Celebration and mourning during New Year in Chinese countryside, corona not over

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  Sjoerd den Daas

  correspondent China

The red of Chinese New Year predominates, at the beginning of the Year of the Rabbit. But for an unknown number of families, the lanterns will turn white this year. The color of mourning, the color of death. Covid may be on the wane, the face masks are gone: in rural China, the funerals are not over yet. Fireworks sound everywhere, also for the dead.

The K21 has the dubious honor of being one of the slowest booms left in China. From Beijing, this train stops at almost every intermediate station. In between, by the way, to let the slightly less slow green trains pass by. But for Jiang, who is on his way from the Chinese capital to his parents in Quanzhou, the 26-hour journey after three years of corona restrictions has been a blessing.

“The tickets for this train are also a lot cheaper than those for the express train,” he says in one of the intermediate compartments, where several men light another cigarette. “You close your eyes and you’re at your destination,” laughs Jiang, whose parental home is closer to the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi than to Beijing. Beds in trains like this are often sold out these days, because people are traveling again.

The Ministry of Transport expected nearly 2.1 billion travel movements in the 40 days around the country’s major holidays this year. Still about 30 percent lower than for ‘Wuhan’, but a doubling compared to 2021. According to the figures, tourism accounts for only 10 percent of the total number of trips. These are mainly family visits: 55 percent of the total. This is also the case on the K21, which has Nanning as its final destination.

“I haven’t been home in years,” says a mother, with baby and toddler on her 36-hour journey. “Glad it’s possible again.” The same goes for a young student from Beijing. “Last time I celebrated Chinese New Year with my grandparents, we had never heard of corona,” he says, his father by his side. “This is the first time in three years,” says the student.

These people are not afraid to infect parents and grandparents during the New Year’s Eve. Not even around the Hunanese city of Hengyang, where an above average number of people disembark. “All that hassle with corona tests and scanning QR codes,” says Zou, who chops wood to stoke the stove. He works in the factory hall in Guangdong, a little further away, but is home for Chinese New Year.

“You couldn’t go anywhere, while corona is nothing. I had it myself. Then you took some medicine and you were back.” In the market in the nearby town of Baidishi, face masks, worn in the countryside anyway not as disciplined as in Beijing, have all but disappeared. “We are infected and now immune,” says one of the market vendors, who slaughters animals in front of you. He sells lamb, dog meat and beef.

In rural areas, there seem to be hardly any concerns about covid:

The outbreak is on the decline, top epidemiologist Wu Zunyou also noted at a press conference last weekend. More than 80 percent of the population is said to have been infected by now. “From the large to the medium-sized and smaller cities, to the province: the peak of the epidemic has passed.”

It is indeed a lot quieter at the village clinics. In the village of Hongtang, several villagers play card games in the health center, and they gamble. The village doctor is nowhere to be seen.

Earlier this month there were medicine shortages, villagers had to look online for paracetamol. “Last month everyone was positive here,” says the young farmer Li. “But it hasn’t been as serious here in the village as in the big cities,” he says. Yet also here many, mostly older people are said to have died. There is no time to find out: the police urge us to leave shortly afterwards.

The healthcare system in rural China consists of three links. After the village clinics come the local health centers, then the regional hospitals. Only the latter is somewhat equipped to actually proceed to treatment. Those who can do that will skip the first two links, although the biggest crowds in the regional hospitals are now over.

That does not mean that covid no longer causes victims in China. A little further on, in the village of Pengjiawan, it turns white and the sounds of the local funeral band can be heard. “She was 80 years old,” says one of the relatives of the deceased woman, whose photo is proudly displayed in the otherwise bare living room. “Covid was the last straw. She had several ailments, her health was not too good.”

Outside, the guests devour a true feast, hundreds of thousands of bangers are fired. “I don’t really know anyone who hasn’t had it,” says one of them. Something that gives hope to the authorities, who are yearning for better news after the initial chaos. “In the short term, in the next two to three months, the chance of a second wave is not great,” said epidemiologist Wu.