Messages from China in the time of Covid
From Wake Li and Bai, November-December 2022
A new year for the Western world. New year coming soon for my friends in China, the year of the water rabbit. The Yin Water element has an association with black and is sometimes called the “Year of the Black Rabbit.” Yin Water denotes intuition and sensitivity. A Chinese friend told me, also a way to inner peace.
Let us hope.
Hope is great. “Hope is the power to believe that anything is possible — a fresh start, a second chance, or to wish upon a miracle.” Sarah
I cannot imagine what it is like to be in China now.
I used to know, not so long ago when I lived there. Before everything changed. Then there was hope, it seemed fresh, and no matter what the Western news said, there was hope. A constant clash of colours and sounds and smells. Not sensual like India or serene like Japan, simply chaotic and eccentric and fun-filled. For Chinese people, life was moving upwards, what they wanted was a better life, more commodities, to educate their family, and modernity reaching far-flung villages. Hospitals that worked. Renewable energy, which was the plan, now taking a backseat; however, there were big plans to make China green, with municipalities China-wide promising 70 billion trees planted by 2030 (this is still on the agenda.)
Then it snapped. Hope died.
The world snapped, closed shut. We know it, we all lived through the pandemic, but China shut tight. Then, due to the protests China-wide, it opened up again. No tiptoeing through the metaphorical Tulips
This week the headlines are desperately sad. Hospitals are full, and families trying to cremate their dead. No aspirin - should I send some? I ask my friends. “No, it will never get here,” they tell me. Livia, a friend I spoke to today, is scared to go out. I try and tell her it is OK, but who am I to tell her she will be OK? This simply is not fair. How do I know anything any more about China?
Stories from my friends
How do people live in the time of Covid? What other stories are coming from China other than those of death and dying? Not so many, and those we read are snuck out, sometimes heavily edited, or carefully positioned.
Let me introduce you to Wake and Bai. Some of you have met them in previous Substacks, others perhaps from my website, Scatterflix, where I showcase Wake’s work. If you don’t know them, they are dear friends I met them in 2015 at a film festival in Qingdao.
We have been writing to each other since I left China in 2020. I am planning, one day, to make a film about our correspondence. I am grateful to them for keeping me in the creative loop, I am glad they are fine and managing. Wake creates work in this time of Covid, Bai has gone back to school and is finishing her master’s to become a teacher. She is a teaching assistant at the moment. It is cold where they live right now, it was snowing at the time they wrote to me from northeast China (东北; Dōngběi)
Wake and Bai
They are atypical.
They are deeply in love, with a 32-year age difference.
They are artists, teachers, and lovers.
At the moment, Wake spends time creating in the time of isolation. His work is satirical with a lot of deeply embedded cultural messages which are not always easy to translate. He has recently begun to work in deserted ruins which he covers with Chinese brush painting. He also creates installations. His latest piece is called BIG BALLOON. When I asked him what the meaning is, here is the explanation: In 1959, China and the Soviet Union turned against each other and the Soviet Union withdrew the experts who had been assisting scientists in China to build the atomic bomb.
The Chinese government called on the whole country to tighten their belts, to engage in production and to struggle to build socialism. Following this slogan, Chairman Mao launched the "Great Leap Forward" campaign to catch up with and surpass the United States and Britain within fifteen years. All the slogans were like inflating a balloon.
Bai and Wake’s letters from October, November and December - uncensored, uncut, unchanged
Hello, dear Jeanne,
Sorry for taking so long to write back to you. How have you been lately? Wake has been editing lately and has had some technical troubles which have delayed things a bit, but overall it's going well and we hope to finish a film in the meantime.
I'd like to share with you a video of Wake singing. As I was reading a book yesterday, the song "Wang Er Xiao" was mentioned in the book and I associated it with the fact that Wake also sang it. I don't know who uploaded this video to the internet, it shows an upload date of 13 August 2013. 2016 by chance, my eyes got a little wet when I first saw this video online, the tune had an indescribable poignancy and heartache, and a sense of loneliness.
I asked Wake: Why were you singing with your head tilted back?
Wake: I am shy, so I sang to the moon.
Me: Why did you sing this song?
Wake: I don't know any other songs, so I can only sing this one.
It was a song that his little friends used to sing when he was a child. When Wake was in primary school in Jiayuguan, Gansu Province, all students in the class should sing a red song (revolution song) before class. Wang Er Xiao was one of them. Wang Er Xiao is the hero of the song and the lyrics are about how when the Japanese invaded China, they let Wang Er Xiao to be their guide and the 13-year-old boy took the Japanese straight to the place where the Chinese army had ambushed them.
