The blessings of isolation

It's now day twelve of this intermission in my life. It's all gone rather quickly but with a bit of a flow: I wake up about 6:30am and do some of my hip mobility and strengthening exercises, make myself a Chinese tea or coffee, attend to some personal e-mailing or reading, before announcing my arrival in "the office" at about 7:20.

I've very rarely had to work from home previously as my main daily work. I've only ever brought work home on evenings, weekends or holidays. It took some adjustment to organise myself but as time has gone on I would say my productivity level is higher than in the office. In the morning, I mainly work on my reports and projects because that is the time of least work related distractions. Work gets me to 11:45am when the first non-work distractions and tasks arise. 

11:45am is when the Hubei numbers are duly announced. Hubei is usually one of the first and it's the main attraction. Since the new confirmation standard, numbers are a lot higher. For the last few days it's been Hubei 130-odd fatalities, vs. 5-10 fatalities elsewhere in China and the world. It's been noticeable that, if the numbers are correct and not prone to the same sort of reevaluation as in Hubei, the situation outside of Hubei is stabilising with some provinces occasionally reporting "no new cases". Guangdong is not close to that but the rises are smaller. And the above is what happens when 11:45am arrives. My mind dives into a lot of reading and checking of articles. Lunch follows. I'll do the dishes. We go out for a driving lesson.

By the time 2pm arrives I'm back into work, usually doing none of the projects. It's the flow of the day that means this period even at a distance I'm peppered with fielding requests, calls and confirmations. 5:30pm rolls around and dinner and a walk is had. By 7:30pm I'm usually back at work trying to get a few formulas on spreadsheet to work more obediently before we watch something on Netflix.

It's turned out to be a packed life. My reading has dwindled down to the point that I have to do it on the weekend. In fact, I've resorted to doing my projects on weekend days to ensure I have no disruptions from colleagues, even as remote as I am!

If there were some other distinctions from my previous commuting life, it'd be that in this phase I've done more on WeChat to practice my Cantonese, watched broadcast TV news and tried to read the New Zealand Herald. (I got myself a five week trial!). It's impossible to read the Herald, to be honest. There's too much in it, especially when I'm hooked into so many other media sources. But I've done the crosswords relentlessly!

As for those grim numbers. Wuhan has recorded 1233 deaths, China's national toll just rolled over the year of the Great Fire of London. They've got people back to work now but delaying schools going back to March. For most of China going back to work makes sense. At my brother-in-law's factory they give out face masks. Interesting my sister-in-law, a civil servant, had to go back earlier and doesn't get any on account of them not wanting to sacrifice masks that could be sent to those who need them. Qingyuan fortunately hasn't had any further cases so we can breath easier.

Blessed Isolation - this blogcast extra

I thought I would add to my previous post with a quick update after the media collectively failed with fact checking, with news items such as Coronavirus deaths hit highest daily toll when it almost certainly didn't. Below are the two counts of cases in China 12 hours apart on my phone, the first at 7:37am this morning and the second at 7:51pm this evening. The red numbers shows the number of confirmed cases, the yellow are the suspected cases, the black is the fatalities and the green are the recoveries. The news people can read numbers and they have indeed risen dramatically in the reported total number of reported cases and deaths. But in this case, it's probably not the case that the cases dramatically shot up at all. 

When I received the Hubei numbers, there was a lengthy preamble before the numbers, which is different to all the other reports through the Chinese media. Even though I'm fluent enough with my reading, I'm also quite impatient so to see this textual obstruction annoyed me so I flicked down and the numbers seemed from another planet, enough to send me back to the preamble.

Hubei has changed its way of counting cases. It has been shown that the antigen test they use for the virus is unreliable and having both it and the CT scan as the necessary two-step confirmation has been flawed. So they have brought in a clinical approach focussing on symptoms and thus they reclassified a whole bunch of people, and is it turns out, a whole bunch of deaths. To be honest, I'd believe that there is probably a lot of death accounting yet to go in Hubei. Allow me to be crude: I presume they're not bringing corpses from the countryside and putting them through a CT scanner. The initial torrent of fatalities were probably incinerated in fear and due to a lack of space before there was a credible way to test. A clinical determination might have back counted the likely cases. 

So don't be alarmed. The TVNZ news was funny in that it both claimed yesterday to be a deadly day, yet also recognised that they had changed the way they were counting them. I haven't heard of other provinces re-evaluating their cases, but if others follow suit there might be another bump up in numbers, without it corresponding to a worsening of the situation. 

The funny thing is that there will be items about how officials may be messing with the numbers. They may be fake, but if you're going to take the numbers seriously, it's important to know what they mean.

Under the official news radar, there is still a lot of disturbing news and videos out there. I'll try and cover it in my next blog.

Blessed Isolation, the Revenge

It might have been a rumour, but the outbreak of Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome outbreak (SARS) in 2003 badly affected that the soft drink brand, Sars, and the flavour associated with it. Sars was available in NZ, I recall, but only because I had tried it during my time in Taiwan. A disgusting soft drink, I also recall. It was called Sars because it was short for Sarsaparilla, an ingredient in it. And now we have Corona... Will be funny if that brand takes a hit in the coming period and they make a PR-name change.

Names often get twisted up in bad incidents. I remember one of my favourite bands, Massive Attack, changed its name to Massive during the Iraq war. Apparently, there were a few who prior to 2013 made the decision to name their businesses, groups and babies, the beautiful name of Isis, an Egyptian goddess.

The place-name Wuhan might be etched in people's memories for quite some time. It is hard to remember particular places that have their names indelibly stenched by a disease. Pre-Corona, Wuhan for me was a possible location for Chinese study. In China, besides Beijing, it was one of the earliest to really build up a name and infrastructure as a place for foreigners to go and learn Chinese. Deep in China's interior, it also got mildly tainted in my mind by the usual stories that come from the slightly more backward parts of the world. To the ear it even sounds backward: Woo-HAN. The Chinese characters for it are also interesting: Military Han (as in Han Chinese, the ethnicity of the majority). I visited Wuhan for the first time in 2013-2014 to see it with my own eyes. It was a city renovating itself like many Chinese cities. There was massive construction projects digging up pavements, streets and whatever. I believe they were putting in a subway. Though there were the mandatory ancient sites (it was a major holiday so they were wall-to-wall people) and natural sites (East Lake), it didn't really endear itself to me.

But like a lot of the places I've been to, with later reading it has come alive. I read the things that every Chinese person knows and would feel when they hear the name Wuhan. Its name is actually a portmanteau of two different names: WUchang and HANkou. These were actually two separate cities before they amalgamated into one megacity. Anyone with a rudimentary idea of Chinese history knows Wuchang, its the place where a critical uprising happened in 1911 that led to the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty. I remember reading Hankou in many stories and was always confused why I couldn't find it on a map. It is surprising how late you learn these things.

