By ACC Delen
I was on my way to work last Wednesday when one of my neighbors almost bumped into me as she quickly ran back to her flat. Seeing the quizzical look on my face, she shouted back, “Wode kuzhou wo dai wang le!” Loosely translated as “I forgot my face mask!” I just smiled at her and went on my way. It was only later on in the day that I started reflecting on that incident. Here I am, in possibly the safest place on Earth pandemic wise and yet, people are willing to be inconvenienced in order to get a facemask before leaving their homes.
For us who have just come back to Shanghai after several months of being locked out of China, this small incident is specially palpable since we have just come from the Philippines on the heels of soaring CoVid 19 cases. So much so that if ever there was a time or a place to be vigilant about protecting ourselves as well as others, it is now and in our home country. Yet, why were we not able to do that? Is wearing a face mask that onerous? Ironically, when we left, the government has just mandated the wearing of facemasks AND face shields when going out in public. Guess what happened? More people began wearing facemasks but NOT face shields. For some reason, people are always one step behind like a student who’s a number behind when following directions in class…as if we are perpetually set on “delayed reaction”.
I do not want to believe that the Filipino people are naturally stubborn or hard headed. Nor are we the type to tempt fate especially when it comes to something as fatal as CoVid 19. But I did wonder, would I have had the same experience of a neighbor going back for a face mask knowing full well that the bus she was about to take to work was right around the corner? I can’t say for sure but what I am certain of is, people saying, “That’s an isolated incident…don’t generalize. “That’s just it folks, “isolated incidents” get repeated in some way or form that eventually sums up to something so much bigger…so much more significant.
Think of it this way, someone else, aside from myself could have seen the lady running back for her face mask and was reminded of his or her own face mask. Checked that he/she has it. Reminded someone else and that other person passed it on to another. Before we know it, we already have a whole neighborhood being vigilant about wearing face masks, which then spills over and creates a domino effect. Then we would have people helping not only in keeping themselves safe from the virus but their communities as well.
This brings us to the idea of communities. In here, the compound you live in is considered your closest community. Part of living in that compound is the requirement of registering with the community management office for your compound and the police station for the larger government unit. Much like the “barangay” back home. This way, the local government and by extension the larger units are aware of who is within a particular community. Every time a person moves from one place to another even if it is just the next building in the same compound, the process is repeated and the system is duly updated. Thus, contact tracing is so much more efficient. However, the efficacy of the system still goes down to the individual like my neighbor who ran back for her face mask.
Everyone, including foreigners like myself is aware and made aware of the duty to register. Does anyone resist or complain about this being burdensome or being an infringement of one’s civil liberties? Not that I know of…or at least none of the expats around me have complained or grumbled about it. It is just one of the things one must do when living in China.
What then is the point of all this? Everything boils down to one. One individual who goes back for his or her own face mask. One individual who reminds another. One individual who helps another (More on this in succeeding columns). One individual who does not take a bribe. ONE INDIVIDUAL WHO CHOOSES WISELY during elections. I can go on ad nauseam but you get it, don’t you?**
