WUE·Canada| Voice from the basement of Toronto
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2020campaign
Before any human being can move to Mars, we are all on the same planet. Regardless of nationalities, race, religion or time zone, we are citizens of the earth. At WUE-WeUnitedEarth, we are here to connect, support, and care for one another.
The Editor's Notes
Covid-19 continues to spread across the globe. As of April 21st, the figure of confirmed cases registers over 2440 thousand worldwide, and 643507 cases has been cured. In North American countries, the number of confirmed cases in the United States exceeded 780 thousand, and 73,527 cases were cured; the cumulative number of cases in Canada is 36,831, with 1,690 deaths and 11,843 people recovered.
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, claimed on April 9th that Canadians should stay at home and keep a social distance for several months, for the first wave of Covid-19 outbreak may not come to an end until the summer. Once Canada has gone through the first wave of outbreaks, some economic activities will start again. Trudeau also mentioned that Canada can only return to normal after the emergence of the vaccine, which may take 1-1.5 years, and people must remain vigilant in a long term.
Prior to this speech, Trudeau's wife Sophie (Sophie Gegoire-Trudeau) had been diagnosed with Covid-19 and healed, and he himself had also gone through 14 days of self-quarantine. As the Prime Minister of Canada, he publicly stated that the new coronavirus is "a challenge facing our generation".
Del Yang was born in Taiwan, China and moved to Toronto, Canada for more than 20 years. In recent years, he travels between Mainland China, Taipei and Toronto every year because of his work. Since the outbreak of Covid-19, he happened to have traveled from the mainland to Taipei and struggled to return to his home in Canada, and have experienced China's epidemic situation from severe to alleviating, while North America and even the global epidemic has spread and broken out.
WUE-WeUnitedEarth（地球公场）invites Del to record his daily life in the city under the impact of COVID-19. In the recording, he expressed his reflection to the so called “Western Civilized Society” through the observation of different societies, and recognized his families and himself as “the victims of the unknown” in this global pandemic storm. However, Del felt grateful during the 14-day-self-quarantine in his basement in Toronto, and thought that if everyone can try their best to do what they are supposed to do in the pandemic, like the first-line doctors, nurses, postmen, police, supermarket employees, the world that presses the tentative key will recover faster, and people will get back on normal track faster.
地球公场
WUE-WeUnitedEarth
“Remember, we are all in this together.”
January, heading back to Taiwan
The first day of lunar New Year, and I’ve made a ritual of being in Taiwan for her birthday. Usually, even if I planned to head back to Toronto in that year, I’ll always make a stopover to be with her on that day.
Before I was back in China on 2018, I didn’t know that Pingtan is the closest place from mainland China to Taiwan. There is merely 68 nautical miles between Pingtan and Xinzhu city, and 70 nautical miles between it and Taipei. There is a high-speed ferry (Haixia Hao ) running between Pingtan and Taipei. The trip will only take 2.5 hours (summer) and 3 hours (winter) for me to be back in Taipei.
As usual, everything was normally chaotical before my little trip to Taiwan – busy working on new projects, taking part in never-ending year-end dinners, thinking about my next moves…etc. Finally the day to leave Pingtan for a short trip, it was just another smooth sailing over the winter rough sea; well, people were so happy to visit TW for vacation and start eating stuff right before set sailing, never knowing that Taiwan Strait is well-known for the winter high wind at sea – you can imaging the scene; a lot of people were scrambling for plastic bags to unload the food that they just put into their stomach an hour ago. The smell will keep you awake, yak.
平潭回台北的航船 图源：Del Yang
Arrived at Taipei port, the normal chaotic process replay itself: checking to see if you carry anything that contain meat – at that time “Swine flu” was the ONLY focus in this little island. At this time, COVID-19 was a threat existing in news only. It seems so remote from us at the time. The speakers kept on telling you that “Pigs are important food source for us, don’t let them catch the disease” – or something like that. I remember at that time; I question myself that “Why are we eating such a vulnerable species? We should eat something much more disease-resistant species like Polar bear or sharks or grasshopper, eh?!” Well, I was glad that I didn’t actually go and asked others for answer – but the question is still lingering… Just joking.
航船停靠在港口 图源：Del Yang
Got back to my Taipei home, typical argument with my 85 year-old mom on KMT and DPP routine still going – my way of keep her mind active, even though sounds like we are arguing, but looking at her eyes rolling and thinking of something to fight back my challenges to KMT’s bad side and DPP’s reasoning, that means she’s full steam ahead running her brain – Hooah, mission accomplished. Just like that, I was enjoying arguing with her and keep her busy, and that was just a typical Chinese New Year with my mom in Taiwan.
And at that moment, nothing hinted me that a dumbest creature was about to start a massive slaughtering mission of the smartest living species on our planet. Well, not until the night before my mom’s birthday – Jan. 1st of Lunar New Year;
“Wuhan is shutting down completely”!
At the beginning, the worry was still remote. Made some arrangement with my mom and told her to stay inside and not to go out as before for majiang or go to hospital and such. As planned, headed back to Pingtan on the 3rd day of Lunar New Year.
