COVID-19 AND EPIDEMICS IN ASIA - No. 2 | Summer 2021 - CENTRE FOR ASIAN AND TRANSCULTURAL STUDIES - Heidelberg University
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CENTRE FOR ASIAN AND
TRANSCULTURAL STUDIES
CATSarena
COVID-19 AND
EPIDEMICS IN ASIA
No. 2 | Summer 2021
CATSarena 1
INSTITUTE OF ANTHROPOLOGY
Centre for Dr. Guido Sprenger, Professor for Anthropology, Acting Director
Asian and Dr. Annette Hornbacher, Professor for Anthropology
Transcultural CENTRE FOR EAST ASIAN STUDIES
Studies
Dr. Joachim Kurtz, Professor for Intellectual History, HCTS, Acting Director
Institute of Chinese Studies
Dr. Enno Giele, Professor for Classical Chinese Studies
Dr. Barbara Mittler, Professor for Chinese Cultural Studies
Dr. Gotelind Müller-Saini, Professor for History of Modern Chinese Culture
Dr. Anja Senz, Professor for Contemporary China and East Asian Studies
Institute of East Asian Ar t Histor y
Dr. Sarah E. Fraser, Professor for Chinese Art History
Dr. Melanie Trede, Professor for the Histories of Japanese Art
Institute of Japanese Studies
Dr. Judit Árokay, Professor for Japanese Studies
Dr. Hans Martin Krämer, Professor for Japanese Studies
SOUTH ASIA INSTITUTE
Dr. Rahul Mukherji, Professor for Political Science, Acting Director
Dr. Martin Gieselmann, General Manager
Dr. Hans Harder, Professor for Modern South Asia Languages and Literatures
Dr. Ute Hüsken, Professor for Cultural and Religious History of South Asia
Dr. Stefan Klonner, Professor for Development Economics
Dr. Kama Maclean, Professor for History of South Asia
Dr. Marcus Nüsser, Professor for Geography
Dr. Axel Michaels, Senior Professor
Dr. William Sax, Professor for Anthropology, also Institute of Anthropology
Branch Off ices
Dr. Pablo Holwitt, New Dehli, India
Frederic Link, Kathmandu, Nepal
Belinda Cassandra Wise, Colombo, Sri Lanka
HEIDELBERG CENTRE FOR ASIAN AND TRANSCULTURAL STUDIES
Dr. Christiane Brosius, Professor for Visual and Media Anthropology, Acting Director
Dr. Oliver Lamers, General Manager
Dr. Harald Fuess, Professor for Cultural Economic History
Dr. Nikolas Jaspert, Professor of Medieval History, ZEKG
Dr. Monica Juneja, Professor for Global Art History
Dr. Joachim Kurtz, Professor for Intellectual History
Dr. Barbara Mittler, Professor for Chinese Cultural Studies
Dr. Michael Radich, Professor for Buddhist Studies
CATS LIBRARY
Hanno Lecher, Head, East Asia Department
Dr. Eleonore Schmitt, Head, South Asia Department
2 CATSarena
Editorial Dear Readers, The second issue of CATSarena Cultures that examines transcul- finds the world still dominated tural art and social transformation. by the COVID-19 pandemic – for Workshops and spring school de- this reason we chose to focus aelt with diverse subjects such as our essays on this subject. How- Chineseness in the face of China’s ever, things are changing. In its rise to a major global power or the first months, it seemed that the position of the ‘vernacular’ in co- pandemic would drive Europe lonial and post-colonial literature and Asia apart, with bursts of from South Asia. New research xenophobia of Europeans against projects on various Asian coun- Chinese or Indians against Euro- tries, including lesser known ones Guido Sprenger peans. However, with the spread such as Bangladesh and Laos, CATS Speaker of the virus everywhere, this initial demonstrate the comprehensive- sentiment appears to be on the ness of the CATS approach. wane. It now is being replaced by Teaching saw serious difficul- a longing for the other, a desire ties, as in all parts of the university, for travel. Usually, this takes the but both staff and students made well-known shape of tourism, with significant efforts to come up with all its asymmetries. Nevertheless, creative solutions. Teachers and it does document an overwhelm- students gathered around “virtu- ing need to engage with others, al fireplaces” or organized guided with those both distinguished and tours through institutes – directed linked to each other by what we at students who have, a year into perceive as cultural difference. their studies, never seen their in- Our present issue shows how stitute from the inside. the dimensions of the pandem- Once again, I hope this issue of ic in Asia vary widely. Diseases CATSarena shows how exciting draw attention to human-animal and diverse our centre is. We are entanglements, but they are also looking for your feedback. Please occasions for humour – not even, direct any suggestions or criticism as one may assume, of the gallows at arena@cats.uni-heidelberg.de. kind. Our contributors document the range of local responses to COVID-19, from the subversion of health measures to the critique of governments. In addition, we also feature some more personal ac- counts about travel and research in unpredictable circumstances. Despite the pandemic, CATS has been going strong in its develop- ment of new research and teach- ing. This includes the new CATS Kolleg Epochal Lifeworlds that in- vestigates historical turning points and the way they establish new narratives, with a specific focus on China. CATS joined the inter- national platform Worlding Public CATSarena 3
Editorial
Contents
FOCUS:
COVID-19 AND EPIDEMICS IN ASIA
7 14
Carsten Wergin and Uli Beisel Gautam Liu
Multispecies Entanglements of Global Health Gods and Outcasts – Ambivalent Attitudes towards
Mobile Mosquitoes in Transdisciplinary Perspective Health Workers in India during the Coronavirus Pandemic
10 16
Anna Scarabel Philipp Zehmisch
The Last of the Foreigners (in Varanasi) Existential Crisis? – Dealing with the COVID-19
pandemic in Pakistan
12
Chunping Lin 18
The Usage of Humor During the Pandemic in Taiwan Marina Rudyak
Reporting Corona
4 CATSarena
Editorial
RESEARCH NEWS
21 24
Barbara Mittler CATS LIBRARY
CATS Kolleg Epochal Lifeworlds.
Worldmaking from a Global Perspective: 25
A Dialogue with China STUDENT’ S FORUM
22 28
Barbara Mittler INSTITUTE OF ANTHROPOLOGY
Virtual Spring School.
