Daily life in China with the coronavirus  

For the vast majority of us, the virus has been in our heads.

While we feel it so close — it’s in the air we breathe and attached to our fingers.

Everything that was once part of you becomes a potential source of contamination, including your phone and the body you sleep with.

A cough becomes a fire alarm.

Life was normal until a colleague told me about it on our metro ride home. To avoid the embarrassment of standing next to each other in silence, he, a senior member of the company, told me to beware.

The next day, everyone in the office had a mask on. The boss was absent. Finally there was something real we could be distracted by.

At 3:45 p.m., our admin lady sent a message asking us to go home and not to come back the next day, the day before New Year’s Eve — someone in the building had a fever and was carried away in an ambulance.

The way she watched us exit the door one by one made her look like a heroine sacrificing herself in a fire. “I have to shut everything down after you all leave.”

Now everyone gets a paid day working from home!

I looked a few times at the man sitting next to me on the train; he was watching videos on his phone without headphones and eating KFC, his mask off.

My cousin said he almost didn’t recognize me from the crowd gushing out of the train station, with all the black hair and white masks. Just a few days ago, when he picked up my mom at the same place, no one was wearing a mask.

It’s all exaggerated, he commented.

For the following two weeks, he barely stepped outdoors, a guy who normally couldn’t spend one day without seeing his friends.

The virus was playing a game with us, appearing as numbers and reality.

What’s the difference between numbers and reality?

For the first days of the new year, we looked at the numbers of infections on our phones, my grandparents dozing off in front of the TV.

The virus became reality, more disappointing than frightening, when the relatives decided not to visit one another for this new year. This year’s celebration was self-imposed quarantine. It did save the women some red packets, the traditional gift, and the trouble of cooking fancy meals for a week.

Like a sudden power cut when you are studying hard for an exam — what else could you do but wait for it to end?

It didn’t end. The numbers grew until we lost track of them. But the habit of checking persisted.

In fact, it thrived. Checking and sharing and checking. That was all we did. There was no other news to see. Even if there were, nothing could be more severe and more exciting. The whole family was in this. The whole country was — we felt a sense of togetherness by just sitting home and checking our phones.

I wanted to read something else, but my nerves pulled me back. There was nowhere to go, nothing to do. The others watched TV and played cards while I sat there waiting for my restlessness to pass.

Some sense of meaning was recovered when I helped Grandma with the dishes after another meal.

On the third or fourth day, my boyfriend suggested we go on a hike. The mountain must be harmless! But soon we were told one of the few confirmed cases of the city was in that area.

We went for a walk in the park instead. Four of us sat down at a table, and as we were about to take out our cards to play, park supervisors with masks came to stop us, for it could potentially draw a crowd. “Go play at home — we need to respond to the call of the Party.”

I asked Grandpa how he felt as we walked out of the park.

“It’s like everything’s dead, deathly still,” he said, staggering forward with his walking stick.

A few community service people posting the board paused their work as they saw us coming. They spotted my mask-free uncle.

“Wear a mask! Protect yourself and your family!”

Just a few weeks ago, we were equally righteous about recycling.

I told my uncle to wear a mask. I was actually thinking, don’t get infected and then infect me.

One afternoon, my cousin didn’t feel well and went to bed. The next day, I asked him how he was. For a few more days, I didn’t dare walk into his room.

I had a light sore throat, and then coughed two or three times. Now I had a legitimate reason to propose serving chopsticks during meals.

My hands became external to my body. Whatever they touched, I monitored closely. They were washed again and again until little bumps appeared between my fingers.

If the Cultural Revolution happened again, would I be one of the first to betray my friends?

Not one person I know has been infected.

Every day was programmed exactly the same: eating, watching TV, eating, playing cards, eating, watching TV and sleeping.

The same faces gathered around a small heating table, surviving the boredom together.

Grandma was dedicated as usual to going out first thing in the morning to buy food. I told her not to. She said no one was out yet. The next morning, she was gone before we were awake.

Maybe buying food and feeding us were part of her survival.

“Those who run away and infect others should be imprisoned!” My uncle commented on a piece of news about people escaping Wuhan right before the city was closed down.

News (or rumor) came that a 70-year-old man killed his 10-year-old granddaughter with a kitchen knife after she insisted on going out to play. A video showed the girl’s father wailing on the floor as a few people, all in masks, took his father away.

I hated the loud, monotonous music coming out of my uncle’s phone when we were all watching TV. I couldn’t say anything because he was my uncle. No one else said anything. I sat there staring at the TV, trapped in my anger.

My boyfriend’s family in the US was worried. Why didn’t we leave before it was too late? We stayed up that night calculating ways to escape.

The next day, the US banned travel from China.

My family thought going abroad was a bad idea. Chinese people to foreigners were Wuhan people to us. What’s more, my mom suggested, going away at this time meant abandoning my family.

There was no personal choice. There was a national agenda.

Eighty percent of the news on TV sang the praises of medical workers.

The doctor and whistleblower Li Wenliang died from the virus. The public reacted strongly. CCTV news that night mentioned him in one sentence, “The National Supervisory Commission has sent people to Wuhan to investigate the issue.”

Right before the statement was an extended portrayal of a military nurse braving this last battle of her career.

I moved my cursor back and forth on the calendar, deliberating.

My grandparents asked me not to leave until the virus got under control. They thought I missed my boyfriend who had gone back home. What I really missed was a sense of control.

I said nothing. They said no more. My coming and going were never in their control.

The day I left, Grandma cooked another chicken. I helped Grandpa put on his mask one last time. My cousin finally went out once, driving me back to the train station.

I dragged my suitcase across the empty ground outside the station. A loudspeaker warned about the virus. The same voice had followed me through the park and the neighborhood.

No one sat next to me this time. I had paid an extra $50 for my freedom. One of the four passengers in the first class compartment, I stayed still for six hours, sealed in a disposable raincoat and two masks.

As I was leaving I started to doubt if I left too soon. When else will I have a chance to be quarantined with the same people again?

My own apartment seemed extra clean and quiet — now the real quarantine started.

I woke up at night from a dream about my family. A feeling of restlessness seized me: I should have stayed with them longer.

I couldn’t go back. I was quarantined. And I probably wouldn’t. But I should have stayed. I should have, right?

Yashu Zhang is an author and Shanghai resident.