| |
Beijing 2003: Year of the
virus
By Asia Times Online Staff
HONG KONG - Even though its severe acute
respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic has not yet passed,
the mood in Beijing recently has eased.
On buses
just a short while ago each of the very few passengers,
without exception, would don a face mask. Upon boarding
the vehicle, seats were available wherever one wanted to
sit. Air flowed freely through the carriage, which in
normal times would be hot and stuffy due to the crowding
of passengers.
Now Beijingers are filling the
buses once again, and although the windows are all wide
open, the carriage is filled with a hot, stuffy aroma of
sweat. Furthermore, many people are not wearing face
masks. People are heard asking bare-faced passengers:
"How can you not wear a face mask?" The response is
typically: "There's no problem anymore, right? SARS is
already under control."
Indeed, Beijing
residents appear to be enjoying worry-free days. Chatter
is everywhere once again - but people can't last more
than a couple of sentences without mentioning SARS. A
typical example of Beijing's relaxed SARS talk was
witnessed by Asia Times Online in a barbershop:
Customer A: "Back when SARS was wreaking havoc
here my hair was getting shaggy, but I was too
frightened to dare going to a barbershop. Now that it's
been controlled, I thought I'd come have a look."
Barber: "You can rest assured here at my shop. I
disinfect this place several times every day. There's no
need to wear a mask in here. I guarantee there's nothing
to worry about here."
Customer B: "What's with
people? Whether one lives or dies is in the hands of
fate. Geez, what are they afraid of? I'm not wearing a
mask, but I'm not dead, am I? I've had a couple of
neighbors carried away on stretchers [to hospitals], but
I was wearing a mask every day at that time."
At
a beauty parlor, several friendly and optimistic young
women were giving their all to serve and accommodate the
few customers in the establishment. After a month of no
work because of the spread of SARS in Beijing, they were
obviously eagerly anticipating having business again.
The girls telephoned old clients one by one to notify
them that they were open for business again. However,
because most customers were still apprehensive about
SARS, those who ventured out to have a look were still
quite few. One after another, the young women explained
their situation:
"We were constantly asking [the
parlor's owner] that we open up for business again."
"We need to eat. We have to support our
families. How can we do anything without any income?"
But customers were still concerned, asking
questions such as:
"Have proper authorities
approved you for reopening?"
"Are you sanitized?
Does your disinfection meet standards?" And so on.
Disinfecting bad information
In a
traditional hutong, or winding alley of Beijing,
Asia Times Online witnessed a conversation between two of
the city's elderly denizens:
Old Woman 1: "Just
a little while back everybody was being called on to
disinfect. Everybody was disinfecting everywhere. Not
one place was left untouched. But I searched over half
of Beijing for disinfectant and couldn't find any. I saw
stories in newspapers telling me to 'disinfect this
three times daily', 'disinfect that three times daily' -
I was a nervous wreck. I dialed the mayor's hotline,
then I dialed the government phone line set up for city
residents and I even dialed 315 [Beijing's consumer
complaint hotline]. If the line wasn't busy then nobody
was answering."
Old Man: "You really called the
mayor?"
Old Woman 1: "I did. But the line was
constantly busy. There's a lot of people wanting to talk
to the mayor, you know. For over 10 days I was unable to
disinfect. This really scared me. I was afraid that
everyone else was disinfecting and that SARS would flee
to my home. Then what would I do? Now the papers say
that there are over 100 stores that had disinfectant. I
found a pharmacy that was on a list in a newspaper. I
went right away and just bought 10 bottles of the
stuff!"
Old Woman 2: "Well done, but you need to
hurry up and go disinfect! Kill the SARS!
Old
Woman 1: "I plan on it, but the papers also said that
you shouldn't go crazy with disinfectants - some cause
allergic reactions, some can send you into shock, some
even have fumes that can make you pass out! How do I
know if I'm going to have an allergic reaction? Didn't
the TV say that we need to be careful of passing out or
getting sick from the fumes of the disinfectants we're
using to avoid getting sick? I don't know how to use the
stuff!"
In the interest of getting an
understanding of all the disinfecting they've been
doing, some people are taking their questions to
journalists. Here's one exchange witnessed by Asia Times
Online between a Beijing reporter and a Beijing
resident.
Resident: "Comrade reporter, in your
newspapers, television shows and pronouncements, you
stressed the urgency for and importance of immediate
disinfection with industrial strength disinfectant. In
your reports and articles you said to disinfect three
times, five times, or even more. Later, people started
having allergic reactions, some went into shock and
others were rendered unconscious from inhaling fumes.
Then you said not to overdo it. What? Is it that
from the beginning, you have not been reporting clearly
and accurately about such disinfection and the
precautions that should be taken when doing it?"
Reporter: "Indeed, it's difficult to avoid a
situation in which the public is misinformed somewhat.
But the media should serve the function of
scientifically and responsibly leading the masses."
Resident: "There're also several situations that
we in Beijing don't know anything about, such as the
bloody slaughtering of pets and animals in Nanjing,
Chengdu, Xi'an and other cities. Engaging in horrible
slaughter like this isn't euthanasia. Beijing's
abandoned pets have been bearing the negative effects of
this lack of knowledge."
