Views from China: A City Reawakening
Photography by Alejandro Scott
Translation by Helen Gong & Zoey Zhou
Edited by Clara Elizabeth Davis
“The weather is getting nicer, and we’ve made it past the most serious and dangerous point, so things are relatively better. It’ll take time for everyone to really go back to their normal lives - there’s definitely no way that it can happen quickly. Because of this epidemic and all of these changes, I actually have a lot of friends who became vegan. I’ve always been vegan, but more people are now thinking about what they can do individually to change things for the better.”
“We returned from Germany two weeks ago and have been in home quarantine, and we left Germany just as it started turning worse there. So we’re feeling quite relaxed to be fair. I think it will get back to normal here much quicker, because everyone is so disciplined. In Europe there is more of a sense of “the state can’t tell me what to do.” I’m not really afraid of the virus getting to me, but now that it is in Germany, we are thinking about our parents. I think how China handled the situation is fair - at the end of the day, it’s not just about yourself.”
“88 is a lucky number [in China]. It’s also a painful age. You can see my age on my face at first glance. My body is getting worse day by day. But the virus didn’t have an impact on me. My life is just taking care of myself, free and unconstrained. I can’t walk long distances, I can only walk in the area around my home. I don’t have many suggestions for the rest of the world. I am old, my brain doesn’t work like before. I go out less now, but I am very free.”
“For kids this age [2] the virus is not so much of a problem, they think they’re on an extended holiday! But for my other kids [age 4 and 7] it’s becoming really long … they need structure. They haven’t been in school since January 19. We’ve always been careful and paid a lot of attention to respecting the rules, I think that helped us a lot. But it’s difficult to manage both family and work - I just launched a brand 2 months before the virus, so all my sales collapsed and everything. I can survive, but I invested a lot. It’s tough, but I have hope in the future, and I’m fighting.”
“We just started working again in the last few days. We were scared to go back to building houses and doing construction, but not working isn’t an option either. We protect ourselves by wearing masks and disinfecting everything when we go home. Thinking too much about it doesn’t help. We’re just happy if we can eat three meals a day. The virus is our biggest concern, but we don’t have an income if we aren’t allowed to work. If other countries can control the epidemic, and there aren’t more infections, then that would be best. Hopefully we can all rebound from this.”
“When I talk to my friends in England, I tell them to wear a mask if they can, even though the government has been telling them to just keep calm and wash their hands. Try not to go out too much, but don’t panic or worry excessively. The biggest effect the coronavirus has made on our lives has been not to be able to go out as much - usually we go out every weekend but now it’s only if we really need to. I know that this will have a huge effect on everything. But now that things are starting to get better, we don’t need to worry too much.”
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