Philosophical Imagination, Aesthetics, and Creative Writing

  • Healing and Recovery in a Community Hit by the Pandemic

    Healing and Recovery in a Community Hit by the Pandemic
    阅读中文版

    After social-distancing measures lifted, cities in Hubei province aim to reopen local businesses. But could the economy of Hubei, which is heavily relying on private sector’s growth to create jobs, be restarting smoothly? In Tome Loulin’s observation in Qianjiang, a small city in Hubei province, there are some silver-linings in a pandemic-ravaged city aiming to reopen its economy.

    It has lightly rained hours ago in Qianjiang, a small city in the central China province of Hubei, but now the rain has stopped and the sky darkened with evening breezes flowing through sidewalks. With such an opaque and humid weather condition, streets in the city have been half filled by cars.

    Businesses that reopened have mostly been eateries, fruit shops and groceries. Just half past seven, an eatery mainly serving Zhájiàngmiàn and Hot peanut-jammed noodle, or Règānmiàn, which first originated from the city of Wuhan, had just closed its daily service; the owner of the shop, a short-haired young man wearing a purple apron shut the door off; his face seemed emotionless. In ‘the Crayfish Street of Qianjiang’—a nearby road sign suggested—a local attraction known for its sophisticated crayfish cuisine, diners used to be waiting before the entrances of certain local eateries serving crayfish on the street for their turns to dine inside, not this time, owing to the stringent travel restrictions to prevent a second wave of the outbreak. There was only a smattering of customers eating inside eateries which remained all but deserted, bustling no more.

    China’s economy has shrunk 6.8 per cent in the first three months of the year compared with a year ago for the first time since 1976, according to the New York Times. “Many people were only buying necessities these days” an interviewee in Beijing said to the Times in the same report. The recessive atmosphere could be obviously felt among pedestrians on the streets who pass roads by without any emotion; only car-horns and ambulance sirens could be heard. The city turned quiet.

    “Damned, I forgot to take my mask.” A stroller passing me by and turning back to his store to pick his mask mouthed that loudly to himself. People seemed much restrained emotionally since only their eyes could be seen while walking on the streets.

    There were signs of returning to normal. A patron sitting before a dining table in a restaurant, Shāxiànxiaochī, eats his helping while looking on his mobile phone concentratedly; the chef, also the owner of the restaurant, a lady seemingly in her late fifties, with her face mask sliding down to her jaw and hanging on her ears, was wiping her hands clean with a dishcloth. The restaurant brightly lit seemed clean and cozy. Anyhow, people got to eat and they may find their consolation from food, especially at such a cold spring night that nothing could be much wormer than eating a noodle with localized flavor.

    A hospital where triage doctors wear hazardous material suit sitting inside on the Crayfish street in the city of Qianjiang. by Tome Loulin

    As the pandemic interrupted global supply chain, some local businesses aiming overseas markets in Hubei struggled to resume production. A manager of a lotus root plant in Jianglin, a county in Hubei province, said that his company has not shipped its lotus root products to the customers in the US for nearly a week due to an ongoing ban put by the US, Canada and other countries on such products, adding that this year is the most difficult one since the founding of his plant in 2015, according to China Daily

    Mr. Xiao, owner of a barbershop in Wuhan said his shop has only served 4 patrons for hair styling from April 8th till now and felt pressured under expenditure on rent but relieved since the landowner of his shop exempted his rent for one month. Though customers were drastically reduced, Xiao feels optimistic about future improvement on profit of his barber shop, according to Hubei Daily.

    In a hospital on the Crayfish street, a triage nurse still wore a hazmat suit sitting behind the reception desk; only emergency room was opened for patients. On the opposite of the hospital was a local restaurant, known for its sought-after crayfish dish, and whose signs shone vividly at the night of Qianjiang presented a rare prosperous vision of economic recovery in the future at this currently deserted street.

    In a newly opened snack shop near the ‘Crayfish Street’ months ago, the cashier inside sat on a chair, motionless, concentrated on his mobile phone and whose shop lit darkly instead.

