He Was One of Us
I am sure you’ve heard this name by now: Li Wenliang.
Li was an ophthalmologist in his 30s. He was one of the eight doctors who first warned people about a SARS-like virus. He got reprimanded by Wuhan police for “spreading rumors and triggering public anxiety”. He was infected by the virus from a patient. He planned on going back to fighting the epidemic once he’s recovered. Sadly, he never had the chance. He passed away, according to official announcement, on 2:58 a.m., February 7th.
Among the 8 doctors who received official warnings, Dr. Li was the only one who later accepted interview requests from media. He did so because, in his own words, "there should be more than one voice in a healthy society."
Dr. Li’s passing shook the entire country. It wasn’t just “a” tragedy (we’ve seen so, so many of them over the past three weeks thanks to the stupid virus), but the tragedy that united the entire Chinese population into the same emotions: sadness, and anger.
The grief was so widespread and so profound. Instead of describing our feelings (no words can, and there’s no necessity, really), we want to use this article to remember what happened. In a time where every Chinese was stuck at home, because of Dr. Li, we all spoke out, questioned, connected with each other, and morned, altogether, as a force.
Thursday, February 6th.
It was another day of house arrest. Since the Chinese New Year (January 25th), Yan and I, along with all of our Chinese fellows, had been quarantined at home. Everyday, we woke up to check the national statistic updates on confirmed cases and death tolls, helplessly witnessing the numbers climbing up. Then, like the day before, and two days before, we ate, napped, interacted with our family members, and spent the rest of the time obsessing with social media. Again, like previous days, all people were talking about was the stupid virus. Our heads were stuffed with new information regarding Wuhan, we were worried, anxious, and in desperate hope for good news.
But only the opposite of good news came that evening.
Around 10 p.m., for the thousandth time in that day, I grabbed my phone to check WeChat Moments. Immediately I noticed something was wrong: my feed was flooded with one name, “Li Wenliang,” and everyone was talking about his death. On Weibo, things was exactly the same. The news of Dr.Li’s passing was like a thunderstorm swept crossed the entire Chinese internet.
"The hero who warned us all by sacrificing his life had just passed away..." Weibo post from a verified doctor at 22:14p.m.
National newspaper reporting Dr.Li's death on 10:43p.m.
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People were so shocked, and we had enough reason to feel so. On February 1st, Dr. Li confirmed on Weibo about his diagnosis of coronavirus, which was virtually just five days ago. Dr. Li was a young, healthy male only in his mid-30s, how on earth could the virus take away his life so easily and so quickly?!
Dr. Li confirming his diagnose on Feb 1st.
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Shock soon escalated to devastated anger. From the first coronavirus-infected patient being diagnosed in early December until mid-January when the officials finally admitted “there’s a clear sign of human-to-human transmission”, the Wuhan government had tried to cover the significance of the epidemic by doing what they are the most good at - information control. The astonishment paper Dr. Li and his 7 colleagues signed became the shame pole of the authorities' dishonored conduct, and a sad, dark joke that makes our hearts burn.
With Dr. Li’s passing, people's outrage toward the Wuhan authorities was finally nowhere to contain. We didn’t bother to hide it anymore, in a time when the entire nation was trapped by a virus, and the first one who came out to speak about it had paid his life.
The astonishment paper Dr. Li signed on January 3rd.
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We were all traumatized, and there was nothing we could do other than to mourn. From 10 to 11p.m., people sent out endless candle emoji, wrote poems, posted pictures, and paid tributes to Dr. Li in all means possible.
Then things took a sudden turn.
Around 11:30 p.m., news on Weibo broke that Dr. Li hadn’t passed away yet. According to Dr.Li’s friends and colleagues, he was still in the emergency room, and there was still hope.
Sources on Weibo claiming Dr.Li was still being rescued.
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Our first reaction was relief, of course. Unfortunately, such relief didn’t last long. Just a short while after the “still-in-rescue”news were out, a number of WeChat screenshots were leaked out. Although these screenshots’ authenticity were not proved, the contents were enough to drag the entire nation into a new wave of earth-shattering rage: they claimed that Dr. Li’s heartbeat had stopped around 9:30 p.m., only to be clinically rescued again to “calm the people down”.
"Leaders at the hospital said his death would be problematic. Better try again, even if he's still dead, it is a gesture of us trying."
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What. The. Fuck. Is. Going. On??
