Global Fight against Epidemic! On March 15th, Berlin time, Yan Geling, a Chinese-American writer living in Berlin, sent a text titled "Three Words from Tang Wan: Conceal, Conceal, Conceal" to her friends through WeChat. Now, I will share this text full of delicate mourning and sharp reflection with everyone.
Borrowing Three Words from Tang Wan: Conceal, Conceal, Conceal
Yan Geling
Looking at Wuhan from afar, the spring breeze blows on the banks of the Han River. But this is a spring that many people have not waited for. This is a spring where the departed cannot bid farewell. This is a spring missed by thirteen million Wuhan residents.
I am in Berlin, accompanying the people of Wuhan from afar, imprisoning myself within the iron fence of the courtyard, also missing the early spring day by day. Inside and outside the courtyard, wildflowers are blooming, and the most recent to bloom are forget-me-nots. Although the flowers are small, they are blue and serene, evoking a sense of sadness: forget-me-not, forget-me-not, as if understanding that humanity is ultimately fickle and forgetful, who can bear to forget? If our nation had a good memory, remembering each disaster, our memory storage would have long burst.
This is the third week of self-imprisonment for our family. As a companion to the suffering people of Wuhan, Hubei, and my friends and compatriots who are self-isolating in different places, I watched as the Olympic Stadium, half a mile from our home, roared with cheers during a football match last Saturday. Such a large crowd made me feel imprisoned within the iron fence. Standing behind the fence, I watched as the Berliners in their fan outfits cheered and threw their beer bottles and potato chip bags over our fence. People from all countries laughed and forgave the temporary lack of public etiquette and manners from the football fans. Moreover, this was their last large gathering from spring to summer, and from then on, Berlin would cancel all large-scale gatherings. I felt their pain deeply. The restraint, silence, and accumulated shouts of the Germanic people can only be released in such occasions.
At the end of December last year, a friend in China sent me the initial information about the virus, a screenshot of a doctor warning "nurse sisters." I immediately alerted my Wuhan girlfriend in Berlin. Her mother and siblings live in Wuhan, but I doubted whether she relayed my concerns to her family in a timely manner. Chinese people conceal things, I have done it, you have done it, she/he has done it, we have all done it, haven't we? The first concealment is because we do not want to be the crow, which is not without some goodwill. The second concealment is because we are afraid of trouble; facing the shock, panic, grief, and even hysteria of those who receive bad news is troublesome. It is inconvenient to bear the responsibility that is bigger than the inconvenience caused by the inconvenience itself. The final concealment, for me, is a mystery. Why conceal?
To ensure that someone can have a good meal, let's conceal this bad news from him first; to celebrate the New Year well, let's conceal it until after the New Year; so that everyone can still be ignorant and happy, happiness is temporary, concealment is temporary, isn't there a time when everything aligns perfectly? Concealing bad things makes them disappear, concealing major events makes them smaller, let's conceal a little more. But this virus is only three micrometers, what kind of palm can cover it? The virus is so fierce and fast, it is better to leak than to conceal. Many people have been concealed and died, and they tell you through death that the truth cannot be concealed.
Before Dr. Li Wenliang passed away, my Wuhan girlfriend kept me updated on his condition for a few hours through her Wuhan friends. During those few hours, I silently prayed for Dr. Li and made a vow: if Dr. Li survives, I will quit my favorite red wine. Later, I found out that even those few hours were concealed. Concealed from all the people who were indignant for him, concealed from his mother, his wife, his beloved son, and the child that his wife was carrying in her womb, who was due to be born in the spring or maybe early summer next year. The child was supposed to utter the word "dad" for the first time, vaguely. The child's grandmother thought of that moment and cried uncontrollably, "How can I tell the child?" The hospital leadership concealed the true time of Dr. Li's death, knowing it was useless, but continuously pressed on Dr. Li's chest with a defibrillator. Under the skin were human ribs, not reinforced concrete, how could they withstand hours of mechanical compression? It was to force the tiles to be complete, and then shatter them, not only fearing the top but also fearing the bottom. There were so many Chinese people during those two days, the descendants of the Chinese nation swore to never forget the whistle-blower Li Wenliang. How long can memory last? Longer than the blooming period of forget-me-nots?
Dr. Li died with great grievances. A man of seven feet tall can be killed but not humiliated. First, he was humiliated by the leadership, then by the police, and finally, he was publicly humiliated on television. Would he not feel aggrieved? And he died to show you, to show those who humiliated him, those TV anchors, the truth lies on his lips that will never speak again, in his heart that has finally turned cold. What could be more painful and chastising for you and me? He did it for our own good, how did we become a group of ungrateful people?! The people of Wuhan and the whole country mourned with whistles, bidding farewell to Wenliang, and also releasing their imprisoned souls with whistles. Wenliang lived as an ordinary person, loving his wife, loving his child, loving good food. The lifting of the two-child policy must have brought joy and gratitude to him, finally being able to give birth to a playmate for his son. But his death was like that of a saint: "If I don't go to hell, who will?" The sacrifice of a saint is to enlighten people, to redeem the sins we have committed. Isn't this a sin? Countless people have died, countless families have been destroyed, from top to bottom, as the sins are carried out, due to the limitations of human nature, layers of sins accumulate, and at the bottom, they become sealed doors, beatings, starving children under the age of two, breaking up card games that families use to pass the time, and harming them one by one. Will we forget all of this? It's hard to say.
