

G: For example, a woman I talked to said she could earn about 70 RMB ($10 USD) every day. But if she didn’t show up at work she could have been fined 150 RMB ($21 USD). They had no choice but to work during this outbreak, and their work conditions weren’t great. I bought 100 masks and shared them with the workers. That was basically what I was able to do and I also wanted to document their situation. I slowly built some relationships with the community that I live in. I even started chatting with the owner of a noodle shop. I think these interactions are what bring me a sense of presence here.

People communicating with the Community Service Center staff

Source: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/CX4MV55CMad3HX4h0lG_Tg

X: Let me share my reaction as a netizen who was in a relatively safe environment. I was very fearful, angry, and distressed. I was on Weibo and WeChat (Chinese social media apps) nonstop every day. I saw that many people were like me, saying that we’ve been information-overloaded to the point where we couldn’t check the news anymore. But at the same time I also felt that I was avoiding these issues. For example, when I saw the news saying a child who had cerebral palsy passed away at home (endnote 1), I couldn’t bring myself to read these articles. I know that this is my defense mechanism, but I also felt ashamed. I felt like I didn’t have the capacity to learn about the updates, let alone offer help. I saw some people like Xianzi (endnote 2) who were doing relief work passionately and efficiently, which I find really admirable.

“The activism itself can reduce this sense of helplessness”

G: Many people are experiencing this sense of helplessness at the moment. For instance, many people took part in volunteer work from the beginning, which is very good. People often gain a sense of empowerment and accomplishment through helping others. However, some official organizations, such as the Red Cross and Hubei Charity Federation, would quickly take over the work, and people also saw that these official organizations didn’t execute well. The non-governmental sector is very limited in what it can do. Some have said that supplies donated from overseas were detained at customs, which was hindering the relief work on some level.

Some people, including myself, started to help with the mask supply. But I’m here by myself and I have no car, so how to distribute these masks was a problem. I think that for these large-scale donations, it’s actually better to let larger organizations handle logistic coordination with the hospital. Yet, that gets challenging because people don’t want to donate to the Red Cross anymore. Local organizations try to get in touch with the hospitals in various ways, and they need to verify whether the hospital can actually receive the supplies -- there are issues with those things too.

A photo taken by Guo Jing of a man doing Tai-Chi on the riverside in Wuhan

Source: https://wemp.app/posts/9e3fde21-5485-4e38-8ad0-926cefc132e6

In a situation where helping others becomes difficult, we feel more helpless. Cruel reality, isn’t it? But we must learn more about ourselves and our world through this process. The world we are living in is very absurd and unreasonable in a lot of ways. We need to find our own ways to get along with this absurd world.

After I posted my diary entries (endnote 3), some people, including some I didn’t know before, started to reach out to me offering assistance or donations, and I was also doing some coordination work. This made me feel more energized than before, even though I was in a locked-down city.

An illustration made by BBC for Guo Jing’s diary

Source: https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/trad/chinese-news-51306998

To a certain extent, the activism itself can reduce this sense of helplessness. Since I lived in a remote area in the countryside and experienced domestic violence during my childhood, I used to complain and question why I have to encounter these troubles. But I’ve slowly realized that finding a resolution is most important. I live in an environment like this, I grew up in a family like this, and I can’t change my current situation nor my upbringing. However, I can change my future and who I will become. 

Guo Jing (circled) participating in a campaign against the requirement of gynecological examinations for newly employed female civil servants.

Source: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/CX4MV55CMad3HX4h0lG_Tg

“We can talk about the bats but not the elephant in the room”

X: I really like the expression “political depression” (“政治抑郁”). I deeply feel this kind of political depression. I don’t know where it comes from, but I think it accurately captures a feeling I’m unable to articulate. These days I often feel bloated in my stomach. I wondered if I was eating too much and exercising too little. You know what they say - we can talk about the bats but not the elephant in the room. I really feel a sense of stagnation, like something is stuck there, bloating my stomach. Many people are trying to talk about the elephant, which gets censored time after time.

Volunteers around the nation offering free psychological counseling over the phone.

Source: https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1658296856660178376&wfr=spider&for=pc

G: Political depression exists. Many political issues exist in our society, such as frequent banning of certain topics on social media platforms, or censorship of information during the epidemic. People with power and resources lock down the information, but those people failed to fulfill their duties. They are actually hindering the relief work. In such circumstances, of course we feel helpless. We are facing something hard to challenge with just individual forces.

