In 2020, Everyone Has Had Their Own Hardships

On April 25, 2020, I saw my father off as he left Beijing. He had stayed in Beijing for nearly four months — the longest stay he has ever had in Beijing, and also the most painful. That is why he insisted on returning to his hometown despite the risk.

Because of COVID-19, my father spent most of his time confined at home in Beijing. A family of four squeezed into a small apartment of just over fifty square meters was truly hard to bear. My father could only set up a bed in the small living room; compared with the spacious house and open space of his rural home, this living condition was far too poor.

When I saw my father off at Beijing West Railway Station, the station was nearly empty; most of the travelers were Beijing drifters who could no longer hold on and were returning home. In my twenty years in Beijing, I had never seen West Station so deserted. This city is my second hometown; although I am not one for crowds, seeing it like this hurt my heart.

Adding to this was that neither my father nor I knew when we would meet again after this parting, or even whether we would ever meet again in this lifetime. So as I left West Station and headed home, my nose turned a little sour.

I have never bought a car, nor can I drive; I used to prefer walking and a simple life. At such a high-risk moment, not being able to drive my father home left me anxious. I deeply regretted not having bought a car back when Beijing license plates were not so tight; if I had one, my father would not now have to risk infection on the train ride home.

In 2020, the overwhelming majority of people on this planet have had a hard time, not just my family. I only regret that my abilities are limited and I cannot quickly end this plague and let everyone return to their previous happy lives.

The people I deal with most are patients. The first two months were tolerable, but as this month wore on, more and more patients could no longer afford treatment. I estimate that from May onward the situation will become more severe. Some patients, unable to seek timely care, simply put things off, dragging their illness to the point of being untreatable.

There are also patients or family members who have second thoughts midway through treatment; I understand them completely. This was rare in the past, but it has become more common this year. This year many patients will not be able to hold on because of financial problems; my personal ability is limited and I cannot help many people — truly, there is only so much I can do.

As someone who studied medicine, and as a middle-aged man who must "support both his parents and his wife and children," I feel this year's hardships very deeply. In the Great Depression, everyone struggled.

Epidemiology holds that the most terrifying epidemics are those that kill large numbers of working-age adults, because for a family, the death of a working-age adult means a devastating blow. Working-age adults are skilled labor; losing them destroys the foundation of both family and society.

For able-bodied adults like me, "positive energy" and "negative energy" are childish terms that deserve contempt. What we must solve is the survival problem of the whole family, and even of society as a whole — our families depend on our labor for survival, and other people depend on the taxes we pay. Chinese Chan Buddhism advocates "a day without work, a day without food"; for able-bodied adults it is "a day without work, the whole family goes hungry."

So people of different ages and social strata experience this disaster differently.

Everyone has it "hard," but the nature of the hardship differs. Those who are struggling have split into opposing camps, harming one another to vent their anger. In this situation I have chosen to be more silent than before — because words cannot solve practical problems; they only waste time and energy.

The only benefit of reduced work is that I have a great deal more time. From a medical perspective I know that this plague will affect humanity for many years. So there will be a lot of spare time in the coming years; I have simply made a systematic study plan to use these years of free time to fill in my various shortcomings in Chinese and Western medicine and do some serious reading.

One cannot lose one's temper at microorganisms. Our ancestors, generation after generation, have lived under the threat of pathogenic microorganisms; when it brings disaster upon the world, the only thing we should do is avoid encountering it. Since there is nothing we can do about it, let us cherish each day as we walk through this world filled with noise and sorrow.