    References:

    1China’s economy shrinks, ending a nearly half-century of growth by Keith Bradsher.—The New York Times, April 16, 2020.

    2Falling demands overseas hit lotus root industry in Hubei—China Daily, April, 20, 2020

    3Barber customer traffic 30 percent recovered.—Hubei Daily

    Pages: 1 2 3

  • As Happiness Is the Romanticization of Ephemerality

    As Happiness Is the Romanticization of Ephemerality
    阅读中文版

    It was afternoon I walked and cycled on the lanes around East Lake. ‘Green lanes’ square-shaped signs showed. Trees and greens were everywhere as well as people cycling around the lake.

    Breezing around the lanes, I saw happy faces as well as saddened, serious ones.

    I wasn’t alone; I was with my friend.

    There was a teen-age girl standing before the rock-made railing gazing at the surface of the lake, apparently saddened by her personal affairs. There was an unspeakable strength of saying nothing at all around her that could be seen by all passing her by. Had not life silenced people’s ability to express their feelings, they might still be willing to dream.Consciously saying nothing when one was obviously overwhelmed by something is a learned behavior. Learned helplessness, they, psychologists, called. Who had taught them that skill of not expressing their feelings? Mom usually says nothing while her eyes are apparently filled with untold uneasiness as though she have gone through a lot. Idling around the room then sitting on the armchair, mostly she was simply sitting, motionless, silent.

    “Find something enjoyable to do, that may do you good.”

    She will not listen.

    Riding bicycles going towards wherever I was aimlessly was what I thought living. “I love to see you smile.” Zon said while sitting astride a bike looking at me, smiling.

    I returned that smile and proceeded going into the deep forest in Jiangxia’s green lanes.

    “How could a place be beautiful like this.” Zon meant the serenity of the forest we are in. “So serene that it seemed like a miracle.”

    A miracle; It truly was, to me and Zon. So tender was to breeze around the trails in the forest on which we rode our cycles as free a experience as no one could ever have that I thought chancing our ability to understand very originality of living is a way to learn what is really worth having.

    While resuming to go into the forest deeper, we expect no thing though still feeling fulfilled. Happiness to me seemed to be be that easy to obtain when we just noticed that there was a loquat tree beside the lane on the hillside and picked up some produce it bore to taste then that we didn’t realize it was such precious a thing to be cherished.

    Before night people riding bicycles on a bridge over East Lake.

    The loquat fruits we picked weren’t much tasty but they were everywhere; other tourists were idling picking those too. No one had said anything; they were eating, searching there for the next source of matured loquat fruit which could be much easier picked. Some seemingly delicious produce those trees bore were on the boughs too affluent to ignore and too high to be picked, about which we feel pitied.

    So ephemeral was our trying to remember those sparkling bits in our lives in which we found our consolation when feeling hurt that we didn’t realize just that suddenly a moment we no longer knew what that very happiness was felt like.

    Cool winds before night at that time in the forest of Jiangxia flowing through us made us aware again about our very nature of originality.

    It had occurred to me that the less we expected about what we might be encountering around next corner of the mountainside, the more meaningful experience we might gain.

    On the way home, seeing our shadows first, riding on the bikes, we felt thankful that we were on the right side of the lane at the right time as profound a feeling as a person could never imagine to experience.

    And if in another portion of my heart I could still feel that part of me at that time, That smiling face of mine could still be felt there as much real as I could ever be.

    Pages: 1 2

  • Where Winter Does Not Hold – Extraordinary Times in Tiny Places

    Where Winter Does Not Hold – Extraordinary Times in Tiny Places

    阅读中文版

    There have been stores open over nights; not anymore, at least for now. Walking on a lightless road near a river park in Qianjiang, a city in Hubei province, I rely on the flashlight from my phone lest I fell into some hidden pit holes. Darkness. People walking on the riverside were silent; only footsteps and hiss of cloth frictions could be heard. Not a single pedestrian opened flashlight except me.

    Stone-made railings around the river bank had just gone through an installation of decorative lightenings conducted by the city beautification bureau to beautify the park’s night view several months ago. Being sealed off for nearly two months, the city has cut off unnecessary lightening schemes in response to the reduction of the economic activities.