Wuhan is located in Hubei province. Chinese provincial names might sound rather confusing but they're pretty straight forward. Hu means lake. Bei means north. Hubei is north of some of the famous lakes (including Dongting Hu). Hunan is to the south of Hubei, and literally means "Lakes-South". Of course when they come together, they have completely different flavours. When you say Hunan, anyone who has spent time in China immediately has a humid, spicy taste arise in their mouths and knows the aroma of stinky tofu isn't far away. Such is the nature of language that the whole is always greater than the sum of a word's etymological parts. Day 9 of quarantine.

Virus news? In terms of spread, the virus is now on a downward slope. New cases numbered just 2000 yesterday, which though still a ridiculous number, is half the ridiculous numbers of 10 days previous. But with the good news comes the grim accounting. The virus is cashing in its chips, the last two days with the largest number of deaths with 100 or more in both of the last two days. Wuhan by itself now totals more than the worldwide deaths for SARS. Yesterday, however, had fewer deaths than the previous day so perhaps that has peaked, too. Hubei officials reported that there are now no people waiting for testing or care. If true, that would mean the death rate will plummet. Hubei has hoovered up a lot of the country's medical resources - the gamble I mentioned previously. If they can process things and bring it down to a manageable number, essentially the war against the virus is won with a heck of a lot of battles remaining.

With the tide of the war turning, there is more knowledge about it. It is widely reported that 14 days is not long enough to cover the whole range of possible incubation periods, that people are falling ill and able to spread it up to 24 days after infection. I hope this doesn't affect my quarantine... Also a treatment has been developed, although with the economics of this virus it doesn't "work" in my head. It's a disease that spreads widely, quickly and only really fatal in a small number of cases if there is appropriate care. It'd be just a bad flu. They did a human trial but since there are so many people recovering from it without this drug, it must be stretching it to say that the drug was responsible. But I haven't studied the reports closely.

The one other shadow for me personally is that there have been another two cases in our hometown. It had been stuck at a total of 10 for many days, with 5 recovered cases. These new two might be "imported" cases, that is, people from Guangzhou or Shenzhen. Or it could be cases who developed symptoms later than others. There is no reporting on them like there was earlier.

Commentary on the two pictures: In the last three days, the Hubei deaths (1068) is almost 300 higher, of the 1117 deaths in China. Guangdong, the second on the list, still has just 1 death and cases have only grown to 1219 (from 1131). The total cases has gone from 37294 to 44766, a rise of about 7000 (20%). Although there are a lot of places that there have been little or no fatalities despite high case count, some provinces outside of Hubei have had a disproportionate number: Henan, Heilongjiang, Anhui all break this trend with 8, 8 and 4 respectively; but in the context of this outbreak, they are not scarily high. Cases outside China, with the exception of the Diamond Princess, seem to be sporadic. Since it is unlikely this disease will be exterminated completely regardless what measures are done, it might be something that is latently there and may just be another disease to add to the pantheon. Once the borders are opened again, carriers may bring it to the rest of the world.

The Return of Blessed Isolation

Isolation doesn't happen in isolation. The world changes around it and isolation changes within. The last few days have been more distracting than usual. I barely touched my novels, which is completely out of habit for the previous two months. In fact, for someone in isolation I've felt rather sick and listless. Sick - but don't get any ideas! I've got a well-established cold that regardless of the rest I'm getting doesn't seem to be shaken in any way. And I have what used to be the regular bane of my existence, and I hope this doesn't give "too much information": an ulcer on my tongue. The latter in particular is a problem because it's on the tip and if I want to avoid aggravating it, I can't speak properly. The cold symptoms are mocking me at this rather globally stressful point in time: There's a deadly epidemic the disease of which I'm literally quarantined for, and you give me a cold?? (I must mention that coronavirus and cold symptoms are quite different - I have no cough, no fever, no headache, no vomiting, just a head full of gunk.)

Anyway. Back to the pandemic. Things are still bad. Another city (Wenzhou) appears to be in lock down. Chongqing also appears to be in the stages of locking down. The latter is a megacity, not belonging to any province and reports it's numbers with other provinces just like Beijing and Shanghai. If if were counted as a province, it's is the province that has the ninth most cases. But just two deaths. Wenzhou is a significant city but no officially reported deaths either. If the lock downs manage to get number of cases to fall, the turning point is due.

In fact the last two days have had a noticeable turn in the number of new cases, which might mean the "extraordinary methods" used might finally be curbing the spread. Meanwhile the death number charges on. The number went from 637 to 814 in the two days between blogs. It's putting up about 90 people a day and that number is increasing as either cause of death, a difficult issue, is established; and also the critical cases run their courses.

On 31 January, I went into prophesy mode and said in an e-mail: "Hubei's numbers are horrific and will account for over 90% of what will be a big number of cases and probably 98% of deaths. Their numbers alone are the biggest problem - the province alone will have more deaths than SARS did worldwide by the time we leave."  Well, yesterday, three days after our original return date, it did come to pass. Hubei cruised past it. And although there are more provinces with fatalities than two days ago - Henan for example went from 3 to 6 in that period - 122 were in Hubei. 

It feels like at least the momentary trend is towards control, of waiting for cases to run their courses, of posting of literature about the new drug that could be the savior, and of pointing to the US flu numbers and wondering why they haven't locked down any cities or states to save the people from the scourge of the flu season. Fingers crossed this is the flavour of the week. 

Blessed Isolation, the Revenge (i.e. pt 2)

Today was my first day working from home under quarantine. It is quite a feeling to be removed, but completely healthy. I remember last year with the flu, or the year before that post-surgery, trying to contribute to solving some work problems remotely, tiring and lying on the couch, feeling like I've done my bit. Now I feel that eight hours of independent work is a very long time. Fortunately we have a few apps now to facilitate good communication and collaboration.

Two days after my last blog and two days after the Wuhan 14 day period quarantine period, which is now going to be extended, it's a fine day to see how the Chinese official numbers have moved. Firstly, the deaths have risen by over 50% to 637 and the total cases have more than doubled, from 13522 to 31211. In other words, there are plenty of people getting sick from other people despite the self-quarantined and forcibly quarantined nature of people's lives in China.

The growth number is still Hubei province and, in particular, Wuhan. Of the 637 deaths, 478 have come from that one city, which also accounts for a third of the Chinese cases. Hubei as a province accounts for 618, accounting alone for two-thirds of Chinese cases. It fits into the theory that it's the overwhelming number of sick people that causes this disease to be deadly.