Reporter: "We in the
media have invited several experts to provide
explanations." Reader: "But all these experts do is
express their individual opinions. Every expert has a
different idea about what to do. Those who advocate
killing animals and those who don't advocate killing
animals all have their own logic. We common Chinese are
accustomed to hearing one authoritative voice coming
from the government or from a government-sanctioned
expert. I hope you in the media will do some solid work
without speculating, sugar-coating or swerving from one
opinion to the next. Now you're always correcting
previous mistakes - we common folk don't know what to
think anymore."
The ever-shifting sands of
Chinese journalism
But it can also be difficult
for the media to get an authoritative answer from the
government, as the aforementioned reporter discovered in
a discussion with a friend serving as a party cadre in
Beijing's Haidian district.
Reporter: "How is it
that there is such a disproportionately high SARS
infection rate in the Haidian district?"
Cadre:
"You can't just look at bare facts. Our district has the
most hospitals, so it is only natural for us to receive
the highest number of SARS cases for treatment.
Furthermore, people living outside of the city are aware
of the high quality of Beijing hospitals, so they are
determined to come here for treatment. Now we are
already calculating patient statistics according to
where the patients live."
Haidian's hospitals
said they are compiling SARS cases according to where
the patient is from, but the local governments of
patients that come to Beijing subscribe to the idea that
if someone from their area has SARS but is being treated
in Beijing, then they shouldn't have the patient
attributed to their constituency in statistics. This
lack of a unified statistical methodology does not lend
itself to accurate statistics, as it creates a situation
where a SARS patient from nearby Hebei province that
might go to a hospital in Haidian for treatment is not
included in Beijing's statistics, nor those of his or
her native province.
A Beijing resident asked
the cadre: "Can news be trusted?"
Cadre: "When I
listen to outside broadcasts, they are always saying
that Beijing media are irresponsible in reporting. [To
the reporter] You're a journalist - do you think our
media reports are worth believing?"
Reporter:
"In all honesty, there were some inaccurate reports in
the beginning. Why? Well, SARS just came out of nowhere
and caught the media off guard. Many journalists did not
recognize the severity of the situation. Not enough
reporters thought it important. On top of that, there's
bureaucracy and much of the early writing about SARS was
not done in earnest, etc, etc. It's always in society
and abroad that Chinese media draw censure. But I
believe that after the center of the Communist Party,
the State Council [China's cabinet], took emergency
measures media reports became trustable."
Cadre:
"But there is still quite a bit of suspicion harbored
toward our news reports in the foreign press, no?"
Reporter: "Being on the receiving end of all
kinds of suspicion is not unusual. In the end the facts
will speak for themselves. It's quite a joke how
foreigners don't understand the situation in China
whatsoever. Lying and making false reports about an
outbreak can ensure a reporter's job security. It can
even lead to a promotion. So outbreak reports and
patient statistics are certainly unreliable. You can't
say that it wasn't like this before. Now the central
government's policy and measures state that dishonesty,
misleading reports and embellishment are grounds for
firing reporters. Reporters can even receive punishment
via the legal system now. Now the believability of
reports on the epidemic and patient statistics is quite
high."
Cadre: "So nowadays, what is reported [by
hospitals] is exactly what we see reported in the media,
right?"
Reporter: "There's no need to get into
that issue."
Public hygiene, the Olympics,
and war with the US
SARS isn't without a silver
lining, as a conversation with a Beijing couple
illustrates:
Wife: "Maybe something will be done
in our country regarding our attitude toward the nasty
habit of spitting our mucus wherever we want. In the
several decades since the [communist] revolution, China
has endured every sort of natural disaster and human
calamity imaginable, yet nothing can be done about our
spitting problem? This is a deep-seated bad habit among
the Chinese people. It seems as if this has never been
an issue for our government - nothing has ever been
attempted to end it. Seeing as it took China reaching
the cusp of a life or death situation before the
government decided to adopt measures and forbid spitting
in public, at least in this regard SARS can be said to
have made a big contribution."
Husband: "Could
it have happened any other way? Even having the 2008
Olympics looming on the horizon didn't prompt the
government to do anything about this bad habit.
[Regarding the Olympics], the media painted a picture of
a government of such massive strength and deep pockets
which it speculated that over time could get the elderly
to learn English for free. This was repeated in
television and newspaper reports time and time again.
How much real significance did any of it have? Why
didn't the government and media work a little more with
reality and facts and promote the notion of Chinese
people not spitting wherever they would like to spit?
I'm truly worried that if Chinese don't change this
habit, we will lose face in front of the entire world in
2008."
Wife: "I really hope that these extreme
hygiene measures put into place persist through 2008."
Husband: "I'm not terribly confident in it. Just
look - how many people can urban administrators control?
How many can it punish? Just a few train stations and
some malls, but the majority of places are unable to be
controlled. As soon as SARS has passed, there won't even
be people enforcing public hygiene in those train
stations or malls anymore, will there? When I look at
Shanghai, I have hope. They have competent measures
there. I have little hope for Beijing. The measures here
are weak, just like the supervision. If you take a look
at the attempts made here at prohibiting spitting,
sealing off trash chutes in stairwells and battling
those who sell sham products to profit from SARS, the
measures all fall short and the punishment isn't stiff
enough. During the Korean War when we fought the
Americans, China executed anyone selling fake medicine,
faulty bandages or low-quality cotton balls. In the
'People's War' against SARS, we can't just talk and do
nothing else. We can't just make an initial rallying cry
and hope for the best. We need to come back to reality."
Translated by Christopher Horton.
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All
rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for
information on our sales and syndication policies.)
|
| |
|
|
 |
|
