My Conversation with a PhD Student from Wuhan

"There’s the local government, community government, even the apartment-level government"

Java Cabana sits on the edge of Cooper Young, Memphis’ most bohemian neighborhood, boasting a minor queer scene, reflected in the flagship street’s rainbow crosswalks. Jay Retard, a local indie rocker and quaint atavism of Memphis’ musical heritage, died not far from here when I was 10.

It is also between two other notable neighborhoods: the Annesdale-Snowden historic district, to which I owe my name, and Orange Mound, one of the first neighborhoods built by and for blacks in the US, resting on the former plantation of John George Deaderick. Today, it is regarded as one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Memphis.

Perhaps this is why when I arrive at this bohemian grove abutting a mound, I peer around the corner of Java Cabana, only to find a man with his pants falling down in the middle of the street, doing what, I am unable to glean.

I give the spectacle a wide berth and wait inside the coffee shop that is actually a repurposed single-family home, the wall unit AC cranked to 63, the oversaturated thrift store wall art catching a few spare rays from the midday sun. Here, I am to meet Rachel, a PhD student from Wuhan researching neurodegenerative diseases.

She arrives and is promptly informed that there is no avocado, no chicken, and no caramel for the particular coffee drink she had designs on. (It’s those pandemic supply chain disruptions, I want to say.) To my surprise, she is remarkably open about the thing I am wondering about, but do not quite know how to broach.

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My grandfather got sick first. This was January. But by that point, you couldn’t even get a doctor’s appointment. So we had to take my grandfather to the emergency room… but everyone was going to the emergency room by now. I remember that there was a very long line out of the emergency room, and my mom, I have a video of her in the emergency room, she didn’t know what to do.

Did people know what had happened? Did the officials say anything?

No, no one knew. You know it was very close to Chinese New Year, so everyone was getting ready to travel. My family—we are actually from Wuhan—but this year we were going to travel. It was going to be our first big trip as a family. It was going to be my grandfather’s first trip. We had everything ready. We had cleaned the refrigerator. And then the officials came out and said there is a big problem, and we need everyone to stay in place. That was it.

Was your grandfather okay?

He passed away.

I’m sorry to hear that.

Well, now I think that was probably the best thing. Because he didn’t have to live through everything after that. He died very peacefully.

So when they told you to stay home, did this mean you couldn’t leave your apartment?

Right.

How did you get food?

That’s a good question, actually. Because, since we were planning to leave for the New Year, we had thrown all the food in the refrigerator away. We had very basic things, like rice. We had rice, flour, and oil, some cabbage, and some sausage in the freezer. You know my mom, she likes playing with flour. Frying, baking, something like that. So she was experimenting with flour all the time. But the truth is I don’t like flour foods. But my dad and I still had to eat whatever she made.

My father is funny, though. He is a bridge engineer. And whether he works or not, he wants to have breakfast very early. He likes a routine. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner, whether he works or not. But my mom and I like to get up late and eat late if we don’t have to work. So he would get up very early, and would have to cook for himself or eat some leftovers.

But it was always the same thing: flour, potatoes, or cabbage. I never knew there were so many ways to cook flour, potatoes, and cabbage!

How long did you have to stay in your apartment?

Half a year.

(Officially, the Wuhan lockdown lasted 76 days, but this does not account for apartment-level restrictions.)

Was it just you and your parents? Did that bring you closer?

I’m an only child, so it was just the three of us. But the truth is that every day, we were fighting. One day it's me and my father, maybe tomorrow it's my mom and my father. We tried not to all fight at the same time.

What were you fighting about? Leftovers?

Oh, yes, that’s tricky. I thought you said I could have it. Stuff like that.

My mom, sometimes she had cooked lunch already when I was still sleeping. So my father would come in and wake me up immediately. And I was angry because maybe I hadn’t gone to bed until the morning. I would say Why did you wake me up? You can just eat yourself. And then he would be very upset and ask Why did you yell at me? And then he would be upset, and I would be upset, and my mom would just eat by herself.

I think the worst thing was that we didn’t know when it would be over. We didn’t have a deadline.

So, how did the government communicate with you?

WeChat usually. I mean, we have different levels of government. There’s the local government, community government, even the apartment-level government. So it’s one by one. Sometimes they use WeChat, but sometimes they leave a note on the door. They would knock, and then later you would come and get the note later.