Rethinking the Sinophone—A Transcultural Perspective 34
CENTRE FOR EAST ASIAN STUDIES
23
Barbara Mittler 42
CATS Virtual Lecture Series 2021. SOUTH ASIA INSTITUTE
Living the Socialist Modern – The Chinese Communist Party
at 100: Global and Interdisciplinary Perspectives 58
HEIDELBERG CENTRE FOR
TRANSCULTURAL STUDIES
CATSarena 5
6
Focus
in Asia
Epidemics
COVID-19 and
Focus
CATSarena
COVID-19 cases in February 2020, https://healthmap.org/covid-19/
COVID-19 and Epidemics in Asia Focus
Multispecies Entanglements
As the 2020 SARS-CoV2 pandemic
painfully showed, a better under-
standing of the mobility patterns
of Global Health of disease agents and their vec-
tors is crucial for early detection
Mobile Mosquitoes in Transdisciplinary Perspective of outbreaks and their successful
containment. From a social science
perspective, the increased mobility
by Carsten Wergin form of multispiecies storytelling.1 of the invasive Ae.albopictus high-
Associate Professor of Anthropology Ae. albopictus, also known as lights linkages between humans
and Uli Beisel the “Asian tiger mosquito” due to and nonhumans that in the context
Professor of Human Geography its striped legs and body, is consid- of entomology, global medicine and
ered native to the tropical and sub- health research remain understud-
In light of environmental degrada- tropical areas of Southeast Asia ied. The multispecies story we tell
tion and biodiversity loss due to cli- but is today found in many parts of is based on case studies from Mex-
mate change, it is crucial we widen the globe, including Australia, Af- ico, Tanzania, India, and Germany.
our discussions about social-cul- rica, the Americas, and Europe. It It describes the spread of Ae.al-
tural change in the Anthropocene is an epidemiologically important bopictus as a cross-border phe-
from narrow, human-centered con- vector for the transmission of many nomenon that equally transcends
siderations toward more specula- viral pathogens, including those of national narratives of diseases and
tive fields of more-than-human suf- yellow fever, dengue, and chikun- their impact on politics, societies,
fering. One of the most persuasive gunya. Ae.albopictus have reached and cultures around the globe.
methods to account for entangled different countries mainly through In our project, experts for mos-
lifeworlds is found in “multispecies human activities and transporta- quitoes – entomologists and ecol-
storytelling” (Haraway 2016). Mul- tion. After emerging in the United ogists – and experts for human
tispecies stories challenge anthro- States via imported second-hand mobility – anthropologists and hu-
pocentric narratives that tend to automobile tires from Asia, the man geographers – work together
depict the bodies of other species mosquito has been found in the to understand how the mobility of
as rhetorically passive resources for Mexican Yucatan peninsula, where mosquitoes and humans is linked. 2
human appropriation. With a focus dengue is a concern not only for We identify mobility patterns of hu-
on what is considered #4 of the “100 medical entomologists but also the mans, travelling for work or leisure,
world’s worst invasive alien spe- local industry, which largely de- and how those are entangled with
cies,” the Aedes albopictus (GISD pends on international tourism to how and where Aedes mosquitoes
2019), we propose a rather “radical” its world heritage sites. move. This is to enable the design
of public health interventions that
control the spread of invasive mos-
quitoes and the diseases they carry.
The Mediterranean Basin offers a
case in point. Since the late Bronze
age, this region continues to be a
global hotspot for trade, transport,
and migration. As a result, countries
surrounding the Mediterranean
Sea share not only goods but also
common health threats posed by
vector-borne diseases transmitted
by mosquitoes. Since at least the
1960s, the Asian tiger mosquito’s
geographical distribution has con-
tinuously expanded. As a result, dis-
eases like dengue or chikungunya
are no longer considered restricted
to tropical and subtropical regions,
and are developing a strong urban
Aedes albopictus (Source: WikiCommons) component (Jourdain et al. 2019, 10).
CATSarena 7
Focus
Global Aedes albopictus distribution in 2015.
Recent surveys showed that Ae.al- er politics. Through this framing, public, since the animals can theo-
bopictus have spread across the invasive mosquitoes are linked to retically transmit a suite of serious
entire peninsula of Italy, parts of migrating humans in a problematic infectious diseases (see also Ern-
Sicily and Sardinia, and into Swit- way that is not only dehumanizing wein & Fall, 2015). At the same time,
zerland. In late 2007, the first Ae.al- and delegitimizing refugees and this mosquito, as a sentinel device
bopictus eggs were discovered in migrants, but also establishing a older than humans, also offers a
southwestern Germany (Pluskota wrong, racially charged idea of how form of “radical hope” in times of
et al. 2008), where they continue to invasive mosquitoes travel and ex- crises through its capacity to adapt
arrive via freight transport from Ita- tend their habitats. to climate change and counteract
ly and Switzerland. The mosquitoes Meanwhile, Ae. albopictus con- violent human efforts to propel it to
migrate along the German A5 mo- tinue to show tremendous resil- extinction (Lear 2006). But how can
torway and have by now settled in ience in adapting to different geo- one track entangled human-non-
the Rhine-Neckar metropolitan re- graphical and climatic conditions by human mobility in such a way as to
gion, which counts approximately taking advantage of human-made limit our impulses stemming from
2.4 million inhabitants. Unwittingly environments and infrastructures, such loaded terms as “invasive-
aiding vector mobility, travellers, which has led to their successful ness” and “eradication” and instead
truck drivers, and gardeners be- global spread in recent decades. search for ways to live together on a
come “companion species” of Ae- In order to address the complex mobile and warming planet?
des (Haraway 2008). socio-ecological dynamics at play, We suggest that a focus on the
The mosquito’s disregard for there is certainly a need to consider entanglements of human and mos-
political and economic borders the Asian tiger mosquito as a learn- quito mobility is urgently needed
creates a significant challenge for ing species – a migratory species to detect disease outbreaks early
possible control mechanisms, and that makes use of and stimulates and to develop successful, locally
places these insects alongside oth- social-cultural change, and in doing supported control strategies. How
er “hyper-objects” such as CO2 or so reveals problems typical of those are human and mosquito mobil-
micro-plastic (Morton 2013). In ad- of the Anthropocene, such as the ities linked? What methods are
dition, Ae. albopictus is considered prioritization of the economy over most suitable to understand their
by the European Centre for Disease planetary health. entanglements and develop more
Prevention and Control (ECDC)’s The movement of the mosquito successful control measures? Ae.