Still the same routine on a winter day in the “Haixia Hao”, scrambling for plastic bags SOP added another step – take off the mask before you unload the stuffs. Some participants forgot that step and created a small scale evacuation operation around that seat. And still, the smell keeps you awake, yak x 10!
Before disembarking, now the waves of seriousness of this outbreak start to sink in: the border control officers check everyone’s temperatures on the way out – multiple times. And I had to fill up a form before arrival but need to refill it again using another format of that form upon the ferry docked. That change of forms alone shows that China was also scrambling to get things right, you have to understand that the ferry just left Pingtan harbor 5 hours ago and the form changed! By now I was kind of wondering:
“should I be worry? Or this is just an overdone an overreaction on the part of Chinese government to this dumb virus?”
After back to my Pingtan home, I started to gradually shift my emotion to face the grim reality that the virus IS coming! But since Pingtan’s winter wind, the air flowed through the little island and moved all the virus outside away – this was my way of telling myself on why Pingtan remained zero case amongst the 8 weeks of COVID-19 outbreak in China.
Meanwhile, still kept my old habit of cycling at least once a week and the supermarket’s shelves also remain stocked up full. Beside reducing the outing occurrence, I actually did feel anything severe enough made me nervous. But! The almost daily routine of my family calling me and said that I should “escape” out of China asap! My response was always that I didn’t want to jeopardize my family’s safety so I would wait it out and then head back to Toronto. This type of phone calls made me had the impression that this virus ONLY occurred inside China and everywhere else were all clean and safe.
After a month of tight lock down in China, the numbers of new cases and death count both went down. The Pingtan local government silently opened up its grip on restriction. I could roam around more freely, the traditional markets opened, the small shops accepting customers. Except the eat-in was still banned, but the businesses waked up from the virus-made hibernation! All looks promising and you could literally feel the exhaling sigh of relief from everyone. And at the same time, all the news let you think China controlled the virus’ spread to the world – we MADE it!
But the rest of the world starts started to change - drastically changed.
February to March, Back to Toronto
From the outbreak linked to “cult” in S. Korea, then Italy, Iran and then North America, the little virus quickly took over the front page of the media. Till the first confirmed case of community spread in States, with unknown sources of infection, now I started to dig more on the net, and found out that US CDC’s test kits were faulty – not working at all! And there were literally no tests were performed – as of end of February, the entire US only tested less than 400 people – EVER! That was a jaw dropping news to me. That was 0.000001% of its population!!! That was Feb. 13th!
平潭回台北的航船 图源：Del Yang
Since that news came out, CNN, BBC, CBC became my main TV shows all day. The first few stages of this kind of outbreaks in western world remain the same: Asian people started to buy PPE and stock up food; white guys laugh at our reaction; after a while, white guys blames Asian people buy out all the PPE and food. Also there was always a special phenomenon in United States: “Buy more guns and stock up on ammunition”.
Does that mean: “NA’s freedom includes the freedom to use violence, eh?”
Meanwhile even though Canadian are generally being very nice, but they still carry the idea that whoever wear masks must be sick, and sick people shouldn’t go out. So, my family so worried about how other people will see them; even though they all know they should wear it, they didn’t dare to. And which made me worried about them!
At the same time, I always believe that civilization is a man-made condition that runs perfectly during peaceful time. But when food source becomes scarce; unknown clouds up heavily, and people’s lives are threatened… the mask of being civilized will last for how long?
在美国，一些人在购买枪支并储备弹药。图源：Del Yang
That started me looking ways of heading back to Toronto to help them prepare for the upcoming situation, and even try to see if I can bring them back to China!
But getting a flight back was a challenge by itself! First, got an expansive business class seat from Fuzhou to Toronto – all seemed to be ok. After only a mere week later, flight from Fuzhou to Beijing was canceled. That’s ok, just made a switch to another airlines, how hard can that be, right? Wrong! 4 days before the flight, the newly switched airlines also canceled its flight. Now what?! Should I run around like a headless chicken? Be panic and go out crying at the road side?! Of course not!
After solid 3 hours on the phone with call center, now I had to layover in Beijing for one night and delay my flight to Toronto till the next day. Kept my finger crossed for the remaining days – by now, any “Ding” from my phone – SMS, made my face twitches. Finally, at the Fuzhou airport and “On Schedule, Hooah!”
大量航班取消，停机坪上停满了飞机。 图源：Del Yang
The flight from Fuzhou to Beijing and the next day’s flight from Beijing to Toronto were all smooth riding. Successfully got myself drunk for most of the flight.What a good way to pass the 14 hours, unconscious till 4 hours before landing!
Luckily, didn’t miss that much of the luxury of business class food, because by now all the food was just hamburger and bananas wrapped in disposable bags. When I woke up, it just dawned on me that even though on the website the business seats were marked sold out, but there are exactly 50% seats were occupied. Wow, what can be a better way to keep the passengers safe?!
3月16日的皮尔森国际机场。所有到达加拿大的人都需要在酒店或者其他地方进行隔离。图源：Del Yang
Back to Toronto on 15th, March; I witness the sudden changes from total seriousness to minor inconvenience about COVID-19. When landed, my flight was the only flight from China during that hour. As expected, only passengers from my flight were wearing a mask. And which created quite a few “turn-head” solutes from other passengers and even some airport workers.
