Restive festive

In the fourth day of the festival and things are not that festive. Tan-qin (the visiting of relatives) has been cancelled for the first time in memory, perhaps in history. It's such a habit that the days are regimented: First day of new year, there are no visits; the second there is for particular relatives; then the third day of new year there shouldn't be any. But in the circumstances, with the public advisements and general fear, it has been very minimal. My in-laws have visited a couple of times. Otherwise it's been immediate neighbours who would come over anyway. The youngest son next door has been over two several times but presumably because there isn't much to do. It's not really festive at all.

Fortunately in the last day, the number of cases for the city have not changed significantly. We are on 3 cases, which is what we were on two days ago. That might mean that all the Wuhan infected people were more or less in care. No more cases in the next week would probably cause everyone to take a big sigh of relief. But there are a few possible reasons not to rest or relax vigilance. Like all viruses there can be healthy carriers. Presumably some of those arrived with mild or no symptoms and are infecting people over a longer period of time. And those three cases also may have exposed a large number of people before getting to the hospital. These are both very plausible scenarios.

Extraordinary situations call for extraordinary language learning, and one such term for me is "fung1 sing4" (Mandarin: Feng1 cheng2). I heard this a few times before knowing the meaning. When I heard a word I don't know, my ears, being originally non-tonal ears, relate it sonically: Fung6 Sing4, is another term for Qingyuan city, but a more fancy, poetic way of saying it (literally Phoenix City). It took me seeing headlines in Chinese to know it wasn't fung6 Phoenix, but fung1 seal up, a word with a different tone. Just after new year it was decided to fung1 sing4 Wuhan, to seal it up so no people can get out, to control the epidemic. Then neighbouring cities were also fung1 sing4, all in Hubei Province. With the sudden announcements rumours flew that Guangzhou would be fung1 sing4 as well but the vice provincial governor came out today and said it wouldn't happen, that everything is under control. (Which you might also expect them to say before they fung1 sing4!)

But that's when a new term came in "fung1 cyun1". By analogy, this was easy to get: sealing villages. Sealing cities was about keeping the virus in. Sealing villages, with the examples I've seen, seem to be about keeping the virus out, where village leaders have blockaded roads and said that "if you leave, you're not coming back". I'd heard about it and wondered if it were real. Then our Aussie friend who is also visiting over new year has had his villaged fung1 cyun1. I imagine, with the current methodology if a case of the virus is found in a village it's a reason to fung1 cyun1. I can't imagine that villages would just seal themselves off without a near and present danger, so I think perhaps there was a case in a nearby village. He'd know about it if there was actually a case in his own village. 

Days are pretty long right now without the usual festivities. I get by eating, drinking and reading books. I'm currently reading Jia (Home) by a renown writer, Bajin. It's set just after the overthrow of the Qing but before the Communist overthrow. It's quite interesting because it reads like a Chinese Downton Abbey, with the whole noble family and the whole upstairs-downstairs relationships with servants. 

I put the paragraph in above to distract any readers and myself briefly from the general tone. We've now been told by four different people: Go back to New Zealand early. It's hard to argue with it but, by the same token, it's almost unthinkable to leave the elderly parents and a grandparent here during this time. They would have no immediate support, and if either they or their main local support (my sister-in-law) had an issue, they're on their own. Besides me taking leave of the situation mentally and thinking how grand I am in a historically significant event, it's kind of a bother to be in this predicament. 

Key facts for today and yesterday:

- Guangzhou city itself updated its confirmed cases from 14 to 39 today. (That boggles the mind, almost a 300% increase.)

- In the epicentre, Hubei Province, yesterday between 00:00 to midnight, reported 371 more cases and 24 deaths. (This virus has been around since later Christmas and now has a total of 80 deaths. That means 30% of the deaths so far were yesterday in a single province. Tomorrow will put that in perspective. It's expected to be on an exponential rise.)