Ae. albopictus Factsheet as “one further calls into question the quest albopictus has shown tremendous
of the top 100 invasive species” for local eradication strategies resilience in adapting to different
(ECDC, 2020). It is thus subjected while demanding transdisciplinary geographical and climatic condi-
to a rhetoric of “illegality” and “bor- research partnerships. Increased tions by taking advantage of hu-
der control” that is enmeshed with sightings of the Asian tiger mosqui- man-made environments and in-
global trade as much as climate to in Germany has growing poten- frastructures, which has led to its
change concerns, race, and pow- tial to generate anxiety in the wider successful global spread. These
8 CATSarena
COVID-19 and Epidemics in Asia Focus
anthropogenic environments war- Bibliography
rant surveillance at points of en- European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (2020). Aedes Albopictus - Fact-
try to understand introduction sheet for experts. Accessible via: https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/disease-vectors/
pathways, causes, and routes of facts/mosquito-factsheets/aedes-albopictus (last accessed, 31/08/2020)
invasions and connect these to Ernwein, M., and J. J. Fall. 2015. “Communicating Invasion: Understanding Social Anxi-
different aspects of its biology and eties around Mobile Species.” Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography 97 (2):
155–167.
ecology.
Related transdisciplinary re- Haraway D.J. (2008) When Species Meet. University of Minnesota Press.
search points to the fact that hu- Haraway, Donna. 2016. Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene.
manity is itself an enterprise that Durham and London: Duke University Press.
needs rethinking. Since the fast- Jourdain, F., A.M. Samy, A. Hamidi, A. Bouattour, B. Alten, C. Faraj et al. 2019. Towards
paced spread of Ae. albopictus harmonisation of entomological surveillance in the Mediterranean area. PLoS Negl
is intertwined with internation- Trop Dis 13/6: e0007314. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0007314
al trade and human mobility, we Lear, J. 2006. Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation. Harvard Univer-
believe that intervention to slow sity Press.
or halt its spread is possible. Its Morton, T. (2013) “Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology After the End of the World.
control, however, needs in-depth Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press
analyses of multispecies coexis- Pluskota, B., V. Storch, T. Braunbeck, M. Beck, N. Becker1. 2008. First record of Stego-
tence rather than a continued fo- myia albopicta (Skuse) (Diptera: Culicidae) in Germany. European Mosquito Bulletin 26:
cus on the eradication of unwant- 1-5.
ed companion species. Web Sources
GISD 2019. http://www.iucngisd.org/gisd/100_worst.php
1 This CATSarena presents a condensed
version of our earlier article “Disappear-
ance, Invasion and Resistance: Multi-
species ethnography, insect control and
loss,” which has appeared in: M. Hall and
D. Tamir (eds.) Mosquitopia: The Place of
Pests in a Healthy World. London, New
York: Routledge, 2021.
2 Further principal investigators in our
transdisciplinary project are: Norbert
Uli Beisel Carsten Wergin
Becker (GFS - Institute of Dipterology, is Professor of Human Geogra- is Associate Professor of Anthro-
Speyer), Fredros Okumu (Ifakara Health phy at Free University Berlin. She pology at Heidelberg University
Institute, Tanzania), Gerardo Suzán (Uni- has worked on “mosquito-par- and Senior Fellow at the Hei-
versidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico), asite-human entanglements” in delberg Centre for Transcultural
and Ashwani Kumar (Indian Council of
Medical Research). We would like to malaria control in Ghana and Studies. His research is located
acknowledge the generous support we Sierra Leone, and continues to at the intersections of heritage,
received from the Volkswagenstiftung be fascinated by practices of de- culture, and ecology, with region-
(Ref: 9A 577) for our pilot study. For more marcation between human and al foci in the Mascarene Archipel-
information on the project, visit: http://
portal.volkswagenstiftung.de/search/
non-human organisms, and the ago, Northwest Australia, and the
projectDetails.do?ref=9A577 (Date last possibilities for their coexistence. wider Indian Ocean World.
accessed: 14 February 2021)
CATSarena 9
Focus
The Last of the Foreigners
(in Varanasi)
by Anna Scarabel
PhD Student
My research-stay in Varanasi was
supposed to come to an end some-
time in March 2020. However, at
that time, my homeland Italy regis-
tered the first wave of COVID-19. I
thought I’d play it smart and post-
poned my travel back for a few
days, as I believed everything was
going to be fixed in a week or two.
I was thus rushing from one corner
of the city to the other to collect
the documents for my visa exten-
sion.
This was a very exhausting time,
but I was resolutely determined
to make it work. At that time,
COVID-19 was entering the Indi-
an imaginary as the Italian disease
and - in extension - the disease of
tourists and foreigners in general.
This idea mainly originated from
the news that, at the beginning of
March, 13 Italian tourists were all A view of deserted ghats in Varanasi. Photo courtesy of the author.
found positive to COVID-19 during
a trip in North India. Everywhere
in Varanasi, a palpable sense of eign woman” took place in those down, this link rapidly dissolved.
suspicion began to arise towards days. During my previous stays in The fact that many media reports
foreigners. In my head, the situa- the city, my white skin had often blamed foreigners for spreading
tion was not very tragic and I thus granted me some sort of unde- the virus had immediate repercus-
continued moving in the city. Yet I served VIP status. This “special sions. The whiteness of my skin
decided to take a few precautions: status” has always brought to me - associated in Indian mythology
for instance, I stopped riding in a sense of difference and lack of with the complexion of many gods
shared riksha and started book- inclusivity, but at the end of the - had overnight become some-
ing the private ones. It took me a day, not having to stand in lines thing to avoid, to stay away from:
few days before I could find a de- and attracting people’s curiosi- something not to be touched. Ev-
cent mask, and for that I paid an ty seemed like a pleasant way to erywhere I went, this transforma-
enormous amount of money, as I be “different”. Even though in or- tion gained momentum: people
could only enter a few shops - of- thodox Hindu religious contexts stayed well away from me, and
ten shop keepers would grumble foreigners are often looked down when passers-by crossed my
something incomprehensible to upon for their lack of education in path on the street, they covered
keep me away from them. matters of ritual purity, this impu- their nose with a scarf to protect
I believe that the way I was rity “status” is sometimes counter- themselves from what they per-
treated was not dictated by ha- weighted by a sense of purity and ceived as a potential virus-spread-
tred or repulsion, but rather by a elevated status deriving from a fair er. At that point, I started to feel
fear of the disease. A great shift complexion. uncomfortable. I tried to be quick
in the imaginary of the “white for- In the last days before the lock- in my works and avoided unnec-
10 CATSarenaCOVID-19 and Epidemics in Asia Focus
essary excursions. I never felt in ing to happen after that: a 21-day
real danger, but rather unwanted. lockdown was applied to the entire
On the last days of freedom, be- country.
fore a national lockdown was im- Two very hot months later, I
posed on the 24th of March 2020, went out again for the first time.