After about three months, the government started delivering food, so I could eat something other than cabbage and sausage.

But what did you do before that? What if someone ran out of food?

Well, my grandma lives alone. So the government would maybe give her some extra food, or maybe call her every day to check out, something like that. Because even though we are in the same community, we couldn't go check on her.

But you said you couldn’t leave the apartment for three months before they started delivering food. I feel like most people would run out of food.

If you ran out, you could message the government. But then you wouldn’t have any choice. They would just give you whatever they have. It's very vegan, like, potato, onion, something like that. It's easy to chew.

Microwave food?

No, just basic ingredients. And some of the food, I remember my father mentioning this was the kind of food they used for war. Like it’s been frozen for storage. That’s why the pork—it doesn't really look like pork. It’s frozen-for-50-years pork. There’s no taste of protein. But it’s better than sausage and cabbage every day.

So you said you were in your apartment for six months. Could you ever go into a courtyard at your apartment complex? Or something like that? Or you had to be in your apartment unit?

We had to be in our home. But after three or four months, they said one person in the family could go to the market once a week. Outside markets, you know. And since I’m the youngest, the strongest, I was the one who went. And I remember I would carry this huge wad of cash—you know, in China we don’t really use cash—but it was so much money, and I remember thinking wow, I’m rich. But of course, you could only spend it at the market, because everything was closed down.

And my father would ask me to get cigarette packs. He would always whisper to me to bring back a few. But I didn’t know where to get them because the stores were all closed. But what is weird is that—my mom noticed this, too—my father, even though I never bought him cigarettes, he always had some. We don’t know where they came from, but he always had some.

He must have been rationing them.

Well, my mom was very curious. She would ask me where does he keep getting these cigarettes? He’s still smoking nonstop.

So what was it like when you would go out? You were just the only person around?

At that stage, it was just me, and then the grocery vendors had their stuff on the ground. And you know the price of the groceries was very high—that was why I had so much cash. I never knew that onions could be so expensive!

What were your hobbies during this time?

Well, my mom, like I said, she would play with flour; she could check the recipes online and make different flour products.

And my father… My father, you know, he’s a simple man. Since we have a small porch, he liked to go out and smoke. But I always thought it looked very sad. From the porch, you couldn’t see any cars or people.

Sometimes we played pao (paodekuai) [跑得快]. And my father was very good. It almost felt like he was cheating because he always knew my cards. But he didn’t cheat. He knew how to do the calculations or something.

And I would do some exercises on the TV, like following the screen with my mom. But we didn’t do that for very long, just a couple of days.

I know it’s a hard question, but do you think that the Wuhan approach was good? Maybe we just didn’t know enough and needed to shut everything down? Or maybe it was too restrictive?

I think the government had no choice. Nowadays, we might say it was a bit too much, but at the time we didn’t know what was happening. You know it was the Lunar New Year, the busiest time of year, and if everyone left Wuhan, what if they couldn’t come home after that? And like we talked about, they had to worry about food resources, medical resources.

Did you ever discuss where the virus might have come from? Like just with your family?

To be honest, at that time, we were just worried about surviving, so we didn’t really talk about whether it came from this or that place. Of course, a lot of people didn’t want to think that it came from Wuhan, just like people in the US wouldn’t want to say it came from the US, but today we know the first cases started in Wuhan.

But do people in China now have a theory of how it started? I mean, people in the US don’t even know, but there’s some debate.

Honestly, I don’t think people really think about it. It doesn’t really matter to us where it came from or how it started. We might care if someone used it to criticize China.

Do you know anyone who broke the rules? Anyone who just said I have to go outside?

Maybe someone did and they got away with it…. But it would be very serious, because you know if everyone breaks the rules, it’s okay, but if no one is breaking the rules then you stand out.

What I know, which is very sad, is that lots of people passed away. Not from COVID, they just couldn’t go to the hospital. And I know in my apartment there was a mom who gave birth by herself... Because you know, they didn’t have the medical resources at the hospitals.

Do you think anyone liked it? The lockdown? Did anyone say Ah, this isn’t that bad?

Well… I think I liked it? Sometimes I thought, ah, this is cool. I don’t need to worry about anything but my master’s thesis. I have food, even though it’s limited. I have my family. I can chat with my friends. I can sleep late. And everything was very new for me. It was a little exciting.