Meanwhile, Guangdong broke a thousand cases and to celebrate had its first fatality in Zhaoqing. Zhaoqing is a city close to my heart - I've been there twice, the second city I visited in Mainland China and I even took my sister there when she visited. It's a small city with a famous set of pillar-like limestone peaks in a lake called the Seven Star Crags. A friend of mine who I have had an enduring friendship with lives there and said there was a story behind the death: A friend of his who lived in Wuhan came to visit him in Zhaoqing where they sang Cantonese opera together. He fell ill and went to the hospital where they wrote off his sickness as a cold without testing him for coronavirus. He went home, became gravely sick and by the time he returned to the hospital, it was already too late.

The whole world has stopped moving in China. People who were to go back to work on 10 February will be told to stay home longer. Schools are being delayed even later. The Guangzhou Metro and buses require people to wear medical masks or else they'll be fined and ejected. But with masks in short supply, it means some people have no way but to stay home and ask for someone to buy them some. Wuhan, as you can imagine, is a deathly quiet city.

But every disaster movie needs a hero. His name was Li Wenliang and was the whistleblower who first broke ranks to share his fears, that other people posted and reposted, until everyone knew something big was going down in Wuhan. The local authorities did what authoritarian cultures do and interrogated him and arrested those who "spread rumours". He was forced to sign a letter of admonition in order to move on from it and go back to work. His work, of course, was now a publicly known endeavour to save people from the increasingly prevalent disease, and he was infected, along with many of his colleagues. He died in the early hours of this morning. Sometimes, and especially in Chinese movies, the hero has to die.

There has been a kind of mass public fury after his death, directed at the government and those people in power. In China there is a certain power of the people when everyone borrows strength from the outrage of others to publicly state their disgust and criticise the failings of the system that has failed them. It's not unlike a social media riot. On WeChat, Li Wenliang's death was the dominant theme of the day: in memory, in sympathy and worship of him, but mostly anger at his death. There were articles about him being a hero. And others reflectively saying that it is a shame that such a simple thing as telling the truth of a life-threatening disease could be a heroic act.

In the village where just five days ago I lived, they are now "sealed". It's a loose seal: no cars allowed, and no-one who doesn't live in the village can pass in and out, but the locals can. When my wife's brother-in-law drops something off, my parents-in-law have to walk about 10 minutes to the side of the highway to pick it up. It's happening to a lot of the villages - it happened last week in the town where our Aussie friend was doing the same CNY visit to the wife's hometown as I was. We also got a subtle sign of stress when we were asked how much masks cost in New Zealand. If they're asking for masks here, they are obviously very short of them, or very far-sighted.

Blessed isolation, part 1

We pulled our luggage from the car and decided who would take what up to the apartment. She brought up the groceries first and then I followed a moment later wheeling the large suitcases. To greet us were our downstairs neighbours on the balcony of their place, father and son. They're familiar in the neighbourly way. The father and I know each other to the point of names and his son always says hi to us, usually while playing frontyard cricket with the lawn at the front of the complex.

"Been travelling?" the father asks.

"Yes," I say but drawing a metre further past him.

"Where to?" he asks, which I can't help but wince in response to.

"China," I say. 

He smiles without any recoil: "So you'll be having a 14 day holiday then." I nod and he says: "If there's anything you need help with, let me know." It was nice to know that the first real "stranger" experience to this recent China traveller wasn't of shrieking dread, but actual friendly support. I thanked him and headed up to what will be our almost 24/7 bunker for the next 14 days.

Shrieking dread though is something the media likes. My Australian friend, who after quite the ordeal is boarding a plane today to leave Guangdong, struggled to get access to the Australian newspapers and I let him know about the New Zealand Herald, which isn't blocked in China. 

"It's such a breath of fresh air," he said. "None of the sensationalism that the Aussie papers have." I'm not sure if the Australian dailies are ridiculous or he just read the NZ Herald on a good day, but the coverage has been shrieking and inflammatory in the Herald. And boy does it serve its purpose. 

Step 1: Report the issue with not-so-subtle editorialising, which will certainly inflame and hypersensitise, perhaps by emphasising the extreme. 

Step 2: Wait for the statistically likely response of the ill-informed who read the previous reporting to do something ridiculous to further report on. 

Such is the case with coronavirus, which even in our liberal populace triggered racists responses. 

Is coronavirus something to fear? China's reported numbers are hard to be certain of but they were shamed by SARS outbreak where they clearly weren't open and honest, and praised for their reaction to avian flu a few years back. and I still believe the numbers to an extent are accurate. The picture on the left is one I saw circulating on WeChat after the international community suddenly started shutting off borders to Chinese travellers. It's not accurate - H1N1 did not have a 17.4% fatality rate. (They've mixed a hypothetical death count with the actual reported number of cases. That puts it on par with the Spanish Flu. It's more likely to be 3-4%) It's hard to fact-check in China but excluding the nationalist chip on the shoulder, it has to be said no modern effort to control an outbreak matches this. 

The media in China is controlled so you will never have news that panics unless you the government wants you to panic. The best way to know is by reading the response, and also knowing that even the aspiring omniscient, omnipotent state does not know everything and cannot do everything. 

Fact: Wuhan and several other cities are still "sealed". Something that is a massive undertaking.

Fact: The country's holidays have been extended by weeks damaging production and consumption. Fact: The whole tourism industry was shut down during its most lucrative time. 

I'd conclude that all of these self-damaging decisions were made by the Chinese authorities with the best understanding of the outbreak, whether it is the same as what they're projecting to the public. They put a huge resource into halting the cultural imperatives to gather during Chinese New Year and sent crucial staff and teams from all over China into Hubei province, gambling it wouldn't break out there. The kind of actions they have taken imply it is pretty bad. These are actions that panic, too. I surmise they're doing things openly because they want the populace to take it seriously.

But even trusting the figures for all provinces and foreign countries, except for Hubei province, shows that it isn't necessarily much worse than a seasonal flu - many provinces have had large numbers who have recovered, most provinces are yet to have a fatality. The picture on the left shows the province names, the confirmed cases, the recovered cases and the fatalities in the 10 most affected provinces. (Hubei at the top, then Zhejiang, followed by Guangdong, Henan and Hunan.)

