He Tales # 9 - China, a SARS Update
May 1, 2003
Beijing, China

(Note: I cannot seem to write about China and not mention SARS. They are two different stories, but both should be told. I am therefore giving SARS its own He Tales so that I can focus on the beauty that is China in my next report.)

Tonight, as I gaze out my hotel window, I see the lights of Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City frosting a darkened sky. It is quiet here, unnaturally so. Today was supposed to be May Day, one of the largest holidays in China, a holiday where millions flock to Beijing to celebrate. Today was a mayday of a very different kind. Today they closed China. All May Day celebrations were canceled. All travel agencies, theaters, cinemas, museums, Internet cafes, and many public monuments were ordered shut, as the government fights the worst enemy it has faced in years, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). Schools are closed; several hospitals, universities and apartment buildings lie under strict quarantine, and people everywhere are wearing thick surgical masks as they stand in long restroom lines to wash their hands. Street food markets normally bustling with crowds so thick you need a crowbar to walk through lie deserted. It is a chilling view.

Today, Kimberly and I officially began our Trans-Siberian adventure, taking the rails from Beijing to Moscow, an adventure I have had in my mind since I first heard my grandmother tell me of her visits to China and Russia years ago. She came to China shortly after it began welcoming tourists in the early 1980’s. I remember her tales of feeling out of place, a lone white woman in a sea of Asian faces. Today, I too feel out of place. As Kim and I entered the Forbidden City this morning, we stood in the massive outer courtyard, entirely alone except for the two white-masked policeman whose heels clicked loudly up the stairs behind us and a lady in a blue smock, mask and pointed bamboo hat sweeping up trash in a corner far off to our left. This square can easily hold thousands of tourists, and on most May Days, it has. Today it held two, standing in awestruck silence as the birds chirped their staccato songs.

We feel lucky. In the last two weeks, we have seen our China, but it has been a race befitting Indiana Jones, as the massive boulder that is SARS has flattened all tourism in China, rolling northward from Hong Kong to Beijing. When we began our tour around the world and back again, Kimberly and I talked about how quickly the world was changing, and about all the places we wanted to see before they are lost or destroyed forever. On this list we have already seen Galapagos and Machu Picchu, but right at the top was the Yangtze river, which will be flooded forever starting one month from today. A week ago, villagers used a bamboo rope to tow our wooden canoe up a small tributary of the Yangtze, taking us up the narrow, shallow river by towing us and pulling us using hook-tipped bamboo rods dragged along the rocky cliffs, and thrust into the rocky river bottom. Upstream, I picked up a few small red and white striped rocks that are typical of the Yangtze. Today, SARS has closed the Yangtze river to tourists. Before it reopens, the water will be 70 meters deep in that little tributary, and those stones on the bottom will be beyond the reach of even seasoned divers. The villagers will have to find new ways of living, because the old one is now gone forever.

Being in China today has taught us more about this country than we could ever have hoped to learn from home. When we arrived in Shanghai, Wuhan and Chong Qing, locals told us plainly, “SARS is a problem in Hong Kong and Guangdong, but not here. There are no cases here.” The people heard only the news of the government controlled media, and it was quiet. Almost no one wore face masks, and no one asked us about our health. We even heard a story from two brothers (Mike and Chris), travelling like us independently. They had just come from Guangdong, where SARS began. They saw a boy on the street corner selling facemasks. A policeman came up to the boy, tipped over his small display confiscating the masks, and sent him off. Chris, who speaks a little Chinese, learned that the policeman told the boy SARS was not a problem there and accused him of unnecessarily panicking citizens.

When the World Health Organization (WHO) sent an investigative team to Beijing, this country responded in a massive, if somewhat scary, display of totalitarianism. Overnight, the reported cases of SARS in Beijing went from 20 to 750, as the Chinese decided hiding the truth was no longer possible. We were traveling on a bus a few days later and the bus pulled into a newly created checkpoint. No one spoke English. As we stood outside the bus, watching people walk around, one passenger came up to us and said, “SARS” pointing to a small shaded area where a few people clad in long white medical coats and masks stood. We walked over and were handed two thermometers. Kim was dumbstruck. She quickly figured out how to play charades for “this isn’t going in my mouth.”, until the doctor motioned for the armpit, and then we noticed several of the people strolling around had thermometers squeezed under their arm. Since that day, we have had our temperature taken several times, by infrared lights pointed at palms, infrared body scanners, and good old mercury thermometers. I don’t even want to guess what will happen if we run a fever in the next two weeks.

The English language newspaper “China Daily” gives us our daily government propaganda on SARS. On April 29th, the front page headline reads “Going all out against SARS”. Inside is a story about the day in the life of a SARS patient. It is scarier than the truth. “It seems I am now on the mend as my high fever has disappeared in recent days…. Lying in bed, I can smell the fresh air coming air coming from the open window and through a transparent door I can see doctors and nurses rushing by….I received several calls from colleagues and friends after dinner. Their cheerful voices are my best medicine and I think I will have sweet dreams tonight.” If you really want to know why this article is there, you can read the front page article outlining the new “control measures” to be taken according to the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Beijing municipal government. In addition to shutting down almost all travel, tourism and public venues, the following is noted, “… CPC committees must keep up to date on the latest developments in the epidemic and the mindset of the people to avoid mass panic.”

I read an interview with a Chinese government official on the Internet the other day (before they closed down all internet cafes). He talked (anonymously, of course) about why China initially downplayed SARS. He said China has lots of people, and if a few die, that’s not a problem. It was more important to maintain public order, and not have 1.3 billion people panicking. Guess what? They’re panicking. News reports reach us from the web about rioting and farmers blocking roads outside Beijing to keep out travelers. In the last week, more than 1,000,000 Chinese have fled the capital, creating chaos at the train station as they bought tickets to anywhere, just to escape their fears. The rest stay at home, afraid to venture into any public place.

The government has come out in force to restore order in the country. Every public venue with limited air circulation was ordered closed, leaving only the parks and palace grounds open to us. Our dreams of seeing the famous acrobats of Beijing at the theater will have to wait. Fortunately we toured the Terra Cotta warriors of Xi’an two days ago. Today, they are closed. Tomorrow, we are going to take a taxi to the Great Wall, because every tour bus in town has been ordered parked. In every public building, you see workers in haz-mat suits spraying noxious “disinfectant” on walls and floors. A sign in the lobby of our hotel says “people with infectious disease do not come in”. Kim went into the public bathroom at Tiananmen Square and came out literally choking and dizzy from the strong fumes of the place. Travel from Beijing to anywhere South or East is prohibited, now, and travel North is closing down quickly. The only travel left to foreigners is out, as China once again shuts its massive red doors.

As I write this, I have no word at all on what Russia thinks of SARS and whether we will face quarantine or scrutiny as we travel across their border in a few days. They are not listed among countries reporting SARS cases, but perhaps they are following China’s lead, and will plead ignorance until it is forced upon them. The Russian border guards are known for their scandalous behavior in normal times, so we will have to see how we fare in our journey. We will keep you posted.