I cannot experience the symptoms of this pneumonia that ultimately takes lives, but based on the accounts of many medical staff, critically ill patients cry out for help: "Save me, doctor!" This reminds me of my ex-mother-in-law and my father. Both elderly people experienced respiratory failure due to heart failure in their 80s. I remember my ex-mother-in-law also cried out to her daughter for help: "Save me!" At that time, her blood oxygen level must have been below 60%, equivalent to a drowning person suffocating while those on the shore remain unmoved. Unlike a drowning person, the suffering of a drowning person is short-lived, ending in a matter of seconds. However, patients with this pneumonia may prolong the suffocation process for several days, every second of which is a struggle for survival. Being strangled, suffocated, and choked, suffering 24 hours a day, struggling for 60 minutes per hour, I dare not think about it, I dare not use imagery... But the image of my father's face under the oxygen mask keeps appearing in my mind, his mouth wide open, using all his strength to inhale, but no matter how hard he tries, the oxygen cannot enter his alveoli. The appearance of the elderly is so pitiful, like a fish thrown onto the shore. In the end, my father died from lack of oxygen to the brain, in reality, he was strangled, suffocated, and strangled by an invisible noose. He was not strangled in one breath, but tortured to death second by second, the whole process lasting a day and a night. If I could choose again, I would choose to let my father live 24 hours less, sparing him from the degradation from a human to a fish. Since death is inevitable, I don't want him to die in agony. I know that the method of strangling my father to death has been repeated in all critically ill patients in Wuhan, and it has also been repeated in the case of Dr. Li Wenliang.
Those who were tormented to death by their destroyed lungs, in their final moments, looked around but could not find a familiar face to give them courage, to hold their hands, to show the final reluctance of humanity, the last warmth that they could take away, none of it was there. They were like strangers in a foreign land, entering the body bag alone, how unwilling and fearful they must have been. The most indispensable thing in a person's final moment is the promise of loved ones: go, we will not forget you, because we love you. But the deceased in Wuhan did not receive this ultimate promise.
Dr. Li Wenliang did not leave under the tears of his mother, under the calls of his wife and child. His last words are still on his Weibo, extending his life in another dimension through people's imagination. People are unwilling to forget him, using their own imagination to keep him alive. As Fang Fang said, this has become the "crying wall" for the Chinese people. I looked at the comments, talking about everything with Dr. Li, trivial three-word phrases, everyday details, talking about food, talking about love, as if Dr. Li was their psychological counselor, more like an older brother next door. Many people say that they will never forget Dr. Li. Hopefully, this invisible crying wall standing between the yin and yang worlds will never be demolished, accompanying the survivors to live on and remember.
Berlin, where I live, is a city that refuses to forget. Many streets have copper plaques embedded in the ground, engraved with the words "On this street, on a certain year, month, and day, a certain Jewish person (or their family) was taken away from here..." and telling people the final destination of these taken individuals, with the vast majority dying in concentration camps. Flatowallee, not far from my home, leads to the main entrance of the Olympic Stadium and is named after a pair of Jewish cousins who were athletes. These Jewish cousins competed for Germany in the Olympics in Athens and won gold medals for the German gymnastics team. After being taken to the concentration camp, they both died of hunger. According to our neighbor next door, the original owner of my house was also Jewish, but after the war, no one came forward to claim it, not even distant relatives. Therefore, it had to be owned by the government. Later, it was auctioned off and returned to the public. The house was built in 1922, very solid and well-planned, intended to be inhabited by several generations of descendants. However, this family did not have any surviving descendants, not even distant relatives. Germany's Humboldt University Library was once burned by the Nazis, and now the library keeps those empty shelves to remind people of the book-burning atrocity. This is Germany's way of keeping track of the blood debt and guilt owed to the Jewish people and all of humanity. Keeping track of this debt is undoubtedly painful for them, but not keeping track would mean losing the sense of shame for the nation. Without a sense of shame, there is no sense of honor. The Germanic people would rather suffer than lose their sense of honor. They believe that only by remembering their shame can they prevent shame from happening again.
After the whistleblower Li Wenliang sacrificed himself, another "whistleblower" appeared, Dr. Ai. Dr. Ai regretted not distributing the "whistle" more widely, otherwise things would not have reached such a point. If she had known earlier, she would have risked it all. She is a brave woman, a brave person from Wuhan. The people of Wuhan are patient and brave. Patience is noble, but bravery is even nobler. Brave people from Wuhan are everywhere, they shout "fake" when faced with deception, they have tasted the bitterness of concealment. The past disasters, we concealed them from future generations, and the most absurd thing is that we concealed them from ourselves. As a result, our people have endured the pain of SARS for only 17 years and have now fallen into the struggle against COVID-19. Concealing allows us to avoid accountability because if we were to hold accountable, we would have to hold accountable those who concealed. How can we expect to remember if there is no accountability? The concealment that cannot be concealed is the more than 170 deaths in Italy yesterday. We must ask ourselves, why do we conceal those who harm us? Conceal their shame? How many times in history should they have felt ashamed and compensated the people who sacrificed for them? But we let it go. Tragedies always end in confusion, and soon tragedies reoccur, as if the plot has been plagiarized, and it starts with the word "conceal" again.
The reason our nation suffers is that for the past two thousand years, we have not had time to mourn ourselves. Only after we mourn ourselves can others mourn us, and after others mourn us, they do not reflect on it, which in turn causes others to mourn them. Du Mu foresaw this a long time ago, I don't know if he foresaw the forced amnesia, which forces the descendants who mourn their fathers' suffering to forget more and more.
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