Backpacking Through An Epidemic
China
Undertaking some routine mailing in a post office in China, a box under the counter caught my eye. It couldn’t be…could it? Was I looking at a special edition SARS stamp collection?
The crimson package placed before me looked like a luxurious box of chocolates. Embedded in the cover was a plastic case containing none other than a thermometer, an image as indelibly linked to SARS as the hypodermic needle is to AIDS. And it was a real one, too, made in the U.S. Along the bottom of the page a band of writing in silver contained the English words SARS and Victory. In the hands of the Chinese propoganda department this was more than a disease. This was war.
The stamps and accompanying pictures in this expensive production revealed the new warriors. The eyes of a nurse peered out from over a surgical mask. Doctors examined a chest x-ray. Hands gripped wrists in a chain of solidarity. Hu Jintao, the new media-friendly President of China and Communist Party chief, led this scrubbed and masked batallion with an official address.
If only the enemy were as easy to define. An invisible killer oblivious to race, creed or political sympathies, SARS was more likely to strike at innocent family members and hospital staff than those at odds with Chinese orthodoxy. What’s more, China was exporting it through air travel, throwing an uncomfortable glare on this most secretive of countries and exposing mismanagement, cover-ups and denial.
As a backpacker caught in this maelstrom of infection and hysteria it was almost impossible to build up a composite, realistic picture of what was going on. The World Health Organisation website couched its distrust of Chinese estimates of the number of infected in the language of diplomatic encouragement. Itineraries changed daily, even hourly, as news filtered through that popular destinations were closing down. The tone of Internet discussion forums became ever more shrill and panicked as postings reported the virus could survive for 48 hours on plastic surfaces, or that death rates were possibly grossly underestimated.
The most rational response to all of this would be simply to get out. But even that was not as easy as it seemed. Rumours circulated of ten-day quarantines in Bangkok and other nearby transportation hubs. As tourists, we were perpetually caught in the conditional tense, our routines dictated by what-ifs and maybes. With little other than the WHO website to comb for hard facts, we were faced with rumours, half-truths and the spectre of the country closing down around our ears.
I may not have contracted SARS but the disease was definitely beginning to get to me. In the western capital of Chengdu, I met a twelve-year-old with startlingly good English who asked a lot of questions. Had I heard of SARS? Where had I been? Where was I going? When I realised we were being followed, my young companion placated me by telling me it was just his father making sure that he was safe.
The incident struck me as being a little odd, but it was not until I was later chatting with an English couple that the experience took on a rather more sinister hue. They too had been accosted by the young boy the day before and had similarly been followed around by his father. When the couple noticed the same man had been hanging around their hotel eavesdropping on tourists’ conversations, however, coincidence turned into conspiracy. Were Chinese children being employed as SARS spies?
However fast the disease was spreading through the populace, it had already terminally infected the Chinese media. Billboards showed classrooms of masked students. Television advertisements depicted the new regime of temperature checks, rigorous hand washing and disinfection. Famous Chinese painters created art works from surgical masks and melodramatic videos of anti-SARS anthems were on frequent television rotation. Even counterfeiters were cashing in on the screaming media presence with spurious Fendi and Gucci surgical masks. When in the clutches of a killer epidemic, one simply must accessorize.
The most surreal aspects of SARS could not hide the fear. During the early stages of the disease foreigners were exposed to some of its nasty side effects. Walking down the street would prompt children to scatter holding their mouths. Before temperature checks became routine, we were the only people hauled off buses by the whitecoats. Getting back on the bus, the air of suspicion from other passengers was palpable. One could hypothesize that SARS brought to the fore the historical Chinese distrust of outsiders. A more likely explanation, however, is that facing an indiscriminate killer can promote irrational behaviour – particularly if fueled by indiscriminate rumour.
It seems bizarre that only three months ago a pedicab driver confidently told me that SARS was a fiction invested by a Chinese pharmaceutical company to encourage greater medicine sales. What begs belief entirely is that by the end of June the disease had already been consigned to the dustbin of history in the public imagination. Trains and buses are once again crowded. The now routine temperature checks are so regulated and efficient that no one bats an eye.
Beijing has officially been given a clean bill of health by the WHO, and the numbers infected throughout the country are steadily falling. China has navigated the perilous waters of a highly infectious epidemic and emerged victorious in a blaze of patriotic resistance.
That’s if you can believe the official version of events. Pundits and China watchers claim that SARS is another nail in the coffin of the Communist Party, the most significant setback since the 1989 student protests in Tiananmen Square. The people of China yet again have conclusive evidence that their government was lying to them – a reality exposed by hundreds of deaths and international panic. It may be too early to predict the political ramifications of the disease, particularly when the country is wrestling to keep it under control.
One thing is certain. The culture of the cover-up got a bashing and no number of slick stamp collections will be able to camouflage that.