Well, it simplifies things, right? You know, there are people in the US who say they miss the pandemic, but of course, in the US, people could still go to the store, or just go outside.

But I think that’s because in the US most people live in single houses, and don’t live so close. But in China, most people live in apartments, very close together… so it’s not easy to control.

What was it like when the lockdown ended?

I remember my father would check the news, the WeChat group, every day, waiting. Once he got the notice, he was so excited. I had never seen him so excited for work.

But then we had to go back into lockdown not long after. And we thought, oh no, another six months. But this time it was just for a few days, two weeks, at a time.

I haven’t even asked, but how did you end up in Memphis? Did you come right after the lockdown?

Well, I finished my thesis during the lockdown. You know it was very funny, I did my defense online, so I just wore pajamas for pants. After that, I didn’t really want to go straight into a PhD, so I took a gap year.

First, I worked at a coffee shop part-time. It’s a different kind of work, you know? You just need to remember a recipe: milk, cream, coffee beans. Most of the time, it’s just washing, cleaning. So it’s nothing like research. I think I wanted a job like that because my brain was burned out. At first, I tried to go with my dad to his work, at the bridge sites, but he didn’t want me. So I just became a barista. This was for half the year.

Then I started a position at the cigarette research institute.

The what?

The cigarette research institute.

This was in Wuhan?

The coffee shop was in Wuhan, but the cigarette research was in Zhengzhou, Henan.

And what did you do?

I had to test the different cigarettes, the proportions, to improve the taste. You know some smokers like spicy, some like it more mild. And we have to know how much nicotine the cigarette has.

How do you test? Do you smoke? laughing

No, no, I don’t smoke. But there were actually a lot of people at the institution who did. And they could just smoke a cigarette and know the proportions. But I was just looking at the data. I did bring my dad cigarettes to try, though.

I know China has a big tobacco culture, but do you think people are starting to vape more?

Vaping?

E-cigarettes.

I think some young people are using e-cigarettes, but older people like my dad want to smoke. The funny thing is that during the pandemic, every program or every company had a huge decrease in profit, but cigarette companies were making more.

So could you order them during the pandemic?

No.

Maybe there was a black market?

Well, whenever they opened up, people would buy all the cigarettes because they were afraid of things shutting down again.

It’s like when people buy all the bottled water before a hurricane. laughing

Yes, you know my father could go a day without food, but he had to have a cigarette…

I talked about this a bit with you, but I’m interested in the birth rate issue. You know this is affecting Asia, Europe, Latin America… I know China is trying to boost its birth rate, too. They’re giving people money, things like that. Do you think this is working? Or will it work?

I don't think it's working… I don’t think it can really encourage people. In my opinion, you have more policies or laws to protect the mother's rights.

So what does that look like to you?

I think there needs to be a way to protect my property, my family’s property. If a woman marries, and she chooses to be a housewife, even though she doesn’t rule, she has obligations in the house, to take care of the family, to take care of children. So if she chooses to be a housewife, she should get something she deserves... But actually, this policy is a grey area. That is why I say people don’t like to get married, or have a baby, because these rights aren’t protected legally.

How aren’t they protected?

You know, there’s a very interesting new law in China, that if a couple marries, and the husband has another child outside of the marriage, the child outside the marriage still has the same right to inheritance. That’s why people say they aren’t protecting women’s rights.

So the mom is worried her property will go to another family?

Right.

Is it hard for women to get divorced in China?

Well, I know divorce is harder than getting married. You have to get a lottery.

A lottery?

If you choose to divorce, you have to go to the office and wait in line.

How long does that take?

Once you go to the office and start the process, you have a three-month coming down period. That means during this period, if one of you regrets, like Oh, I don’t want a divorce, then the divorce is over. And if you want to divorce again, you have to start over. That is awful.

I imagine that if you’re a woman and you’re trying to get divorced, a man might put a lot of pressure on you during the three months.

Yeah, so this is why there are a lot of people around me who don’t get the certification of marriage. They don’t go to the office and get married. They just kind of make a contract.

So is this a legal thing? Like a civil partnership?

The contract only talks about responsibilities. It’s kind of like marriage, but there’s no talking about marriage.

So, when people aren’t married, but they have a contract, do they have kids?

Yeah, they have kids.

Do you think these more flexible contracts are helping people have more kids? Since they feel like their rights are more protected?

I don’t really think so…

I mean, people just don't really want to have kids, right?