    A restaurant serving crayfish dishes in the city of Qianjiang

    Backstreets are darkened. The impact of the halt of “unessential” business to private sectors remains to be seen. In certain main streets, businesses reopened are grocery stores, barber shops, some mainly-for-taking-out restaurants. If not because of the pandemic, known for the localized cuisine of crayfish, crowded in spring and summer time, restaurants in Qianjiang might already be busy to provide visitors coming from nearby cities the most sought-after dish—Yóumèndàxiā, or Beer-braised Crayfish—while winds breezing through the crowds sitting around dining tables. Now, restaurants serving crayfish are only half filled by customers who wear face masks when talking and strip the masks down while eating then put on again. Hustling no more. Parking lots before the restaurant porches were not fully filled. Dining tables seen from outside remain loosely filled; some who do eat inside seem vigilant.

    People walking in an alley in the city of Qianjiang after social-distancing restriction loosened.

    On the streets, people still wear masks to keep physical distances lest the virus be spread. Children whose gleeful laughter is heard in parks and neighborhoods seem the least affected. Sealing off of the entire Hubei province impacted the supply of fresh food for some and of sanitizing necessities for hospital workers. Unless the state of emergency is lifted entirely, schools and off-school supplement courses won’t be restored soon. For public school teachers adopting strategies to teach students remotely are doing what they would normally do, most teachers working in the private sector are losing opportunities to earn a basic living. The school I work had told us to help students remain engaged by remote teaching via telephones but with the wages delayed severely and sometimes reduced dramatically—though it would be reasonable to see the wages reduced since teachers can no longer teach children in person now—it has never been so hard a time to cope with for me to go through this unprepared breakdown. Under this new reality that private sectors in China are not bailed out and that there were no policies to regard workers affected by pandemic-related redundancy, no thing now may be seen as safe.

    Quiet streets depicted at night offer a rare opportunity to see the impact that challenging events could have on certain places long overlooked.

    No unemployment benefits would be available for those whose companies didn’t cover their social insurance bills since most employers, in private sector, violate labour laws by not signing labour contacts with their employees though in theory they were required to do so. Such cases are not rare in private owned companies. The fact that most people working as part-time workers without knowing that or don’t have social insurances covered by their company is concerning and could shake the pillar of future economic growth. People not working right now are mostly using their savings to buy necessities. If the current economic downturn continues, people might go to find a new way to regard their relationships between working and living. “I might not want to work that hard any more since life is so vulnerable that I want to protect my heath first.”A interviewee said to the New York Times.

    “I’ve heard that there might be a recurrence of the virus outbreak.” A senior citizen talked with another while moving her body doing exercises and maintaining physical distance with others.

    “America is ravaged by the virus now. Such a horrible thing.” Another uttered lamentably with a flat, low voice.

    A woman chasing a taxi in an alley in the city of Qianjiang

    Most pedestrians passing me by were watching their phones without feeling the need to rise their heads up looking around lest they collide with the electric poles or be tripped by bricks. Once I took my meal out from my grandma’s apartment so hastily that I forgot taking my mask, then walking on the street without wearing one, so strange felt I that I used my collar to cover my face while walking back home. Only being home had I felt relieved.

    “It occurred to me that so hot was to wear a mask now.”

    “Anyway, No matter how hot the weather is, you get to wear your masks.”

    While strolling in an alley, a woman seemed in her thirties chased a fast passing taxi, shouted out “Stop taxi, taxi.” But the driver drove away without stop as if deafened.

    Hotels signs in the narrow alley shone vividly as usual as if the good old days come back again; Receptionists inside the hotel lobby seemed idled, sitting behind the reception desk, motionless.

    A self-serviced sexual commodities store remained open; ‘open all day’, its shop sign showed. Around corner of a convenience store, a men sitting astride a motor-cycle was smoking cigarette and watching his phone screen concentratedly. Hearing their laughter first, I saw three pedestrians in a row walk forward toward the another end of the way. Then came the road lamps whose light companioned my way home.