I do have a hypothesis that rationalises both the extreme actions taken to contain it with the low fatalities as of now in other provinces against the large number in Hubei. I would guess that this virus does transmit easily and causes death, not from its extreme symptoms per se, but from the lack of medical care and sustaining medical supplies, as well as the inevitable deaths of weak and vulnerable. I would guess that this wasn't well contained early and that caused a huge wave of infected people. A large proportion required hospitalisation and almost all would survive with adequate supplies and professionals. China is a massive country with an organised health system but there is a point where medical resources cannot match the spike of cases this particular virus caused. I saw pictures of queues and crowds outside hospitals in Wuhan, sent via social media, but never seen in the mainstream media. Anecdotally people were queuing for the test and then were waiting for the confirmation of coronavirus before isolating and treating just so they could make sure that they were treating the right people. But with a lack of testing equipment during a down time in production and also a lengthening turn around time for results, most people in Wuhan who get the virus cannot get care. If the number above is accurate over 13,000 people in Hubei province should be in a quarantined room with special supplies. 

But there is a huge and fast moving social media environment. Pictures always get out. I would presume the videos of body bags and stories of people dropping dead in Hubei are real. I would say that the number there is underreported just because confirming is a process that requires the person to be there to be tested. 

Initially all the cases in other provinces was among the five million people who left Wuhan before the city was sealed who went to all cities and countries some carrying the virus. Its now 14 days since Wuhan went into quarantine, which means of those five million, those who caught it must have all been symptomatic and have hopefully got the care they need in the less burdened hospitals outside of Hubei. Therefore, tomorrow's number of new cases for provinces outside of Hubei will almost all be those infected outside of Hubei itself despite the shutting down of the country. In a way, the numbers tomorrow are the most interesting of all. If the majority of the cases are nipped in the bud, while there are adequate hospital quarantined beds, there is a good chance this is the end of the outbreak. If the number keeps rising especially in certain cities, there could be further sealed cities.

So is coronavirus to be feared? If it there weren't the huge efforts being undertaken, I would guess that it would cause a similar systems failure in other cities and provinces. If I were apocalyptic, either Guangzhou, Wenzhou or Shenzhen could be overcome if there gets to a point. It's only during my peaceful contemplation from my place in the protection of my own home that I now think it's more dangerous than I thought it was while in China. 

New Zealand's response at the border (as reported: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12305734) was my experience of it too. I was underwhelmed and I'm not sure if it's putting to much trust in human trust and diligence, as New Zealand systems often do. China's ports are fitted out for pandemics. The airports have better temperature measurement technology than hospitals (when we went to the doctor in our last trip, we still needed to do the "thermometer-under-the-armpit for 10 minutes" trick). I have no idea what the outlay is for Auckland Airport to do that but I would say that a country should have something similar and have the resources to staff it. We live in a country where people generally do the right thing without direction and generally follow the advice (except for the idiots who go to the beach to check for tsunamis). 

After a restless day of travel and jet lag, my cold has been reactivated. My temperature taken: 36.2 degrees. I hope with a bit more rest I can actually feel like I'm not sick during this quarantine. My company has allowed me to work from home, which means I won't have trouble getting through the period but I've given myself sick leave to get to next week. This post is called part 1. There might not be a part 2. I'm kind of hoping that there isn't.

Hotline life

Waking up to another day's life in limbo was at 7:44am on my watch on Wednesday 29 December. Another incredible 8 hours and 23 minutes of sleep, my Fitbit informs me. I've never slept like this before. I'm waking at a time my body wishes with no obliged run on of activities. Even on holiday before I left New Zealand I barely ever rose after 7am. Now I do without fail. It's winter here now so 7am is still pretty dark outside. I'm still too injured to run so I've got nothing to get me out of bed. I notice some of the kitchen sounds from the downstairs floor. My parents-in-law are about. Even when my younger brother-in-law is about, I'm always the first one down, and at least one younger generation (if I'm generous enough to call myself that) is enough to form quorum for breakfast to crystalise. We have congee, the "yauchei" (a glutinous rice flour inflated ball that's cooked on new years eve, that is delightful to eat then, but deflates by the new year and becomes rather hard and chewy for the coming days) and some turnip cake, which is divine. My grandfather-in-law has already had his coffee. He has a habitual 3-in-1 instant coffee sachet every morning. Blame me for my foreign influence that a man who grew up before the Communist revolution in the 1920s and 1930s, lasted the Cultural Revolution, now likes coffee. He certainly has "rightist" tendencies. After breakfast I have a coffee, too.

I check out the latest news. Don't they know that the Rat brought the plague to Europe? The Year of the Rat is barely days old and it's bad news all round. The numbers of infected are higher than the previous days. A quarter of the reported deaths in China since that ball got rolling happened in a single day yesterday, mostly in a single province. Qingyuan had a single extra case but still in a city of 4 million it's not a big advance. The numbers for Hubei province are nauseating. I remember seeing the pictures of masses of people queuing just to see a doctor. The logistics of an epidemic are apparent immediately. There is simply no place for a surge in any one kind of sickness realistically. They would not have the redundant space and expertise to deal with even a quadrupling of cases, let alone a septdectupling (don't check the dictionary for this word); no place on Earth can really cope when the inevitable Black Swan outbreak strikes. I was reading a story about families queuing for quarantine and being denied it because hospitals have expected standards for quarantine and can only accept a maximum. "Come back tomorrow to check if there's space." Hubei will be a bloodbath. 

My wife drifts down for breakfast and I more forcibly say what I've already told her I've already been musing: We need to get out early. It's not just the rising numbers. It's the risk of our flight being cancelled. Or Guangzhou being "sealed". To be honest, from my reading of the numbers there is next to no risk for me of infection. I'm in a village with no signs of infection. In a city where the "reported" cases are miniscule. (Believe me, if there was a case even remotely nearby, the village would be "sealed". We have a friend who's village has been "sealed".) Access to our eventual flight is paramount. We already know that we'll be at least "soft" quarantined on arrival in New Zealand. Suddenly I imagine spending my quarantine away from everyone on a beach, 27 degrees at Piha.

And so it begins:. I check our belatedly bought travel insurance. Apparently it no longer applied for Coronavirus-related claims based on the date when I bought it. REFUND! Then it's onto the China Southern "hotline". Actually before that there was a lot of mucking around with apps and what-not to come to the conclusion that you had to speak to a person to sort anything. We called the official number. Engaged. We called it again. Engaged. We had lunch and over lunch and some deliciously infused baijiu, we shared our plans of an early departure with my parents-in-law. And also my father's stroke. It was an important chat to have - they understood but were also a little tense afterwards.

