Living in exile

Today is the first day of our freedom from self-quarantine. Or should I say self-isolation? The word “freedom” is more uplifting than it sounds. It does not feel as exciting as it should. In fact, the first thing I wanted to do is to throw away all of our accumulated kitchen waste (two weeks worth, signed, sealed, delivered). I did not want to just put our kitchen waste outside the door like our piece of shit neighbor. This neighbor of ours sometimes leaves waste with juices flowing out of the bag and they do not care. It is amazing how people can be awful.

Today's task was to get rid of the waste and then to buy food and other stuff that will be good for a week or two. The reason is so we do not have to go out more than once in a week or maybe two weeks. I also want to minimize the reliance on JD. Too many boxes and packages, and I am not sure if there is an option to just get all packages at once rather than separately.

So I went out for about 1.5 hours. I did not take public transportation at all. It was good to walk the streets again. Some changes here and there. Most places were closed. There were checkpoints in every major entrance to every neighborhood. Temperature guns everywhere. You see some people not cooperating with the checkpoints. Walking the streets felt good because there was not a lot of people and I do not have to check my back every time. I am able to walk leisurely without having to worry about a bike or a motorcycle (especially those with big carts attached; was bumped twice before). I am surprised that motorcycles are not using the main roads given that there are not a lot of cars.

I also noticed the same habits from people (especially old fucks). I saw a family of old folks gathered drinking tea without their masks (again not that there is anything wrong with it). I also saw a couple of old folks spitting (not forbidden by the three word propaganda). I also saw the most egregious waste of space (an old guy has one of those coveted N95 masks but his nose was exposed!!!!!). I also saw smokers continuing business as usual (I really hoped the propaganda will forbid this, but people may get angry). I know that there have been declines in cases in China, assuming official data are reliable. But these moments showing lack of concern for the fellow person just grinds my gears. I wonder if they are lost causes. Will punishing them even work?

What I saw during my 1.5 hour walk and shop activity just increases the incentive to just be a hermit. The whole shopping business was quite tiring. I was logging around about 10 kg worth of goods while walking. I felt I had reached my quota for exercising for the month! When I got home, I was so tired and I also wanted to have a very cold bath. The shopping has interesting moments. One look from the lady who sells me beef parts and she already knew what to sell to me. I guess I am a big buyer who does not complain unlike those who buy morsels but complain to death.

When I got home, I started cooking and prepping the dishes. I initially planned to cook and prep six dishes. But in the end, I cooked two complete dishes (gyudon and a boiled beef soup with potatoes and carrots) and started the prep for three (beef slices for bibimbap, beef marinade for a Dutch dish called zuurvlees, and Filipino-style beef jerky). I think there should be more than enough variation to last us for a week or two. I am going to make a Lebanese eggplant dish tomorrow so that we could have vegetables too.

These activities took almost 6 hours in total. A lot of work really. I really do not want to use these delivery apps whenever possible. The rest of the time was spent doing admin stuff, reading a thesis I am supervising (quite a late submission), and giving feedback to submitted solutions for a self-test for my course.

I have not blogged in the past days because there is a lot on my mind and I need to organize my thoughts a bit before I dump it all here. Some things on my mind: rumors as deliberate interventions to get feedback, the opportunity to observe outcomes related to the coronavirus in South Korea and Japan and how these outcomes can be construed as a sanity check on China's numbers, changes in definition and how to adjust for them in data analysis, the role of doubling down in decision making under uncertainty, the possible seasonality of the effects of the virus, how false sense of security can impede communication and planning. These are all messing around in my mind and that is on top of the online delivery of my course.

Zoom was a very good platform for livestreaming. Somehow it feels much better to have dead air online than in the classroom. I did a lot of interactive discussions and I am glad to uncover mistakes in understanding. I hope the students benefited from that. I also asked people who submitted solutions to explain some curious answers. Some were unable to actually explain what they wrote and I called them out on that. Next time, I will be asking them to screen-share. I wonder if the university could send out Wacom tablets to everyone to facilitate discussion.

There was a moment during the day when the topic of grants came up. Somehow it feels that we should give up our grant money (some of which are used for frivolous topics in light of the current situation) to buy time and to donate it towards the research (that would hopefully be peer-reviewed) on the coronavirus, to pay people at the frontlines, to provide living necessities for our female doctors and patients, and to reinforce logistical support. I think this may be a better use of the power of donations.

Finally, I have yet to start a discussion on the “trust system” here in China. A reader made a comment about cultural differences in attitudes toward responsibility in the US and China. Bureaucracies regardless of origin rely on a one-size-fits-all approach. Exceptions are the poison of bureaucracies. I hope that bureaucratic enforcement could be more surgical. If a professor is a piece of shit (and frankly they are abundant and should be exposed for who they are), then a well-functioning bureaucracy should target this professor and micro-manage the shit out of this person. A dysfunctional bureaucracy makes it everyone's problem. This dysfunction erodes the strong sense of responsibility that some people may feel.

No last quotes yet but I hope to start again soon.