Inside the arrival hall, the scene of people hugs and kisses between friends, woke me up that “I’m really back in Toronto”. Seeing that gave me a surreal feeling like my first out of TW visit to HK – “Wow, there IS a world outside of the island that I’m living in!?” With that Déjà vu in mind, I started my journey here in Toronto.
March, quarantine in the basement
Once got home, my wife and kids are thrilled to see me back, but at the same time worried that I brought back some silent killer virus – I sure do need to self-quarantine for 14 days to be safe. But the same time, a little voice in my head kept on telling me:
“Based on the stringent stay-home rules in China and the flights’ seating arrangement, I know I am ok. Instead, I don’t trust that they’re virus-free. So, I am quarantining them instead! Ha-ha ”
Del Yang在多伦多进行自我隔离的地下室 摄影：Del Yang
In my 14 days self-quarantine, first thing I noticed was the news; Panic and Relax is the sharp contrast on TVs; blue states’ storm is coming vs. Trump states’ lack of urgency is stunningly existing at the same time. Just within a few hours, I grasped that it is a battle between $ and human lives!
加拿大街景，空空荡荡的街道和公交车 图源：Del Yang
And as I moved into the 2nd week of my quarantine, I realized that I’d like to watch China’s TV news more than the news on North America TV.
Regardless of the accuracy of the information received from both world, which is a heated debate still; when in China, the information intake gives you a sense of hope and togetherness – even in the heat of crisis. Whereas in NA, the fear of unknown and fiction vs. science are the main theme on TV daily. On top of that, the sad reality of the US’ leaders are trying so hard on painting a rosy “imaginary reality” amidst an unknown scale of threat jumps onto the screen is a daily routine. So the “Wishful thinking” is trying so hard to defeat scientists’ data, which continuously creating even more unease and panic.
Del Yang画的COVID-19 图源：Del Yang
And I am one of the victims fall in this psychological trap!
The artificially created anxiety took a toll on my daily life: anger, fear, sense of powerless, and imaging the worst-case scenario about the unknown…etc. All these translate to lost of sleep and physically drained. Thus, after a few days’ torment about the massive uncertainly, I came to a not-so-common conclusion, that is:
“I need to respect all parties in the world – the good (like nurses, doctors, mailman, policeman, and even grocery’s clerks), the bad (Trump and Pompeo alike) and everything else!”
加拿大的医护人员 图源：Del Yang
The good part of my realization is straightforward, those heroic people leading the world’s fight against the COVID-19 at the frontline. But as for the “Bad”, I must comfort my mind and accept the fact that these guys who make 99% of the sane people angry about, are simply “Doing their jobs! And unfortunately, they are doing a great job of it!” - crazy theory, eh?!
Since I don’t believe that there is any absolute evil person, I told myself that Trump and Pompeo alike are simply executing their missions or assigned tasks. Trump thinks white-supremacist is the solution to US’ battle with China on world leadership; Pompeo is been assigned with a task to bash China and round up allies to do the same, so they are just doing their jobs! Sadly to many people though, they have done pretty good so far!
Thinking about this, I feel relaxed now. No matter what is actually impacting the world, country and its people, they are all trying their best to do their works – for us, some of their works are ugly and evil, but that’s their trying to answer their mission.
But for better and for worse, if everyone is trying their best on their position the goods and the bads; event the COVID virus, a creature without a brain or body, it is also trying so hard on purging mankind, eh! Who gives me the right to worry and to be angry or to feel anxiety about?
Equip with my new realization, I feel a lot more forward-looking and positive in this situation – and even in life. In addition, with that new angel of thinking, I can focus more on the future and ignore (or care less) on the negativity side of the world now. Oddly enough, in my mind at least, such a blizzard logic can make sense about such an unprecedented state the world is in.
Back to the reality, I think there is no place on earth is safe from the virus, hence we need to be content with what we have now and move on with life – one little step at a time. This is mostly demonstrated by millions of residents in the city Wuhan, right? They were stuck in the apex center during the hardest days of COVID-19 and they got through it! Proudly!
We need to see through the ever horrifying news and taste the positive vibe pops up around us: volunteers helping low income families, bus drivers, delivery guys, and of course those med workers knowingly aware that their PPE is not adequate enough as before but still heading into hospital each and every day! Salut them with all my heart!
The fog of unknow is not cleared yet, many lives will be lost, anguish is still on; and the history will kept on writing our path. But I have the confidence that, like many voices on the net, “Together, we will prevail”
——END——
Del Yang grew up in Taiwan, China, and moved to Toronto, Canada in his 20s. He started to do business with mainland China about 10 years ago, and started working in China 2 years ago. Each year, Del travels irregularly between Mainland China, Taiwan (China) and Canada. He said, “I experienced two of the most representative political systems in modern world, and a small island swaying from side to side, which roughly constituted my attitude towards the world.”
The records in the text represent the author's personal views. For more details, please refer to the previous catalogue of WUE 2020 Compaign.
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Editor / Earth Citizen CICI, MELANIE
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