观察

indy

(Kaiser Kuo)

This is great! Read this post from film director Dayyan Eng about his experiences. We all have much more time to read now, after all.


I've been noticing the same *exact* trends going on outside China, as far as mood and overall activities related to the quarantine/lock-downs go. By having a 2 month head-start over here with the Covid-19, it's in effect like me talking to you guys "from your future" ;-p After my other post (https://www.facebook.com/dayyan.eng/posts/10158190847748523 ) I got a bunch of DM's from friends with additional questions, so here's a general breakdown of what I've witnessed over the last couple months over here:

* The First 2 weeks (which you guys are going through now): Absolute confusion, anger, finger-pointing, conspiracy theories, helplessness; can't figure out how to disinfect jack! Hording supermarket items and face masks (or in the US case, toilet paper). It dawns that continual daily cooking is going to suck big time! There are still many people in denial, many still refuse to adhere to social distancing and don't realize this is a big deal. People argue daily about whether or not they should be allowed outside. No one is in the mood to talk about work just yet. A lot of time is spent online trying to gather information on wtf this virus is and how to protect against it.

* Week 3-4: Realization kicks in that this shiznit is for reals, and it's not going to be over quickly. A little depression starts kicking in with this realization. Not helping is the fact that most infections are starting to PEAK around this time, so LOTS of infection numbers rising big time, people you know or your friends know are getting the virus (not necessarily because of brand new infections, but because of past incubation and because finally more testing is being done). Some choose to go all in and stay online all the time with latest updates, other people choose to stop hitting the refresh button, because it's too damn depressing. Those joke memes become shared less and less, but people find other ways to maintain some sense of humor. Life in quarantine begins to take a shape that you can get used to, though it's *far* from being "the new normal". Some of the more work-oriented/career-driven begin to hunker down and work from home more focused (i.e. not half-assed like the first couple weeks due to constant interruptions from other family members or distractions due to the news/social media). Others in different service industries, or living paycheck-to-paycheck are very anxious about how they're going to afford anything if this goes on any longer. Small business owners worry about going under -- in fact some big corporations are asking for bail-outs. Govt. tries to calm everyone by putting out press releases almost daily about new tax breaks, free services, guaranteed income etc.

* Week 5-6: Hitting your quarantine stride, basically feeling like "you got this!" for the most part -- but you have good days and really bad days. Some times you just don't have the inertia to get out of bed because you can't believe you're living in a crazy sci-fi film! If you have kids and they're on a routine/schedule you feel like it's not *all* bad. In fact, on some days you've happily rediscovered some positive thing about yourself that you didn't know you had inside you. Some of the news begins to show some positive vibes, but you realize that it's still far from over, and school is definitely *not* starting anytime soon, and you feel a bit bi-polar because you just thought the kids have been great, but you're also going nuts trying to keep them "home schooled" and you've run out of activities for them to do. By this point most people have caved on those "no screen time rules", because you're too mentally (and physically) tired to care about these made-up rules. People spend less time checking in on new infection numbers, because the trend seems to be heading downward, so that's good. But if anyone posts pics of themselves goofing off outside the house, they get full on social media shaming (of course some trolls are looking for exactly that kind of attention). By now, you're bored with the joke memes and TikToks and you just want to get back to work already.

* Week 7-8: As the new infection numbers have dropped to almost zero in most places, you begin to venture out slowly... like a P.O.W. that realized the front gate's been left open, you go for rando drives more often than before, and go to the parks that are semi-empty. You relish discovering new places you can go that don't have other people "yes! no people!". Some have officially returned to their offices (staggered), but most are still staying home unless they really need to be somewhere. You can see the light at the end of the tunnel! You catch yourself getting sloppy about washing/disinfecting compared with the past few weeks. Your hands are like elephant knees -- even with moisturizers. You feel like you can probably take another couple weeks of this easily because you're a "hard quarantine thug" now, but secretly pray for some sort of damn miracle! You watch "Shawshank Redemption" *again* to keep that feeling of "hope" alive. And that's where I am now, at Day 55.  

Perhaps there will be a different (and better) trajectory for countries outside China -- depending on how each nation's govt response goes, and how much people are willing to obey lock-downs and self-isolation practices! Hopefully, and just maybe, y'all will get lucky and have an anti-viral come out before all the above happens to you guys! Stay strong, stay positive! Think of it this way: Us folks over here were at the front of the roller-coaster, scary AF because we didn't know where it was headed, but at least you guys can -- you saw the curve get flattened here, which means this thing can be beaten if everyone works together!

Much love,

D