While lunch was in session I kept occasionally dialing that hotline number and eventually I got through to the.... Kenny G waiting music. Unfortunate for him, and also a range of other illustrious famous classical composers, Chinese public companies thrash some songs in the making of their infuriating hotline waiting music. It was also a bit unfortunate that I'd switched back to my NZ sim for the call to the insurance company before miraculously getting through to the hotline. I waited 30 minutes listening to that same classic Kenny G saxophone riff. It wasn't even the full song. Just the most familiar bit again and again with the splicing of the recorded voice suggesting us options. Knowing I had limited "Roaming" and was burning through my minutes, my wife dialed again and again and after the umpteenth time she also got onto the Kenny G bandwagon. Amusingly the waiting music was synchronised - we could play them on speaker on both phones and enjoy them without confusion: "We're in stereo," I mused. I tried to read my book but "pressing 1 to continue" was rather disruptive. I should have just watched a movie during the wait if my phone wasn't where I would have watched a movie. I ended my call and let my wife's phone "hold the torch". My wife then promptly passed her phone, the torch, back to me. I told her we'd stay on the line for two hours and then call it a day. Two hours and barely four pages of my book passed and we were still deep in Kenny G's saxxy quagmire. 

"Should we end it?" she asked. 

"Let's keep it going," I said always with that fear that we might have been the next in line when we hang up. After another half an hour, I also thought we should give up and went downstairs.

Grandpa was in the yard on a fine, but cool, afternoon reading the newspaper. My parents-in-law were out fixing a fence to the veggie patch. We went for a brief walk but my wife didn't feel well with her cold and we decided to turn back. Once back, we mused with the now returned parents about the "hotline" coldness. My father-in-law said we should call the English hotline. We laughed at him then but still used both phones in calling the Kenny G appreciation line for the English service and the Mandarin service. Grandpa, though mostly deaf, tweaked with the feeling of stereo sound. It persisted while we read our respective novels. "Badminton?" my wife asked after tiring of reading. I agreed and tried to put her phone through the window outside while still attached to a charging cord. We got outside with racquets and all when I noticed that the "English service" line phone was producing a different sound. It was repeating the phone number of the caller - this was different to the repetitive mantra of the recorded I - I quickly told my wife to pick up and then she tossed the phone to me. (My father-in-law's strategy worked! The English line was faster!)

The lady spoke English well. Since we rang the English line it would be bad form to start using Chinese. As would have been the expectation, changing the date of our flights was exorbitant. After probing with all sorts of possibilities (and almost certainly keeping more never-say-die patient Kenny G fans in suspense) it was clear that it was a substantial pound of flesh, equivalent to buying new tickets. Since we had her on the line, we chose our seats for our original flight and hung up. Expedia couldn't help us choose seats. Since we called a combined total of about 4 hours, the least we could get is our seats chosen, if we were to keep the existing flight.

It was still 8 days to the flight. Tracking back 8 days, so much had happened. Now it was a simple equation: buy fresh one-way tickets and go back early at the price of our original return tickets; or hunker down and, dare I say it, enjoy our last week in China. The last bit was what I thought about most. The whole fuss and fluster of sorting out an exit plan, and also the holding mode we'd been in meant we weren't doing what we were planning to do: Spend quality time with people who might not be around or as able bodied when we next come. They're also people who, if it all "goes to pot", might rely on us to get them through. 

At about 9pm I told my wife that I wanted to talk about the situation. "Let's go early!" she said. "Well, actually I was going to raise staying." It defused a difficult conversation. I'd thought she might want to stay longer. And she thought I would like to go early. Now we could pick how we wanted to handle things knowing that the other person was open to a range. It could be shown to be a foolish choice within any 24 hours but we decided to stay until our original departure dates. 

And so it was a day of to and fro and ending where we first began. I'm writing this on the Thursday after the Wednesday. On the Tuesday I was writing that there was a total of 80 deaths; two days on there are 170 deaths (doubling). On Tuesday there were 39 cases in Guangdong and now there are 311 cases. But only 6 in our city. Looking at that number again I'm filled with doubt for Guangdong. Even with China's extensive system, those are big numbers to hold in quarantine. Especially with Guangdong sending medical staff to Hubei to staunch the bleeding. 

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.)

Outbreak

There is that certain thing about a virulent, contagious disease that lends itself so neatly to the horror genre. There is the impending fear of infection, the suspicion of others and the things around you, the suspense in the incubation period, the disgust factor of the symptoms and, in the movies, the certainty of death. Such a disease also lends itself well to the media news, where the use of modal verbs can, could, may and might can jack up the street cred of a worse-than-average flu to the potency of the Spanish Flu. I've enjoyed books based on epidemics and watched a fair few movies with that theme, too. And if I'm honest, I am the kind who gets that weird fascination of reading the news reports from outbreaks like Ebola. Now of course I get to live through an epidemic up close in China.

It would be interesting to know how much fear could have nixed the plan to come to China. From yesterday I started to hear people I know biting the bullet and cancelling their flights here. I'd known about the disease for a while before coming. As part of my preparation to come I'd listened to lots of Cantonese radio (SBS in Australia), which between forest fire updates also had the reporting in December of this certain unknown disease that originated in a wet market in the inland city of Wuhan in Hubei province. It was also claimed to be under control and when I left there were no cases of person-to-person transmission. This changed pretty quickly after I arrived as a greater proportion of the news was taken up with reports. There isn't much doubt that information was held under pretty close control to avoid panic. But now, needing to make sure people take it very seriously, the outline of the range and extent of the illness are becoming pretty clear. Majority of provinces have at least one case. Qingyuan, the city where I live, has had its first case.

It struck at the worst possible time, too, just before Chinese New Year when people move en masse back to their hometowns from the cities. If the situation had been handled quickly and smoothly in Wuhan it might have been a different picture. If it had been a city besides Wuhan it might have been a different story. Wuhan, which I have only been to just the once in 2013, is a hub for the high-speed train network. It's also home to a large number of universities for students all over China. Being a super-city for its region with 11 million people, it's also where a huge number of people in the surrounding cities go to work. It's almost go a royal flush – it's just short an international airport to be a real winner in the "not good places for a virus" game of poker.

Feelings on the ground? My family is clearly jumpy. My wife had what was clearly a cold but on Thursday she insisted on going to the hospital. We donned masks as 90% of the other hospital visitors did, a complete change from the past. Afterwards we went to the mall to buy some last bits and pieces for new year, about three-quarters of people were wearing masks. And this is the day before the first case was announced for the city. My nephew has also been sick recently but the dates of the start of his sickness aren't in line with the believed outbreak. But still doubt breeds irrational fears. While people explode festive firecrackers outside to bring in the Year of the Rat.

Solo

It's been over two weeks since I began this short period of living alone. It is a strange change of being, but strangely familiar. The food I'm cooking is quite similar to that I'd cook in my previous single life: vegetarian (although now with occasional fish!). Unrestrained early risings for random fitness (it used to be walks, but now with swims!). Extended reading of books without really worry about time. More strangely though, I'm not staying at work for long past the usual "knock off" time. I had thought that without the need to take someone home I'd stay longer but I've barely done any overtime.