Especially with the girls around me, they just don't think marriage and children are that important. There are too many other things in their life now. I mean it's a good thing, but it's optional. It's optional. If I can find a very good man there, if I don’t have to give up my other things, then it would be a nice thing to have a baby. By the way, are you an only child?

I have an older sister.

You know there's an old saying in China.. If the family has a big sister and a little brother, the older sister says that I have two slaves in the world: one slave is my little brother, and the other slave is my husband. And the difference between these slaves is that my brother won’t leave me forever.

That's a good one. laughing

It's no offense.

Oh no, I love hearing stuff like that. Is this a recent thing?

Well, I don’t have any experience like that. I’m an only child, and like my cousins, they are all the only child. But when people had two or three kids, it was a saying.

I mentioned that in Korea, all the young people are trying to live in Seoul, but I saw that China is trying to get younger people to move to rural areas. Do you think some young people will do that?

I think there are still a lot of people who prefer to go back to their hometown. I still know lots of people who prefer to go back to Wuhan, even though they might spend time in the bigger cities. Later, they come back.

Well, you have the hukou, right? So you can’t just move to the biggest cities as easily?

For big, famous cities, like Shanghai, it’s hard to get hukou, but in other cities, if you have a job or are in graduate school, it isn’t that hard. I think it is only a problem if you want to buy a house in that city.

Do you think the hukou helps people stay out of cities like Shanghai?

It’s still very popular, you get more choices, you have more community, you make more money.

But it’s harder, right? If you’re from Shaanxi, a rural area, and you want to go to Beijing, you can’t just enroll your kids in the school immediately, right?

Right, that’s why I say people come back after a few years.

How different is the Wuhan dialect from Putonghua?

To me, the Wuhan dialect does not sound very nice… If someone from outside Wuhan heard a Wuhan conversation, they would think Wow, they’re fighting, but actually, no, that’s just how it sounds.

Can you give an example of the difference between Wuhan and Beijing dialect?

If you wanted to say, Did you have breakfast? in Putonghua, you would say, Nǐ chī zǎofàn le ma? But in Wuhan dialect, you would say, Gòzǎo lèi ma?

(NB: Have you eaten? is a common Chinese greeting.)

That’s pretty different. A lot shorter.

It’s shorter and sharper.

Can people outside Wuhan understand?

Not much.

Do you speak Wuhan dialect with your family?

Actually, my parents didn’t teach me the Wuhan dialect. But I will say that’s abnormal within Wuhan families. I think they wanted me to just know the Beijing dialect since it’s more proper.

Do you do calligraphy by chance? I’ve seen so much calligraphy at museums, but I feel like I can’t appreciate it. I saw the government is promoting it as an extracurricular.

No, to be honest, I cannot even remember how to write the characters sometimes… laughing. You know, when I was a kid, I even had trouble with my own name because it’s a very difficult name to write.

What does it look like?

(She writes it.)

It looks traditional.

Yeah, but it’s simplified. My grandfather gave it to me. And I remember in school, I couldn’t remember how to write it, and the teachers told my parents, Oh my god, she still can’t write her name. And they would make me stay after school and write my name hundreds of times.

Do you have a favorite Chinese dynasty?

I like the Tang Dynasty the most. You know, this was a time when women had a lot more power in China, and they would dress very beautifully. It was before people started worrying about the size of body parts…

Foot binding.

Right. And the culture was more open during this time.

When I was in Xian, I saw lots of women wearing these colorful dresses everywhere. I guess this was the Tang style? (Xian was still the capital during the Tang Dynasty.)

Yeah.

A Tang-era Qixiong ruqun (齊胸襦裙)

What is something that surprised you about living in the US? What feels very different than China?

When I was at a traffic stop one morning, I saw two cars in front of me. This was early, and there weren’t any other cars around. And then I saw one person from the car get out and hand the other person a white package… And I realized they were dealing drugs.

I also had two bikes, and they both got stolen. That is why I got my car.

Did you know Memphis’ reputation in the US before you came?

I knew that it was not a good reputation. When I moved here, my advisor—he’s Japanese—he told me it’s not so safe, so you need to behave well. Don’t break the rules, and carry some cash with you.

And he told me not to take the bus, even around the medical center. It’s funny because I was in Baltimore and could take the bus, but I didn’t understand why I couldn’t take the bus here.