I could cut the tension in the air I was a little bit scared to be
with a knife: all the familiar faces back in the streets and see peo-
around my residence were hiding ple (something I was not used to
from me, so that I would not be anymore). I slightly feared retalia-
tempted to chat with them. I start- tions generated by the difficulties
ed receiving messages from local of the last two months, but it was
friends asking how my family was nothing like that. The stigma of
doing at home, how the situation the foreigner as “ the one with the
really was. Some of them sent me virus” was gone. The attitude of
photos circulating on WhatsApp the days preceding the lockdown
showing the tragic situation of Ita- was replaced by the sad resigna-
ly: there was one picture of a town tion that we were all in the same
square covered with dead bodies situation. That was now evidently
with the caption “ The pandemic in a worldwide pandemic, a problem
Italy.” Another picture showed the of the world in its entirety. The ge-
Brasilian president Bolsonaro with ography of the town had changed:
the caption “President Conte cries in my area, it applied the rule that
the Italian victims: only God can the shops opened every other day
save our country now!” according to their side of the main
All these images and (some- street. While I was walking down
times fake) news shocked the the main road, my presence was
imaginary of many. On Sunday the somehow noticed as I was the only
22nd of March 2020, a one-day foreigner around, but I did not feel
curfew was proclaimed by Prime uncomfortable. Everything was
Minister Modi. At the end of the calm: there were less people on
day, Indians were asked to switch the street, but those shopping in
off the lights in their houses, go on the market seemed relaxed. Most
their balconies and rooftops with people had come up with creative
lit candles, and thus celebrate the ways to protect themselves from
national unity in the fight against the virus. The panorama was quite
COVID-19. I was at home when variegated; I could see balaclavas
Varanasi switched off the lights worn under the burning sun as well
completely: even the street lights as transparent masks “effectively”
went off. For a few seconds, the worn to cover the chin. I was in an
city was completely dark. Then area of the city that is relatively
millions of candles were lit, am- wealthy and that probably spared
arus (two headed drums) played me from the sight of destitute sit-
hard, conch shells were blown uations. I established a routine of
accompanied by thundering invo- going grocery shopping twice a
cations of the god Shiva from all week. The shopkeepers were now
sides: “Hara hara Mahadev! Hara kind and talkative: the initial fear Anna Scarabel
hara Mahadev!” I could also dis- was replaced by a desolate resig- is a PhD student in the Depart-
tinctly hear the sound of frying nation. They thought that Italy and ment of Cultural and Religious
pans beaten with ladles and fire- Europe were the first ones after History of South Asia. Since Oc-
crackers. The rest were unknown China to be hit by the pandemic tober 2019, she has been carrying
sounds. This national ritual was and thus kept on asking me: “Is out research at the Banaras Hin-
designed to create a national, co- back home fine now? When is this du University of Varanasi as part
hesive spirit against COVID-19. To all going to end?” of the DAAD funded programme
me, the scene had a surrealistic “I hope very soon,” I repeatedly “A New Passage to India.”
touch. Yet something else was go- said, “very soon indeed.”
CATSarena 11Focus
The Use of Humor During the
Pandemic in Taiwan
by Chunping Lin Coronavirus, nor can it help to ments with artifacts as a choice of
Research Associate stop to spread the virus, but humor different greeting methods in the
has been invaluable in relieving pandemic, such as the picture of a
The word “幽默 yōumò,” which people from the stress and ten- late Ming Dynasty statue, seen in
means “humor” in Chinese, is origi- sion during the current pandem- Fig. 1 with the words: “75% 消毒酒
nally from Jiǔzhāng 九章 of the Chu ic across cultures. 4 In 2020, many 精” (75% disinfectant alcohol) and
Lyrics 楚辭 Chǔcí (475 B.C. – 221 great humorous sketches related “敬酒式問候” (toasting greetings).
B.C.) and was used to describe the to the pandemic appeared on Sin- These posts were used to promote
tranquility of nature.1 Lin Yutang ophone social media. On April 4th, Taiwan’s National Palace Museum
林語堂 (linguist, philosopher, and in the German-Taiwanese students’ 臺灣國立故宮博物院 at the same
translator, 1895 – 1976) translat- Facebook group “德國臺灣同學會” time.
ed the English word “humor” with two jokes were posted, one in Chi- The use of humor was not just
the word “幽默 yōumò”. This Pho- nese, the other in English, both of limited to private life or advertis-
no-semantic matching contains which convey the same message: ing, even governments employed
the sound of “yōumò” for humor humor to promote behavioral mea-
and the profound meaning of hu- “ 隔離，人權沒了。不隔離，人全 sures during the pandemic.
mor after smiling. 2 Lin Yutang fur- 沒了。” (Gélí, rénquán méi le. Bù For instance, the Ministry of Edu-
ther defined the nature of humor, gélí, rén quán méi le. Isolation, cation, Republic of China (Taiwan),
saying that “humor is generous, human rights are gone. Not iso- published a series of posts on
transcendent, and at the same time lated, all the people are gone.) Facebook, in which Taiwan’s most
incorporates the idea of compas- famous astrology expert Jesse
sion 幽默是敦厚的，超脫同時加入 “Quarantine, No Human Right(s). Tang 唐綺陽 was imitated, in order
悲天憫人之念。” 3 He promoted the No Quarantine, No Human Left.” 5 to promulgate the prevention prior-
use of humor, so that the word “幽 ities. Take the case of Fig. 2 Aquar-
默 yōumò” has occupied a place in In addition to this type of exclu- ius: “因為會背洗手七字訣而被同學
the Sinophone world and has be- sively word-based humor, it can 覺得怪。你知道你是最棒的。” (Your
come more deeply rooted in the also appear as a combination with classmates think you’re weird be-
lives of intellectuals. images or videos. For example, Tai- cause you can recite the seven ab-
Humor may not cure the illness- wan’s National Palace Shop 故宮 breviations for hand washing. But
es and symptoms caused by the 精品 posted a series of advertise- you know you are the best.) The se-
ries was very well received by the
public. Jesse Tang also praised the
creativity from the Ministry of Ed-
ucation after receiving the positive
feedback through the news. In ad-
dition, Taiwan’s “Digital Minister,”
Audrey Tang, mentioned in the arti-
cle “ The Key to Taiwan’s Pandemic
Success: Fast, Fair, and Fun” 6 that
Taiwan employs the “humor over
rumor” strategy to fight disinforma-
tion.