There is the whole "being apart" though. We haven't been apart too long in the past. Very early on, when we weren't living together, I went to NZ for three weeks; there were another couple of weeks when I was on practicum in Shanghai; then there was the business trip for about nine days. That's pretty much it. But with modern communication, there is a weird state of longing without missing. Physically alone ever though the voice and words travel freely.

I've had a pretty good period of swimming. We're lucky to have a 25m pool just 8 minutes walk from home. On the weekends it's relatively empty and I can get a lane to myself. On weekdays the "squad" is there from opening times and I have to share a lane. My injury still persists but is noticeably less troublesome than previously. It isn't a problem for swimming and I hope that it helps me recover so I might be able to run. I'm dreading the thought that I might just be about good enough to run the day I travel to China on Friday. But perhaps that's good: China would reduce my chance of overdoing it. The roads aren't good for running; it's hot and I'll be busy. I still don't know if I'll have the space in my luggage for my usual gear. Also, this problem could still linger far longer than my trip. If I'm being philosophical about it, it might be good for me to be injured till I go to China, because with solitude could come the urge to overdo it and get injured again.

If there was any blessing in all the lack of running, it's that my reading is surging unabated, as is the language learning that accompanies it. I finished of the Mao biography, my longest Chinese non-fiction book, and surged into a really good novel To Live (活着). It was made into a movie I haven't seen, but the book is griping. In three days I've read 130 pages and should read it all before I leave on Friday evening. This importantly lets me leave with a new book in my hand.

I've also put a lot of time into listening to Chinese, especially Cantonese. My ears are now "up to speed" and, in terms of listening to news and current events discussions, better than it was before. I've taken to watching Mandarin dramas to sharpen up too. The combination of reading sometimes and then listening sometimes has a catalytic effect, one skill adding an edge to the other. It's something I always tell students to do, that not many have the persistence to do.

My solitude will be broken in four days. As with an injury, it's important to know how to treasure life both with and without the things that are important to you.

Overturn

They say that blinking plays an important role in memory. Each time you blink, you create a memory. When there is a lot of information to process you blink more to parse what you are seeing. Days and nights could be blinks in our lives too, with sleep, another tool in memory creation, playing its role. The turning over of the calendar is like a longer term temporal blink to break a multifaceted, complex, series of changes over 365 days and put them in some kind of perspective. By writing a blog, I'm committing 2019 into a kind of long term memory to be accessed later if needs-be. It's also the basis for making goals in the year ahead.

2018 was a busy but overall "good" year. I started off injured (my knee after bouncing on a trampoline) but busting through the doubts eventually broke through the 3:30 barrier in the marathon by the end of the year. It ended with injury a fall at Omaha and then surgery on a hernia. Work started with the endless problem solving of having moved into an only partially adequate new site with several staffing issues but it was my responses that by year-end had me awarded the Supreme Care Award (the highest award our company gives). For family, it was the year also that I managed to get my in-laws to New Zealand, and just in the nick of time because events in early 2019 would have nixed it if it had been any later.

In my more instinctive moments I have said 2019 was a "dog" of a year. Two family crises have undoubtedly tinted it with a financial shade of red. My recent injury, which I drag into 2020, has also put a damper on things too. But a general look over those three aspects, health, family and work, I can't say it's much down on 2018. For running, I managed my goal of 3000km almost 2 months early. Though I had wanted to break 3:20 in the marathon, 3:22 is still a very satisfying number. And a 1:29:58 in the half was also a large monkey off the back. Work-wise, our school is going from strength to strength and my prominence in the school is only greater. An unexpected bonus in the closing days at least partially makes up for the blood letting earlier in the year. 

Probably another redeeming thing in 2019 is that I am doing one thing that I enjoy more: reading. And I'm only reading Chinese these days. I'm really making hay with the time that I would otherwise be running. All my recent reading has really fleshed out my knowledge of recent history in Asia, specially China before and under Mao and also North Korea. My current book, which I should finish before I go to China, is Mao: The Unknown Story. There is a sinister story about my first attempt at reading this book here. Regarding the book itself, my wife and I have discussed a lot about whether it could really be objective. The author, who penned the story Wild Swans about how her family suffered during Mao's Cultural Revolution, could be said to have a bone to pick. But she does it with a lot of new evidence to show how her narrative of how things happened could be plausible. It makes sense of many of the odd little side stories that don't stack up well without some underlying story. The Long March is a great example, where it would be impossible for it to succeed without some outside forces at work. There were a lot of jaw-dropping side facts: Zhang Xueliang died in Hawai'i. Ch'iang Chingkuo's wife was from Belarus. When you have a lot of vague knowledge about history, it's nice to have a narrative to make sense of it; hopefully one that is proximate to the truth; and some facts that nail down and enliven the stories too.

Last year I made some goals. This year will be about consolidating things financially and pushing things professionally. Regarding running, I make no goals because I'm not sure if this recent setback is "one of those injuries". But health, I look to change my manner of activity and switch a mindfulness over what I consume. 2020 has a nice ring to it and I am positive about the future.

Eye-catching

Having had a blog for 15 years, I now have a lot of data about what topics people incidentally land on. To be clear, I don't have many views for individual new posts (most posts will have no more than 10 views) but over my whole body of work I have 287 views per month. There is probably always a level of passive "stumbling" on my ramblings, either through coincidental matches of words in search terms or topics that I have touched on that have been, at a time, well searched. 4 of my over 750 posts have 400 or more views. What are these posts? And is it the actual topic, an eye-catching title or an inadvertently popular search term?

Without wanting to make the popular more popular, the number one post on my blog, ever, is a 2007 post called "Re-addiction". The title itself might have caused it to be found. I can only imagine that many of the over two thousand views were people who went to this post seeking help for a crushing compulsion for crack cocaine, and instead found the comments of a nerdy guy gushing about cracking cryptic crossword clues. It could have been that, but also plausibly because I included the name of a particular compiler, the late, great Kropotkin who did have a weekly crossword in the Herald. At various times it was hard to find online guidance about his clues. I know because I searched for a time at a time. His clues were particular enigmatic to the average cryptic fan and a very possible search term.

With only a third of Re-addiction's view count was 2011's “没有天然的对错，只有必然的因果”  which came in second place. With blogspot inaccessible in China, it's unlikely that the title itself was a reason for it (which was a line for motto of a Cantonese radio host, meaning "There is no inherent right and wrong, only the inevitable cause and effect."). What was the hook? I have written many posts about languages (specifically Cantonese) and language learning. I still don't know what made people stumble on this one. That being said, it was a special post for me. I had stumbled on something that made a breakthrough in my language learning.