The attached picture is a performance art done by Wake during his time in Huai'an.
BAI - November
My dear friend, our side is not too good. We have been taking online classes intermittently this semester, but it is still in online class status (we have been online classes for a month). Everything is because of the epidemic. Now I can only use my laptop to give students online lessons in the dormitory. I can't go home. Because there are no passing vehicles, and I must be isolated when going home. Also, my roommate and I had to solve the problem of eating by ourselves in the dormitory. We learned to store vegetables and food. Everywhere is hard. You should be strong, my dear. The painful things will pass. Because we have love in our hearts. Take care. I will attach a link to the things I sent you before.
WAKE
Oh my dear friend. After I received your letter last time, I replied to it and forwarded it to you again along with the previous emails that you did not receive.
Recently I heard from Bai about your message and know that the Western world is not peaceful either. I hope you will take care of yourself. Since I went to Jinan at the end of March this year to mourn for my elderly mother, the epidemic has been sealed off and it is really unbearable for people to live. At the end of September this year, I went to Chongqing to work as an artist for a friend's movie, and as a result, I was also under epidemic control. Every day, the epidemic prevention staff poked cotton swabs for testing the new coronavirus into our throats, and when there was an abnormality, people were sealed off and banned from entering or leaving their house. In short, it is a depressed atmosphere. This time, I will send the works that were not marketed before, and the new works have not been cut. And then attach some nearby works of my behavior, to make up for the boredom.
Also miss you
“This video is called: 自力更生 艰苦奋斗 Self-reliance and hard work”
BAI - November
Hello, my dear friend,
We have only been taking offline classes for half a month of this semester, the rest of the time we have been giving online classes. At the beginning of this semester, when I was isolated, I was also giving online classes to my students. It has been online classes from early October until now. Being trapped in the school. In order to control the movement of people, traffic was also interrupted for a while, vehicles were prohibited and I could not return home. Every day was spent doing nucleic acid. Luckily my roommate is also here, otherwise I would be the only one in our dorm room. Her home is also relatively far away. We've had five or six snow days here. When we went out to do the nucleic acid test today, it was especially cold. The campus has also accumulated a thick layer of snow. Now I just hope that when I go on winter break I will be able to get home without any problems. I hope the epidemic passes soon. I didn't think the old noisy days would be so happy. The world is so mad! It's okay, everything will be fine.
BAI - December
Hello, my dear friend,
I haven't been studying German lately, and things have been rather trivial at school. Although it seems like I would have a lot of free time when I've been taking online classes lately. This is not really the case. Meals are only served in the school canteen when students are at school, and not on the usual Saturdays and Sundays. During the online classes, of course, the canteen do not serve meals either, so my roommate and I have to cook. Our dormitory room was not equipped with a bathroom and sink, and there was no place to take a shower. Every time we wash vegetables or dishes, we have to go to the easternmost washroom with a row of taps, and our dormitory room was located at the westernmost point. So every time cooking would take quite a lot of time too. Also the water in the washroom was not drinkable, it had a lot of black scum in it. The water we drank or cooked with was brought back from outside in a heater. So every day it was class, cooking, class, cooking. If I have some free time, I will read some courses on Chinese medicine, which I have been interested in recently. We had a English test on Tuesday, and students took photos of their answers and uploaded them. It took four or five hours to correct the papers. Wake and I would send messages to encourage each other. His love for art remains unchanged.
Love to you, Wake and Bai
I worry for my friends in China, my dear Wang Ying and his family, and my colleagues at the film school. Will in Qingdao, Hassam, Livia and her family, Tao Gu and his father, Yuan and Zhou and Limanzou, and all the doctors and nurses working around the clock. Be safe, and take care. My love and thoughts are with you all.
I finish this first Substack of 2023 with a beautiful poem by By C. P. Cavafy (Translated by Edmund Keeley)
Ithaka
As you set out for Ithaka
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.
Hope your road is a long one.
May there be many summer mornings when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you enter harbors you’re seeing for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind—
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to learn and go on learning from their scholars.
Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you’re destined for.
But don’t hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you’re old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
Ithaka gave you a marvellous journey.
Without her, you wouldn't have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.
Be well, happy and in peace
Happy New Year
Today, the whole of China is on the move!
Your idea of expanding the correspondence into a film is a magnificent idea! Cheers.