At the beginning of the pandem-
ic, there was a rumor of a shortage
Fig. 1 Advertisement of the National Palace
Museum in Taiwan, showing a figure of Li of raw materials for toilet paper in
Taibai (701–762); he was a famous poet and Taiwan due to the increased pro-
genius in the Sinophone world and also an duction line for medical masks. In
oenophile. the government advertising seen
Source: https://www.facebook.com/npmshops/photos
/a.349905788354455/3343309739014030/?type=3 in Fig. 3, Su Tseng-chang 蘇貞昌,
12 CATSarenaCOVID-19 and Epidemics in Asia Focus
Fig. 2 Hilarious posts by Taiwan’s Ministry Fig. 3 This humorous clarification post
of Education on Facebook have been of the Taiwan’s premier got over 100,000
reposted about 12,000 times. positive reactions on Facebook and
Source: https://www.facebook.com/www.edu.tw/ received attention from international media.
posts/1482813591893257/
Source: https://www.facebook.com/gogogoeball/
posts/10157118591571270/
the premier of Taiwan, is shown film was criticized, there were also
from his back with graphical el- many positive comments from the
ements which emphasize the re- UK, Switzerland, and Germany. In
gion of his buttock, together with the pandemic, we see humor and
a well-known toilet paper brand. the diverse use of humor not only
The caption reads in Taiwanese: “ spreading across different cultures,
咱只有一粒卡臣。” (We have only but also used extensively across
one bottom), referring to the slo- various communities (civil and
gan “ We have only one Earth” governmental) to combat the in-
from the environmental movement. convenience and negative effects
The table below the headline lists brought on by the virus.
the facts about the raw materials,
which are different for toilet paper
and for masks. The rumor that toi-
let paper was almost out of stock
in Taiwan was dispelled by this ad-
vertisement, which not only made
people laugh but also relieved pub-
lic tension. As a result of the large
number of retweets, the panic buy-
1 the word 幽默 yōumò in 九章 Jiǔzhāng: 滔滔孟夏兮，草木莽莽。傷懷永哀兮，汨徂南土。
ing of toilet paper was successfully 眴兮杳杳，孔靜幽默…。https://ctext.org/pre-qin-and-han/zh?searchu=幽默
ceased after one weekend. 7
2 “愈幽愈默而愈妙，故譯為幽默” by 林玉堂 Lin Yutang in 論幽默 on humor, 1947 上海時
The humorous strategy was ap-
代書局 S.5
parently not limited to the Eastern
world, but was even applied by the 3 “幽默是敦厚的，超脫同時加入悲天憫人之念” by 林語堂 Lin Yuting,
論幽默 on humor：https://www.linyutang.org.tw/big5/lin-writings2.asp?idno=20
federal government in Germany:
On November 15, 2020, the Ger- 4 Various Scientific Research Reports on Humor during the pandemic:
http://www.psychiatria-danubina.com/UserDocsImages/pdf/dnb_vol32_noSup-
man government released a video
pl%201/dnb_vol32_noSuppl%201_15.pdf
under the hashtag “#besondere- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405844020325391
helden” 8 on Youtube, urging young
5 Source: 德國臺灣同學會：https://www.facebook.com/groups/178218261881/
people to stay at home. The video
depicted an elderly man who re- 6 Source: https://www.globalasia.org/v15no3/cover/the-key-to-taiwans-pandemic-
success-fast-fair-and-fun_audrey-tang
calls fighting the pandemic from a
future perspective by simply stay- 7 Tang Feng’s talk on https://youtu.be/FUWLCQEJeHc 7:30
ing home. Although this humorous 8 See Helden https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krJfMyW87vU
CATSarena 13Focus
Gods and Outcasts
Ambivalent Attitudes towards Health Workers
in India during the Coronavirus Pandemic
by Gautam Liu care of patients lying in their beds
Lecturer in Hindi filled with vomit and feces, washing
their clothes, burning the filth with
The COVID-19 pandemic in India disinfectants is not the deed of a
generated a strange phenomenon man, only a god can do this work.”
in how health workers were per- Now what happened in today´s
ceived. On the one hand officials time during the Coronavirus pan-
were not tired in proclaiming doc- demic? Attacks on healthcare
tors and nurses as gods, on the workers in the first phase of the
other hand health workers were outbreak became so frequent that
Mag. phil. Gautam Liu ostracized by large parts of the the Resident Doctor´s Association
joined Heidelberg University in general population. Paradoxically, of the All India Institute of Medical
2007 and teaches Hindi. His re- it was the very life-saving works of Sciences wrote a letter, dated 16th
search focuses on Hindi litera- the medical professionals which April 2020, to the Ministry of Home
ture and language ideologies in turned them into outcasts. Making Affairs stating “ We, as healthcare
South Asia. sense of these grossly ambivalent professionals, are not as scared
attitudes requires a deeper under- of infections as we are of being
standing of the traditional mindset assaulted and abused by the very
of Indian society. community we treat.” 1 The main
In the epochal Hindi novel Mailā reason given in the letter for the
āṁcal (The Soiled Border, 1954), attacks is the perception that the
which entirely plays in a village doctors “are spreading COVID-19”.
in Bihar, the author Phanishwar- It seems that apprehensions to-
nath Renu (1921-1977) projects wards health workers in the wake of
the novel´s protagonist, a Western infectious disease outbreaks as we
trained physician, in line with his have seen in the Hindi novel of 1954
progressive ideology as a modern wherein the doctor was accused
secular saint in newly independent of spreading cholera by disinfect-
India. The apotheosis of the doctor ing the village well still persists in
is based upon his successful ef- considerable parts of North India´s
forts to control a cholera outbreak. society. Healthcare professionals
Though the villagers were in the also had to face ostracization. The
beginning very sceptical about his Guardian reports: “In cases report-
actions, such as disinfecting the ed across the country, healthcare
well by putting chemicals in it, and professionals described the grow-
therefore accusing him of spread- ing stigma they are facing from
ing the disease through this mea- their neighbours and landlords, re-
sure, the self-sacrificing manner sulting in many being refused taxis,
in which he treats the patients ul- barricaded from their own homes,
timately changes their mind: “ḍāk- or made homeless.” 2
tār ādmī nahīṁ, devtā hai devtā!... To understand this backlash
kai aur dast se bhare bichāvan par against health workers, let´s recall
leṭe hue rogī kī sevā karnā, kapṛe the above-quoted passage of Mailā
dhonā, davā ḍālkar gandagī jalānā āṁcal. The medical protagonist in
ādmī kā kām nahīṁ, devtā hī kar this rural novel is called a devtā, a
sakte haiṁ.“ “ The doctor is not a god, because of his taking care of
man, but a god, a god! …Taking cholera patients. So, on the one
14 CATSarenaCOVID-19 and Epidemics in Asia Focus
hand, the doctor ensures maximum discourse. Maybe reminding the
hygiene by “burning the filth with people that healthcare workers are
disinfectants.” The doctor in this to be respected as gods will not
case stands for scrupulous clean- suffice to eradicate general misgi-
liness and therefore for the preser- vings.
vation of health. On the other hand, Thus, the divine status of medi-
he is in constant contact with pati- cal professionals remains a very
ents “who lie in their beds filled with volatile one in today´s India, espe-
vomit and feces.” In traditional In- cially during the outbreak of a con-
dian society, only the untouchables tagious disease such as COVID-19.
as a profession come into contact
with such impurities. Now, in times
of a highly contagious epidemic, it
is the people working in the health
profession who are more prone to
getting infected and are therefore
frequently regarded with suspicion.