Bizarrely, with over 600 views and in third place is an cheeky one liner, "A gentleman will walk but never run.".  It was just one line. Literally, the post was a title: "Saintly Notable Quotable" and that one liner which I said to a friend during a long walk after he dashed across the road. It is initially unfathomable what was found by Google in this post that helped so many people find it. I think that the only thing that would compel incidental people to find it is literally people trying to find the name of the song by searching a line from the lyrics of Englishman in New York by Sting, which is where the line "a gentleman will walk but never run" comes from.

The last one with over 400 views, Forum Rules, from 2009 is another unusual top ranking post. It was one that I wrote prior to going to China. I was trying to expose myself to more Chinese websites at the time and was looking at comments about the US Open where many of the respondents were writing clearly racists comments about Serena Williams. I found and translated the forum rules for the page, which were in line with most of the rules for Chinese sites. It is well known that a political post would be taken down because it endangers "social stability" but these clearly egregious comments remained without any response from the moderators. Were the majority of the accidental readers searching for "forum rules" or perhaps "Serena Williams" (the latter of which there'd be many websites and articles). I don't know.

The next four posts had 125 views, 56 views, 55 views and 52 views respectively, one of which was the one I wish were number one, Never trust a eunuch, which I wrote while I started reading The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the Chinese classic.

Bee with butterfly wings

In my bush-marauding youth, I cannot recall bee stings. Wasp stings, yes. Bee stings, no. I guess I was never the bare-footer that others were, but still I had plenty of spring and summer days in the thick of things where I'm certain the laws of probability should have made me a better target for the bane of bees. Fast forward to a few years back when I skipped onto the drive at my mother's place and felt an unusual discomfort on my toe. I casually swatted down on my foot thinking a prickle or some such must have been lodged, only to recognise a bee tangled in my sock. The stinger was on the outside of the sock but had gotten through to my skin. It wasn't terrible but certainly memorable. Fortunately removing the sock removed the stinger and in the end it was very mild.

Bringing the lens to recent times, two weeks ago in fact, my wife on another memorable day got stung for the first time in her life on a little suburban stroll when we stopped to take photos at a cricket oval. And now barely two weeks later, while at the Parnell Rose Gardens, a bee decided to check the underside of my watch and got lodged there. I felt the sting but saw the little creature before any instinctive flicking. I had to remove my watch first to remove the bee, which was rather hard to do without squashing it more. Once released, the bee feebly flew off to its certain death. With the watch off I asked my wife to try and remove the stinger. The difficulty level of this task was quite a lot higher due to the forest of hair on my arm, but after some clearing the sting was removed.

I was fascinated my the sensation. It wasn't that bad overall, but had occasional pulses of intensity. Then it more or less dissipated by the time I got to a chemist. Several hours later though the swelling moved from the site of the sting to the joint. Now any movement of my hand causes discomfort. 

I hope it goes by tomorrow because we're off to the Waitakeres!  

The demands of others

An extra special day. Three days from the end of the year. Each day packed with meetings and when not an intense series of performance appraisals, student meetings and activities. The morning of my appraisal with my line manager. The receptionist walks in:

"The big boss is sending me e-mails. He wants me to buy gift cards."

I hand her my credit card and head to my appraisal. It went well. It capped off another intense but successful year. I walk out and pick up my things to head off to another campus for a meeting but before I left my receptionist said:

"The big boss asked for $1000 worth of cards but your card would be over the limit." It being for the big boss, I diverted her to my line manager to use her credit card, and went out the door.

The meeting was another kick-in-the-butt to remind me that in my flustered lurch from one meeting to another I hadn't followed through on my action points, and I returned to my home campus with a sense of urgency to direct things to make sure things were happening. What I found was a surprise.

My receptionist was agitated: "The big boss asked for more gift cards! We don't have any petty cash now." This disturbed me - why was the big boss using the receptionist at my campus to buy cards and not his usual helpers. She told me that she'd sent our Student Support officer to buy more, but against her direction he hadn't taken the petty cash at all, but had decided on his own to buy with his own credit card because petty cash is pretty vital. I called him immediately and stopped him on the point of buying them and called our finance director.

"It's a scam. Ignore it," he said immediately. I hopped around the receptionist desk and looked at the e-mails to read the e-mail aloud while on the call.

"Hi Naomi, I'd really like to give some staffs a surprise..."

"That sounds like the big boss," he said. 

But unfortunately it was the first time I'd seen the e-mail and I knew straight away that the finance director's first instinct was correct. The e-mail address was obviously a fake. And then the next horrifying thing I read, not aloud because it hammered the point home:

"I want to give it t them now. Could you scratch the code off and take a photo and send it to me?"

Then I saw the stack of cards on the desk. All scratched. All obediently sent to the "Big Boss". Our company had been defrauded by a scam to the tune of $1000. 

It was unbelievable that the receptionist fell for it. Not only that, the Student Support officer that sits next to her almost used his own money, which would not have been recoverable, also falling for it. Ultimately, my and my line manager's naivety and lack of checking also added to it. It was her card and she decided to pay it back from her own money. 

It certainly changed the flavour of the week.  

Glass with butterfly wings

It would be curious to know to what measure the legends of the past, the superstitions, the miracles and magic were explainable by the curious power of randomness to conjure up the unlikely. When you think that the proverbial butterfly wings can churn up a hurricane, it might not cause much strain to believe that inadvertent acts can cause rather improbable outcomes that in turn from their sheer unlikeliness lead some to ponder whether there were mysterious forces at work. 

And thus was my weekend's intrigue. My wife and I were home and keen to take advantage of the apparent sunshine and blue skies by going on a loop walk to the village and back. I had my normal glasses but it was so sunny outside that I thought I'd head to the car to swap into my sunglasses. I opened the door, went in, put my normal glasses in the divider between the car seats where I kept my sunnies, shut and locked the car and left.

It was a pleasant day but it quickly turned eventful as Christy, after posing for a picture beside a lush cricket oval, received her first ever bee-sting. Fortunately there was a well stocked first-aid kit in the shed next to the oval; there were tweezers; they had a cream for the sting; and we left the area quickly for lunch. We went to a cute Italian restaurant I'd been meaning to go to and then we went home for a brief rest before we got in the car for some more distant errands. 

