Plain citizens leave touching stories of fighting epidemic
By People’s Daily
The fight against the novel coronavirus involves everyone.
When medical personnel and community staff are working day and night on the front line to eliminate the virus, millions of plain citizens are also contributing their own efforts to the combat in which loss is never allowed.
Zhao Yong, Party chief of Longzhu village in Wenchuan county, southwest China’s Sichuan province, is one of the many who contributed power to the fight against the epidemic.
On Feb. 5, the 40-year-old man arrived in Wuhan, the epicenter, after a long ride by truck together with 12 fellow villagers, with 100 tons of vegetables to be donated to major hospitals in the city.
Zhao told People’s Daily that the donation was in reward for the assistance his hometown Wenchuan received from across the country after it was hit by the 8.0-magnitude earthquake in 2008.
When they were unloading the vegetables at the Second Hospital of Wuhan Iron and Steel Corporation, the last station of their trip, some cabbages rolled off a truck. Seeing this, the tough guy almost burst into tears, as these vegetables were the best ones they picked, and they had prepared for days before going to Wuhan.
Wakanda is a coffeehouse in Wuhan which could have suspended business due to the epidemic, but the shop is still operating, as some medical personnel from the Hubei Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine are its loyal customers. The employees of the coffeehouse decided to keep operating amid the epidemic, so that the medics can enjoy the coffee after a tiring day of fighting against the virus.
Iranian Sina Karami is among the baristas at the coffeehouse serving drinks for the medics. He had twice received notices from the Embassy of Iran in China that said his country had dispatched charter flights to take Iranians home. His colleagues also tried to persuade him to go home for safety concerns. However, the Iranian insisted on staying in Wuhan, saying he wanted to make coffee with his colleagues for the “angels in white”.
On Feb.12, Yuan Chuanwei, an executive of a precision machinery company in Xiangcheng district, Suzhou, east China’s Jiangsu province, sent a batch of disinfection equipment to Hubei. It was the second order the man received from one of his customers two weeks ago.
The order was completed by Yuan alone as all the five workers were not able to come back due to transportation regulation during the epidemic. For the past two weeks, he had lived and worked non-stop in the workshop, and could rest only when the machine was on automatic operation. “The past two weeks was tiring, but it was better than seeing lives taken by the epidemic,” Yuan said.
On the night of Feb. 16, Jiang Xiangbei had a video call with her wife who had just got off work from a tiring day in Taoyuan community, Jiang’an district of Wuhan. Zhang’s 16-month-old son was babbling on the call.
Zhang’s wife, who works for Hubei Airports Group Company Co., Ltd., had just been transferred to the community a week ago to join the latter’s efforts to fight the epidemic. As the woman lives in quarantined staff quarter, Zhang must shoulder the responsibility to taking care of the child alone.
“Although we raise the baby together, this time I’m on my own,” said Zhang, disclosing that he is now getting better and better at “baby-sitting”.
“Now I can change his diaper in just 20 seconds, and I even figured out how to quickly put him into sleep,” Zhang noted.
After the Spring Festival holiday, Zhang started working from home, which means the man has to handle his work and take care of his son at the same time.
“Now I know better what family is after experiencing the hard time. The epidemic will be over, and we must show up powerfully in our lives,” said Zhang, who is feeling happiness in the busy days.