To counteract this backlash, In-
dia´s prime minister Narendra Da-
modardas Modi appealed in a vid-
eo conference on March 25th 2020:
„ saṃkaṭ kī is ghaṛī meṁ aspatāloṃ
meṁ safed kapṛoṁ meṁ dikh rahe
doctor-nurse īśvar kā hī rūp hai. āj
ye hī hameṁ mṛtyu se bacā rahe
haiṁ apne jīvan ko khatroṃ meṁ
ḍālkar.“ “In this moment of crisis,
the doctors and nurses you see
in hospitals in white clothes are a
form of God. Today they only save
us from death by putting their own
life in danger.” 3 These words were
translated in the English media
with the following headline: “ Those
in white coats are like gods.” In
August 2020 judges of the Gujarat
high court gave the following state-
ment: “In the past we have seen
instances of assaults on doctors
and other healthcare workers. That 1 https://thelogicalindian.com/news/covid-19-healthcare-workers-attacked-20665
is unacceptable. For those who 2 The Guardian, 30.3.2020 “Indian doctors being evicted from homes over coronavirus
believe in God to be the life giver fears.” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/30/indian-doctors-being-evict-
and life saver, our doctors are the ed-from-homes-over-coronavirus-fears
personification of God on earth.”4 3 https://www.narendramodi.in/text-of-prime-minister-narendra-modi-s-interac-
Taking recourse to the apotheo- tion-with-the-people-of-varanasi-on-the-menace-of-coronavirus-548961
sis of health workers is evidently a 4 https://www.latestlaws.com/latest-news/covid-19-doctors-are-personification-of-
common practice in India´s public gods-on-earth-states-this-high-court/
CATSarena 15Focus
Existential Crisis?
because they have no or limited ac-
cess to health facilities. As a result
of such insufficient health services
Dealing with the COVID-19 and enumeration mechanisms, the
real number of infections must pre-
pandemic in Pakistan sumably be much higher than the
official number.
At the moment, the so-called
“third-wave” is arriving, carrying
by Philipp Zehmisch wide-spread resistance to the lock- mutants with it and causing anoth-
Research Assistant down was that it inhibited major er rise of infections: on 21 March
parts of the struggling Pakistani 2021, 3,878 cases were confirmed
When the pandemic was rapidly economy from functioning in the and 42 had passed away in the last
spreading across the globe about usual, uneven and unequal ways, 24 hours, with 29,576 active cases
a year ago, Pakistan declared a driving millions of employees, work- (The Dawn, Islamabad, p. 3). Wor-
country-wide complete lockdown, ers and daily wagers in a struggle rying about the deadly potential
which lasted from mid-March un- for survival, depression, domestic of this “wave,” one is left wonder-
til mid-May 2020. Due to everyday conflict and violence. The policy of ing for other than socio-econom-
forms of popular resistance, how- lifting the lockdown hence present- ic reasons in order to explain the
ever, the lockdown was never as ed itself as a basic ethical question: common reluctance to abide by the
“complete” as the term suggests. Will people starve to death or die of government’s enforcement of lock-
Shops stayed illegally open, often corona? Hence, other solutions to downs, social distancing and sani-
with only half-closed shutters, and the crisis than a complete lockdown tary measures such as the wearing
many resisted the demand of social had to be found. The Government of masks or washing of hands.
distancing. of Pakistan decided to replace the One answer may be found when
Why? On the one hand, Paki- strict lockdown with “smart lock- looking at the realm of religion and
stan faces a variety of other prob- downs,” cordoning off single areas piety that have taken particular in-
lems, which leads many to ignore with high numbers of infections. A fluence on the ways in which Paki-
the dangers implied in the spread strategy that seemed to work out stanis are coping with the effects
of the pandemic. Poor people’s quite well, if one believed the official and challenges of the pandemic.
lives are constantly subjected to numbers of infections; these have In Pakistan, Islam is supposed to
existential struggle for survival and been comparatively low during the function as a most common de-
against a variety of odds, among last few months; among others, be- nominator that links large parts of
which the pandemic appears a cause fewer tests were conducted an ethnically, religiously, linguis-
lesser evil. Hence, on a very gen- than before; further, some actors tically and culturally diverse pop-
eral level, one may understand why in the public realm even declared ulation to the master narrative of
some Pakistanis have so far taken Corona to be “over”, and many be- an Islamic nation-state. While this
the pandemic not as important as lieved it, too. narrative is constantly contested,
most people in other countries, es- Official numbers have, most fragmented, subverted, and under-
pecially in Europe, do. The agenda probably, always been much low- mined due to the sheer diversity
of social distancing, which the gov- er than the actual number of cas- of sects and orientations encom-
ernment has promoted in concor- es, as the majority of cases are not passed within the very general
dance with countries across the detected; only persons belong- notion of Islam, it surely provides
world, can only be realized by the ing to the middle-class and elite a context and a religiously loaded
upper classes of the country; only can afford to get tested. Further, atmosphere that lends religious in-
by those who can afford enough a government servant involved in terpretations, often involving mor-
space to live in a separate room pandemic related policies assured alizing arguments, particular vigour
when falling sick and who can get me that no number regarding in- and validity.
food delivered by others, often by fections, their cure or death rates What were then some of the re-
their servants. The demand of so- would be accurate, as there is no sponses to pandemic related poli-
cial distancing, however, is virtually systematic mechanism of thorough cies, considering that these do not
impossible for families from poorer data generation and enumeration. only inhibit means of survival and ev-
backgrounds, as extended families Most infected persons, especial- eryday movement, but also obstruct
often share only one or two rooms. ly in rural areas and urban slums, people to fulfil social obligations and
Another major reason for the are simply not counted statistically ritual as well as religious duties?