When we got in the car nothing seemed awry. We drove first to a shop to buy Metamucil. I went into the back seat to grab a shopping bag, because not many places have carry bags any more. I also grabbed an umbrella from the backseat because the weather had clouded over and it was starting to spit. Fortunately the rain was never heavy and I didn't use the umbrella in the end. We got to the shop. I put our purchases into the shopping bag, threw both the umbrella and the purchases into the back of the car and then it was off to the Chinese supermarket. The weather was fine, yet again, and we vege-shopped, picked up the dry-cleaning and then drove home. And it was when we got home that something weird was noticed. I went to switch my sunnies back to my normal glasses, but there were no glasses in the divider.

At first I didn't tell my wife. To be upfront, for all my apparently normal intelligence and cognitive functions, I can be very absent-minded. No person wants to hear the groans from others for yet another misplaced wallet, phone or set of keys. I wanted to check if I'd somehow managed to take them up to the flat but a casual check of the house, my pockets, the shopping bag with the Metamucil and then a not so casual look in the car through the divider, side pockets, glove compartment, boot, backseats and ground around the car failed to come up anything besides a lot of general rubbish. The car was pretty clean inside by the end! 

I went up to the flat and admitted to my wife that something had disappeared. She didn't groan. We generally pieced together the same sequence of events that led to the present time. We both knew the glasses had to be in the car. My wife ransacked the car for good measure with no outcome. At no point during the earlier drive had I changed to my normal glasses but perhaps, we thought, I somehow pocketed them and then dropped them? Had I even put them in the car in the first place? we pondered. Perhaps I had got the sunglasses out but pocketed the normal ones on the walk before the drive, only to remove them from my pocket and place them on the restaurant table, from where I left them. None of the actual physically possible scenarios were plausible. (A walk by of the restaurant confirmed that implausibility was not to be the case.) But there must have been some sequence of events that lead to the situation. My glasses had completely vanished from a locked place where they should have been. 

I slept that night without knowing where they were. We got up the next day planning to have our normal Sunday but also with a brief scout of the Metamucil shop and the Chinese supermarket. First I took my wife to the gym while I had coffee. While there, another grand fine day crumbled into messy rain. After her workout, we got back to the car but as we drove to Dominion Rd for lunch, the heavens were clearly breached and a Singaporean monsoon came down on Epsom. By the time we parked, the rain had stopped but I still decided to grab the umbrella just in  case and we went to a new noodle house ("A Noodle Less Ordinary"). There I leaned the umbrella against the wall and we had our noodles and left.

It was on the way to the car that, holding the umbrella horizontally, I felt through the synthetic material that there was something unusual inside the unopened umbrella.

I knew what it was immediately. 

It was ridiculous. 

How my glasses came to be in there was beyond me. We'd never opened the umbrella at any stage over the two days and it was never near the divider between the front seats. The umbrella had just lain on the back seat and was always been put back on the back seat when returned. If the glasses had been in the umbrella from the get-go, we'd taken the umbrella out twice and there were plenty of opportunities for it to fall out both on Saturday and Sunday, yet it appeared in the umbrella just then, safe and sound.

It was just like a magician pulling a rabbit from behind your ear, where it had been all along.

It was reminiscent of a time in our first year back. We went to the Butterfly Valley near Thames. It was a nice little excursion. Butterflies galore, as you'd imagine. We wanted to get a fridge magnet butterfly for Mum, so Christy chose and bought one and put it in her handbag. I saw her. Even the shop assistant saw her. We went straight to the car where Christy proceeded to open her bag to play with it but could not find it there at all. Mystified, we retraced our footsteps, even asked the shop assistant whether she recalled where we put the butterfly. (She recalled it had gone straight in the handbag.) We checked the floor. The path. And we both ransacked the car. 

But that butter had flown. 

It is a story we often tell. We never found a trace of the butterfly since then. If only I knew then what I know now and checked the umbrella.

Under watching eyes

I'm rather starting to miss running. I've been out of action now for a month and psychologically it's rather tough. I feel quite different: I don't have the energy I did. Probably because I'm still eating like a marathoner, I seem to be putting on weight. And I'm rather groggy in the morning. How was I getting up at 4:15am before? I pulled out of my final event of the year selling my entry. 

But there is an opportunity cost to running. During this rather hectic streak of running since the start of last year, I've barely read. My only break from running was my surgery but that was during a time I was hosting guests so I didn't read much. But after my marathon I began what has been a hot streak of reading!

It started with Wandering Earth which is a short story collection from Liu Cixin, the same author as The Three Body Problem trilogy. Some of the short stories have characters from the trilogy but perhaps in a parallel universe as the plots won't fit together. But they were clearly from the same universe. And it was clearly so attractive that we ordered the book in, not waiting for our trip to China. The title story became a movie which earned $700 million in China. Although Wandering Earth was not my favourite story from the collection, it was very memorable: Irregularities are detected in the Sun to show that it is near an event within that would trigger a massive expansion that would engulf the Earth. The first instinct is to get into spaceships and run but the nearest planets are all gassy and toxic. Solution: Put some massive boosters on the Earth, put on the brakes and fly it out of the Solar System and park it in the orbit of another star at the distance of your choosing. Just as he did in the trilogy he's thought about how it would actually happen with the physics of doing such a change. Getting out of orbit with the sun takes a lot of time and effort bringing the Earth first into an elliptical orbit that flies close to the Sun a few times before getting enough speed to exit. Overall, a fascinating adventure. 

It was probably wrong of me to start with Wandering Earth because two years ago in China I bought a pile of books, only one of which I'd read... And I'm just over a month from going back to China and possibly buying more books! But I got straight onto the job with another short story collection, Mr No Problem by Lao She. I'd read some of the authors of the Republic of China period (after the fall of the Qing Dynasty) during my university years, all translated. Lao She was one I'd never read but he was one of the big ones. He grew up in Beijing but lectured in London and Singapore before returning to China. Most of his writing was before the Chinese Revolution, and thus it was all rather free and sometimes frivolous. He wrote satire, social commentary, whimsy and tragedy. As the were short stories each story launched you from one state of mind to the next. I read half the stories before strategically leaving the rest for my flights and travel. The last story I read, The Crescent Moon was tough to read as it focussed one what could happen to widowed women in the China of that time. 

I interrupted that collection also to read books that I wouldn't be able to read in China. I have a forbidden biography of Mao Zedong (Mao: The Unknown Story) and another book that probably wouldn't be banned but could be problematic: Nothing to envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea. Even though it's an English language book, I received it from a colleague in its Chinese translation. It's a compelling read of the stories that the North Korean defectors have told and retold by author Barbara Demick. I'm quite happy with my pace of reading in that I've read over 100 pages in a week, which means I'll easily finish it and probably be able to at least start the other before I board a plane. 

It's nice to know that when I can't do one hobby I can even more out of my other hobbies. In the meantime, I hope that all this rest will do something to help my healing.