With that said, even in the same situation, people react differently. This means that the reasons behind people’s emotions are different and complicated, and can’t be explained by simple labels. So I believe that it’s very important to know more about oneself, and to develop a greater awareness of the multi-layered and complex self. We often seek simple answers, but the world is complicated.

X: Nietzsche said “(T)hat which does not kill us, makes us stronger.” Is he right? There is another saying that people don’t get stronger from trauma, they only get more vulnerable. When we encounter this trauma and these misfortunes, how do we build a better strategy to make ourselves stronger rather than compounding the trauma?

Friedrich Nietzsche, by Edvard Munch

Source: https://www.paintingmania.com/friedrich-nietzsche-16_6181.html

G: That’s really hard, because we don’t know what our next trauma will be. I’ve gone through a very difficult time, and at that time I thought after this experience there was nothing I couldn’t survive. I gained a lot of energy from that incident, but now… (laugh) … there’s yet another challenge for me. It’s one thing to know the principles and theories for how to live well in a lockdown situation like this. It’s another to actually live it.

When the trauma is severe enough, anyone could experience PTSD or have a breakdown. To some degree it’s like a cold that you can’t gain immunity to. You may recover this time, but next time you could catch it again. Having survived the traumatic period doesn’t mean you won’t encounter other trauma in the future. We are all human. We have our emotional responses to obstacles and adversities. That’s just our vulnerability and our emotions, raw and real.

PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) is closely related to syndromes such as anxiety and fear

Source: https://www.nwcounseling.org/ptsd-post-traumatic-stress-disorder/

“We need to learn more about ourselves and the world, and to reconstruct some new goals and meaning in our lives”

X: Ugh, I think the year 2020 is really testing my sanity. This new coronavirus, the avian flu (endnote 4)… And then last night, there was an earthquake (where Xiao lives - editor’s note)! The earthquake wasn’t too bad — no one died. But I really might break down if it had been bad.

An illustration made by BBC for Guo Jing’s diary

Source: https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp/chinese-news-51306998

G: We won’t be able to eliminate a lot of emotions. Meili, you talked about this sense of shame; I have it too even though I am in Wuhan. I also feel that I want to do more but I’m not able to. In the face of a crisis like this, there are things we can’t change, and we can’t be too harsh on ourselves. Just do your best. We need to learn more about ourselves and the world, and to reconstruct some new goals and meaning in our lives. Whether it’s helping others, becoming a volunteer, seeking self-improvement, or learning and developing your strengths -- these are all important.

Endnote 1: Yan Cheng, a teenager who had cerebral palsy, was left without adequate care for six days while his relatives were in coronavirus quarantine. He died on January 29 while in the care of officials in Huajiahe township, Hongan county, more than 100 km (62 miles) from Wuhan, the epicentre of the outbreak.

Endnote 2: Xianzi is a leading voice for China’s #MeToo movement and a vocal commentator on various public issues. In 2018, Xianzi spoke out against one of China’s highest-profile state media TV hosts, Zhu Jun. She is also the first accuser to take her case to court in a civil lawsuit claiming infringement of personal dignity. XIanzi grew up in Wuhan and soon after the outbreak started in her hometown, she dedicated herself to relief work on the frontline including getting medical supplies for the local hospitals.

Endnote 3: Since the lockdown of Wuhan, Guo has kept a diary documenting her life and thoughts, people she has interacted with, and her efforts to help in response to the novel coronavirus outbreak. The diary entries in Chinese have been published and are being updated on “Xiao Mei Li” (“硝美丽”), a Wechat account run by Xiao Meili. You can read part of Guo’s diaries in English here: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51276656

Endnote 4: In early February, China reported a "highly pathogenic" strain of the H5N1 avian flu in Hunan province, which lies on the southern border of Hubei province. No human cases of the Hunan H5N1 virus have been reported. The World Health Organization says that while human cases of H5N1 can occur, it "does not infect humans easily."

This conversation first appeared on an episode of “Into the Fields” (“有点田园”), a podcast featuring issues and opinions about gender and sexuality. Special thanks to Xiao Meili for her permission and trust.

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Transcription | Agnes Zhu, 何子，叁水，文韬

Proofreader | Zudy, Carly, Joyce 

Editor | Joyce, Lili

Typesetting | Linlin Li

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