I Hope All Our Fellow Countrymen Will Treat People from Hubei Well

My father has been very depressed lately. This old farmer, who lived his whole life in the Hubei countryside, now lives with me in Beijing, yet his heart is forever set on our rural hometown in Huanggang, Hubei, and on how hard this year has been for his relatives and friends.

I comfort him, saying I plan to find a way soon to stock up on some grain; whenever a relative's family runs out of food, we will support them. At least in the countryside one can grow some vegetables; with rice and vegetables, life will not be too impossible.

Father says my fourth uncle's family of seven now has only six fen of land. The fourth uncle's two sons are construction laborers who work away from home year-round. The fourth uncle himself, though over sixty, also works away. After returning home for the New Year, none of them has been able to leave. The fourth uncle has two grandchildren plus a daughter-in-law; seven people in the family, just sitting at home eating into their stockpile.

My third uncle's family is also stuck at home, though his two sons still have steady jobs and have not yet lost work. Last year the third uncle planted more than ten mu of land others had abandoned, producing some grain; he had not sold it before the New Year, so now they have enough to eat.

He also worries about several cousins and uncles; the able-bodied young people in those families have all lost their jobs. My father keeps murmuring about how hard this year is for his brothers' households, and murmuring about how my younger sister's family of four will get through it, and how hard my elder brother's lot is. He murmurs about whose land is too little to tide them over this year, and about the urban relatives who have no land at all and no jobs, whose lot is even harder.

Yesterday I saw official statistics showing six million people from Hubei have lost their jobs, but my gut tells me the real number may be higher.

Seeing videos of people chasing Hubei natives away wherever they go, my father is deeply grieved. He told me that in the past, when Zhejiang and Anhui were hit by disasters and people came to Hubei to beg for food, Hubei people always took them in. Never have people been as heartless toward Hubei natives as some places are now. Not long ago, people in many places drove Hubei natives to sleep on the streets; during that time, videos of rows of Hubei natives sleeping on the streets everywhere made my father's tears flow nonstop.

It has not reached that point now, but outside Hubei, Hubei natives are not welcome.

Employers fear the virus and will not hire Hubei people, so much so that the central government had to issue orders prohibiting discrimination against migrant workers from Hubei. But orders are orders; outside the province, Hubei people are still unwelcome. There is nothing to be done when employers ignore the center, so a mere decree is a vain delight. Even highway rest stops have set aside separate toilets just for Hubei people.

Some places do not recognize Hubei's health green codes, defying central directives, and require Hubei people to quarantine at their own expense for fourteen days—at least as of today, my brother-in-law in Huizhou is still in paid quarantine, and after completing it, he is still mostly rejected when looking for work.

Of course, this year jobs are hard to find everywhere, nationwide. So I always tell my own relatives not to leave Hubei until they have a definite way out. Those with fields should stay home and grow grain and vegetables; as long as they don't starve, that's enough.

In Beijing I have also carved out my own little vegetable garden wherever there is space, using foam boxes and discarded washbasins on the balcony and outside the house to grow chives and vegetable seedlings. Partly to save a little expense, and partly to give my father something to do, to shift his attention and dispel his gloom.

Some Hubei people who left the province now deeply regret leaving home; they did not have much savings, jobs are hard, and quarantine ate up a large sum—they would have been better off staying home.

But those who stayed home are unbearably anxious, because many Hubei people have mortgages to pay, with elders above and children below, all to support. There are few opportunities at home, and they still must make a living.

These past two days, outside our county government office, staff with loudspeakers have been urging people coming to handle exit-province paperwork not to rush out, telling everyone that outside Hubei they will not be welcome either.

There is an old saying: "When Huguang's harvest is good, all under heaven is fed." Hubei is a land of fish and rice; in the past it was the granary of the world. In the age when grain was king, Hubei people indeed fed many people from other provinces.

But in recent years farmers' arable land has shrunk; many fields have become residential lots for houses, and others have been requisitioned by the government for roads. So nowadays not many country people have enough farmland to feed their families.

Hubei people are warm-blooded; very many have shed their blood for country and people. Huanggang alone is the place in China that produced the most generals. The first shot of the Xinhai Revolution that overthrew the corrupt Qing Dynasty was also fired in Wuhan, Hubei. In the nation's hour of peril, thousands upon thousands of sons and daughters of Jingchu rushed to the battlefield, heedless of their own safety, and gave their lives for the country.

Our Huanggang has not only generals and soldiers; it has tough men like Wen Yiduo, who feared no power and spoke up for the people; it has medical minds with hearts to save the world, like Li Shizhen, author of the Compendium of Materia Medica; and it has grounded scientists like the famous geologist Li Siguang.

So Hubei people have made great contributions to the country and the nation, and should not be discriminated against as a group because of one plague.

Now there are three kinds of people in China: first, Wuhan people; second, Hubei people outside Wuhan; third, Chinese people outside Hubei. Hubei people's lot is very hard; Wuhan people's is even harder than that of other Hubei regions; people outside Hubei, though their own lot is hard, cannot fathom the state of mind of Hubei people.

People in many provinces are quite critical of Hubei people, claiming Hubei people do not know how to be grateful, only how to complain, and lack positive energy. Fang Fang's Wuhan Diary has been attacked by many as full of negative energy. In their place, they might do worse than the Hubei people.

On Weibo I have seen many netizens mobbing a Hubei girl who lost her mother in this disaster, because the lament she posted did not match the positive energy the main melody demands. The sheer number of people cursing this girl gave me chills.

My father's verdict on those abusers is just four words: worse than beasts. If we will not even allow a daughter who has lost her mother to grieve, and demand she force a smile of positive energy, are we not utterly inhuman?

Many Chinese now discriminate against Hubei people, yet they bristle with indignation when Chinese people are discriminated against internationally. Hubei people and Chinese outside Hubei, Chinese people and the peoples of the world beyond China, are all bound by a common fate. Most people ought to understand this and refrain from regional discrimination—but, regrettably, reality is otherwise.

This crisis is far from over. I hope people will stop discriminating against Hubei people. The enormous sacrifice Hubei made by locking down the province is best understood only by those born and raised in Hubei. Turning the spearhead on innocent, suffering Hubei people is adding frost to snow upon the victims.