16 CATSarenaCOVID-19 and Epidemics in Asia Focus Characteristic of the broad distrust accepted by numerous individuals led by the government demanding of the state and elites in general, in Pakistan. There is a wide-spread individual discipline and respon- religion and urban legends have conviction that individual suffer- sibility, these globally applied pre- entered into a lethal mix with var- ings result from God’s fury. One scriptions prove inappropriate to ious conspiracy theories, which analyst marked the pandemic as contain the spread of the pandemic are also circulating with regards to a “test” for people, guaranteeing in Pakistan. Here, religion and pub- COVID-19 and treatments. Spread, that they return to Allah in order to lic morality have come full circle at among others, by religious hardlin- seek absolution for their transgres- the expense of people’s distrust in ers, one can encounter a popular sions. A reporter, while considering science, the body politic, the state, reluctance to get tested for epi- Corona an azaab (torment or dis- its health system, and its capabil- demics due to apparently hidden cipline) from Allah, contended that ity to deal with the pandemic. Es- imperialist agendas, instituted by these were direct results of sins pecially those who do not belong the so-called “enemies of Islam” committed such as the enjoyment to the elite encounter myriads of with the goal to harm the global of sex and infidelity, which implies alternative, most often religiously Islamic community (Ummah). In that the sinner has wandered away charged, world-views and explana- this guise, not only polio workers from God and turned selfish. tions that help them coping with the are regularly killed because polio As a result, the majority of Pa- disastrous impacts of COVID-19 on drops have been declared a West- kistanis is disregarding orders by their everyday lives. The void cre- ern conspiracy to cause infertility the government. They don’t wear ated by long-standing neglect of among Muslims; similarly, health masks and continue to meet others, public welfare by the state, espe- personnel seeking to test diseased especially at significant life cycle cially when it comes to recent neo- persons for COVID-19 have been rituals such as weddings and fu- liberal reforms of the health system attacked once and again. nerals as well as religious congre- through significant budget cuts, According to a dominant con- gations, including Friday prayers. seems to be filled with meaning by spiracy narrative, going to hospitals Most Pakistanis attach more value forces who follow their own logic, implies the danger of being disap- to everyday rituals and demands arguments, and reasoning. peared and one’s body parts and of etiquette, like handshakes and organs being harvested and sold hugs, than an abstract danger of “abroad”. The discrete and isolated infection through shaking hands. treatment of Corona patients gets Further, interlocutors in the moun- easily associated with malevolent tains behind Islamabad, where I powers and enemies of the state. lived with my family during the first Last year, a mob attacked doctors six months of the lockdown, were and healthcare workers and van- convinced that Corona would not dalized a hospital in Karachi when affect those who live in the coun- doctors kept a deceased patient’s tryside, work with their bodies, corpse – against the will of his rela- and eat healthy food. Expressive tives – in order to wait for the result of a common scepticism towards of a COVID-19 test. science, which is replaced with pi- Another urban legend that cir- ety and fatalism, one interlocutor culates is that people came to pray opined that God has already de- at the grave of a Corona victim, cided who will die when. As every- and they, apparently, saw an emp- thing would happen according to ty grave, implying the bodies had God’s will, one should calm down Philipp Zehmisch been disappeared. Hence, many and peacefully await one’s fate. I joined the South Asia Institute, patients do not report their illness am tempted to ask: Do these peo- Heidelberg in October 2020. because they fear that – once in ple have many other options than He teaches social and cultural an- government quarantine – they will waiting it out and continuing as be- thropology. His PhD dissertation not return. Some orthodox religious fore? concentrated on migration and scholars even claimed that the vi- To conclude, Pakistanis face a subaltern politics in the Andaman rus was intended to target Islam variety of contested information in Islands, India. Philipp’s current and Muslims. their everyday life, disseminated research focuses on statehood, In turn, the contention that both by state and religious actors. borderlands, and ethics in post- COVID-19 is a result of God’s anger While there is formally a private colonial Pakistan. for the transgressions of morals is domain of citizens, which is tack- CATSarena 17
Focus
Reporting Corona
by Marina Rudyak
Assistant Professor
The seminar “Reporting Corona:
State Media, Critical Journalism
and Citizen Witnessing during the
COVID-19 Outbreak in Wuhan” at
the Institute of Chinese Studies
explores the news and informa-
tion production in locked-down
Wuhan. It analyses the different
types of reporting and writing,
their motivations and their ways
of coping with censorship.
The lockdown of Wuhan, a city Medical staff from Wuhan East-West Lake District People’s Hospital,
dressed in full hazmat gear, wishing everybody a Happy New Year:
of 11 million people and one of Chi-
“We are here, you can spend the new year at ease!” (有我们在，大家安心过年！)
na’s largest industrial hubs, was
announced overnight. On January
22, 2020, a Wednesday before the
weekend of the Spring Festival, infected medical personnel were der control. What all accounts had
China’s most important holiday, ordered not to tell anybody about in common was the expressed
the Chinese government declared their infections. wish and sense of responsibility
that starting at 10 a.m. the next The lockdown was expect- to witness and record.
day, all train stations and airport ed to last for at least one month A journalist team of Caixin (财新),
would shut down. No one would (it lasted for 76 days). After the an- a privately held media platform
be allowed to leave the city. nouncement, everybody who was known for its investigative jour-
At the same time, an online pro- not Wuhan-based tried to leave nalism, decided to stay, despite
paganda campaign was launched the city, including journalists, both concerns for their health and
to promote positive, patriotic, and Chinese and international. Of the safety. The executive deputy edi-
nationalistic messages. On the international media, only one per- tor of Caixin Media, Gao Yu (高昱),
second day of lockdown, 24 Jan- son stayed: the veteran China cor- explained their motivations in the
uary, a video showing five medi- respondent Chris Buckley, who re- article “Reporter’s Notebook: We
cal staff from Wuhan East-West ported for the New York Times (he Stayed in Wuhan as the Trains
Lake District People’s Hospital, was expelled from China in May Pulled Out” on 23 January:
dressed in full hazmat gear, wish- 2020). Of the Chinese media, only
ing everybody a Happy New Year: a few remained to provide critical “ We’ve seen many issues that
“ We are here, you can spend the coverage, largely unchallenged by need to be clarified and covered
new year at ease!” (有我们在, the propaganda apparatus, with by journalists... As journalists, I
大家安心过年！) was promoted all virtually no state media present hope we can record what is tru-
over the Chinese internet to ease on the ground. Only on 4 February ly happening, no matter wheth-
the Corona virus panic. The offi- did the Propaganda Department er fortunate or not. What we
cial narrative focused on the unity announce that it would send more can do is to strive to record the
of China and the dedication and than 300 journalists to Wuhan and truth for the future.”