Another thing that surprised me, not a bad thing, but I learned to ice fish when I was in North Dakota.

Where?

North Dakota.

You were in North Dakota?

Yes, I started my graduate studies there, but my advisor moved to Memphis, so I followed him.

What do you see as the difference between the culture of North Dakota and Memphis?

North Dakota is much more peaceful and slow-paced. People are kind. They talk to you.

So, where have you been in the US? You’ve lived in Memphis, Baltimore, North Dakota…

I’ve visited New York, Boston, Seattle, Los Angeles.

So you've seen all the major regions. If you had to live in the US, where would you choose?

It would depend on the research opportunities.

So you would stay in Memphis?

Yeah, I like Memphis.

But where do you think you would do the best socially? I guess, where would you feel the most comfortable, like with the people, finding friends, things like that?

I have to say that North Dakota would be comfortable... The people are friendly. I had a very good time being myself there.

(The Memphis Stoic Club has suddenly intruded on the back room at Java Cabana to inform us that they booked the room many weeks ago for this time slot, and though we can stay if we would like (they are stoics after all), we gather that we should move rooms, which also changes the topic.)

In the US, we have this concept, public intellectuals, so people who share their opinions on things like politics and culture. Some of them have large audiences. Are there any people like this in China?

I don’t think so… People mostly follow IPs (livestreamers).

What about writers? Who is a Chinese writer you like?

I have always liked Bai Yansong. I like him because he just gives you the facts. You know he was a war correspondent during the Iraq War, and he’s a very big deal. He’s been around a long time. He’s written books about different countries. He did a book about drug trafficking, I forget where it was.

You know, in China, if you say the wrong thing, your career might be over. But he is someone who knows how to talk about things in a way that gets to the government. The government will listen to certain people to find out what is happening. Like if housing is expensive, you can’t just come out and say Oh my god, housing is so expensive or complain about rich people, but he knows how to discuss these things in a way that gets to the leaders.

What do people in China think of the Iraq War?

I don’t think people really have opinions about it.

But what does someone like Bai Yansong say about the US invading Iraq?

He doesn’t give opinions about it. He doesn’t write like I think that… He just presents facts. You know he covered the drug trade, too, and he shows how families are growing these drugs, but he never makes a judgment about if it’s good or bad. It’s for you to decide on your own.

So, the US just bombed Iran. Did you hear about that?

Yeah.

What are people in China saying about that? On social media?

In China, the truth is that we don’t really discuss politics like that. Because if you discuss politics, it will just be taken down.

Even about foreign countries?

Well, if there is something that affects China directly, like gas prices, people might talk about it, but usually not.

In the US, if you go back to 2016, a lot of people were very worried about disinformation on the internet. So if there were posts that were inaccurate on Facebook, a lot of people wanted Facebook to be responsible for these posts, maybe to take them down. And Facebook would just say, That’s not our job, it’s freedom of speech. So I think a lot of people in the US are grappling with this—how do you balance freedom with controlling false information? Do you think China is doing a good job of this?

It’s good and bad. Sometimes, like you say, there are people putting false information online, and I think stuff like that should be controlled, because that can harm people—you cause a panic or something like that.

And sometimes there are things that are just subjective. So if there’s an actor and on social media, someone is saying something about his life—oh he has lots of girlfriends or something. They are giving you an interpretation, but if I read that, and I see that this actor had an affair, then that might mean that I don’t appreciate his movie. Even though they might have done other good things, and even though it might be a good movie.

We have a word for people like this, keyboard soldiers. But the problem is that someone has to decide what is okay and what isn’t, and this is also subjective.

So that would be removed? If I said something bad about an actor?

It would probably be hidden.

But in day-to-day life, you talk about things like celebrity gossip, right?

Yes, at girls' schools especially. It’s just online that it’s an issue.

What do you think the best thing about the US is?

I think people here can do what they want to without worrying about what other people think. People aren’t judgmental. I think the research is better than China's, too.

Really? Why?

Well, in China, it’s too competitive. You know, 996, that is real, and getting grants is very difficult. Here, people have better funding, and they’re more relaxed. They feel like they can work on the things they want to. They have a life outside of the lab.

Are most people in your lab immigrants?

Most of the people in my lab are Chinese.

But China's universities have gotten good at research in recent years. The citation numbers are very good.

Oh, but you don’t see what’s going on behind that... laughing