resilience of common Chinese the Hubei Province to “report” and
people, particularly emphasising “guide the public opinion.” The Caixin team spend 76 days
the contributions of medical and Despite the government orders, in Wuhan until the lockdown was
army personnel. Beijing declared critical journalists, citizen jour- lifted, focusing on in-depth cover-
a “People’s War” against Corona. nalists, and bloggers produced age of the origins of the outbreak
Meanwhile, hospitals in Wuhan accounts that significantly chal- and uncovering, i.a. that the virus
and media outlets received orders lenged the official narrative that had been identified on 24 Decem-
not to talk about the outbreak; the leadership had everything un- ber 2019 and sequenced on 27
18 CATSarenaCOVID-19 and Epidemics in Asia Focus
December; on 1 January 2020, the and you don’t rush to the front-
province had ordered scientists to lines, what kind of journalist are
destroy the samples. The report, you?”
like many other Caixin articles,
was censored but remains stored The last sentence being a side
in a web archive. blow to all the state media jour-
Ordinary citizens, too, chal- nalists who left Wuhan. Chen
lenged the official narrative. Re- was more explicitly critical of Chi-
coding what was going on with na’s President Xi Jinping, whose
smartphones and social media noticeable absence in the early
accounts, they shared their own phase of the outbreak was widely
stories and the stories of oth- discussed on the Chinese inter-
ers in Wuhan. Some of them, like net:
the lawyers Chen Qiushi (陈秋实)
and Zhang Zhan (张展), identified “ I don’t care where Xi Jinping
themselves as “citizen journalists” went, but I, Chen Qiushi, came
(公民记者) – a term that first be- here.”
came prominent in the immediate
aftermath of the South Asian tsu- Chen, a well-known citizen jour-
nami of December 2004. In the ab- nalist in China with a huge online
Chen Qiushi at Wuhan Train Station
sence of professional journalists, following, had covered the 2019-
first-person accounts, filmed with 2020 Hong Kong protests. For
camcorders, mobile phones, and that, he had been blocked from
digital camera snapshots, posted the Chinese social media: (公民记者陈秋实武汉疫区采访实
online through blogs or personal 录), the last one on 4 February
webpages filled the gap. Research “ I will use my mobile phone – the same day the Propaganda
on citizen journalism in China de- camera for witnessing and re- Department announced to send
scribes the aftermath of the Wen- porting the real situation of the more than 300 journalists to Wu-
chuan earthquake of 12 May 2008 outbreak in Wuhan, and I want han. Thereafter, Chen Qiushi went
as the formative moment for Chi- to feature the voices of Wuhan missing and remains under arrest
nese citizen reporting. While the people. Although I am blocked till now.
authorities banned most report- on the Chinese internet for re- By now, more known interna-
ing on the scene, requiring jour- porting on Hong Kong, I still tionally than the Caixin-Team or
nalists only to channel the official have Twitter and Youtube.” Chen Qiushi reporting is the se-
version of the events produced ries of blog posts by the acclaimed
by the state media agency Xin- However, by reverting to Twitter Chinese writer Wang Fang (汪芳)
hua or the central television outlet and Youtube, he was violating that have been translated into En-
CCTV, reporting by ordinary cit- Chinese law: both are censored in glish and German as the “ Wuhan
izens who began reporting what China and can only be accessed Diary”. Wang, who writes under
had happened, relayed first-hand with the help of a Virtual Private the pen name Fang Fang (方方),
news about the earthquake. With Network (VPN) client, which is was with her family in Wuhan
a ban on reporting and only a few outlawed for most in China. By 10 when the city went into lockdown.
critical journalists who tried to cir- February, Chen had 433,000 sub- She started writing on 25 January:
cumvent it on the ground, Wuhan scribers on Youtube and 246,000
presented a similar scene. followers on Twitter despite the “ I just received a message from
The Beijing lawyer Chen Qi- Great Firewall. His videos were [an] editor for the literary journal
ushi arrived in Wuhan on the Lu- translated into other languag- Harvest, suggesting that I start
nar New Year’s Eve, the 24 Janu- es on Youtube by online volun- writing a series that we could
ary, on the last train from Beijing. teers. He also became known to call ‘ Wuhan Diary’, or ‘Notes
His first video log starts with the the international audience after from a Quarantined City’... I re-
words: being interviewed by several in- ally should start writing about
ternational media outlets. Chen what is happening. It would be
“ Why am I here? Because this recorded 14 episodes of “Citi- a way for people to understand
is my responsibility as a citizen zen Journalist Chen Qiushi’s re- what is really going on here on
journalist. If there is a disaster portage of the Wuhan epidemic” the ground in Wuhan.”
CATSarena 19Focus
After the first entry on 25 January,
59 more entries followed, with tens
of millions of netizens following
her account, even though many of
her posts were quickly censored
(they are archived on China Digital
Times).
There is another “ Wuhan Diary”
(武汉日记), written by an anony-
mous citizen of Wuhan and pub- Marina Rudyak
lished by the Australia-based polit- is Assistant Professor of Chinese
ical artist and dissident Badiucao ( Cultural Studies. Her research
巴丢草). The first entry, written on focuses on China’s internation-
January 23, starts with the line “23 al development cooperation and
January 2020. The first day of lock- political ideology.
down. Let’s consider it a record for
ourselves.” The author wrote 56
posts, most of them are translated
by Badiucao on his blog. Badiucao,
who has over 70 thousand follow-
ers on Twitter, used his platform to
raise awareness for the blog:
“I am helping a #Wuhan res-
ident to translate, illustrate &
share diary to the world. An
insight of real life under quar-
antine of #COVID2019 from
China. Please read and share!
#coronavirus #武汉肺炎”
Initially, there was a brief window
of non-sanctioned storytelling,
different in scale from any previ-
ous major outbreak or disaster in
China. After the Lunar New Year,
articles, blog posts, or any type of
witnessing on Chinese social me-
dia that did not fit the official nar-
rative were quickly censored, often
within hours. To preserve them for
posterity, anonymous activists cre-
ated web archives and Telegram
groups where alternative links or
screenshots of posts censored
on the Chinese web were stored.
Some witnessing accounts circum-
vent the censorship by posting on
platforms outside China, mainly on
Youtube and Twitter. Together, they
constitute a huge body of primary
sources for future scholarship and
material to teach how those in the
epicentre of the Corona outbreak
witnessed and reported it.
20 CATSarenaYou can also read