Our bodies were shaking, heads were buzzing. Several national newspapers had either deleted their previous Weibo regarding Dr. Li’s death, or came up with clarification claiming he was indeed still in rescue. But people didn’t buy it. We were too heated, too angry, and we didn’t bother to think about who were lying anymore (or it was more like, we finally came to realized there’s no way we could identity rumors, as the truths are always, always decided by the ones in power).
When Wuhan Central Hospital released an official statement saying Dr. Li was still in resuscitation at 00:38a.m, tens of thousands of people prayed for a miracle. Beyond praying, people also demanded the truth. In questioning the timeline, people citied two pieces of evidences in particular: a tweet by Word Health Organization at 10:25 p.m., paying tribute to Li’s death, and People’s Daily, a national Chinese newspaper’s tweet which also claimed his death.
“Like always, they say one thing to people outside the wall, and another thing to us.”
Wuhan Central Hospital, where Dr. Li was being treated, claiming Dr. Li was still being rescued.
"But they said another thing outside the wall."
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People were furious, but we were still waiting for the tiniest chance of a miracle. From 00:30 to almost 3 a.m., the Chinese internet became a battleground for public outrage v.s. censorship. People expressed, like never before, for the desire of truth, for transparency, and freedom of speech. Many of these expressions crossed the “red line”, but the people couldn’t care less. Words, pictures, videos popped up and vanished like snowflakes; many Weibo accounts were bombed away, many WeChat conversations were censored from the receiving ends, but with one being deleted, more came out.
Some of the outraged words on Douban and Weibo. (All had been cleaned up by now, of course)
One piece of content was being censored the quickest - national televisions' reports on Dr.Li's arrest in early January.
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While anxiously waiting for the final news, Yan and I contacted our Chinese colleagues, suggesting we post a eulogy in memory of Dr. Li regardless the result. Our editor-in-chief was in total agreement emotionally, but he had to warn us, as he had seen a piece of “reporting advise” being passed around in his WeChat groups, which are filled with Chinese journalists and media professionals.
"Avoid use of independent sources in reporting the death of Doctor Li Wenliang. Do not post commentary, don't overhype the emotions. No more Weibo hashtags, make sure the incident disappear from trending news gradually."
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HA.HA.HA.HA. F*CK it.
2:45 a.m. Our editor-in-chief clicked “send” for our Chinese company’s WeChat Official account, the content being a simple poem in memory of Dr. Li. It took more than 20 minutes for the post to be publicly delivered, we couldn’t tell whether it was due to internet traffic or censorship.
"Article waiting to be delivered."
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2:58 a.m. The official news was finally out from the hospital, confirming Dr. Li’s death.
3:30 a.m. In just half an hour, the post was read for more than 10,000 times. As it turned out, the entire nation was still awake.
We eventually put down our phones and went to sleep, but the anger and grief lingered, loud and clear, even after sunrise.
A friend 's Moment feed. Like everyone else, all he posted for the entire day was about Dr. Li Wenliang.
Followed by a night of troubled sleep, we woke up early to check WeChat. Our eulogy for Dr.Li survived, and was read by more than 100,000 people within hours.
The public mourning for Dr. Li continued both online and offline on an unprecedented scale. In a time where the entire population was advised to stay indoor, people in Wuhan still went out and placed flowers at the Wuhan Central Hospital to pay their tributes. At 9 p.m., a large number of Wuhan citizens spontaneously organized memorial services at home. People dimmed house lights, blew whistles, and waved their flashlights into to the sky to say farewell to Dr. Li, the whistleblower.
One of the cards wrote, “the long night is coming, I shall begin my watch until death comes.”
A guy in Beijing wrote “Farewell Li Wenliang” on snow, and lied his body down as an exclamation mark.
On social media, the public gathered on Dr. Li’s own Weibo page. Broken-hearted netizens went through all of his previous Weibo posts in pure wish to get to know more about him. As it turns out, Dr. Li was a funny, passionate, chilled young man who very much enjoyed recording his ordinary life. He loved fried chicken. He was obsessed with this year’s trending TV drama. He complained about the ridiculously high price of cherries. And he dreaded to go to work.
He was just like every one of us; he was one of us.
Some of the snippets from Dr. Li's Weibo.
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It might seemed that the nation-wide grief had cracked an open window on the tight censorship, allowing us to mourn for Dr.Li. In reality, proposals on taking an action to commemorate the whistleblower were all quietly taken down. Due to the confusing death announcement of Dr.Li, many had questioned his actual time of death and the rescue process. After all, we can’t bear the fact that the last hours of his life was mercilessly manipulated as a tool to control the public emotion. Sadly, all of these questioning posts had vanished, again, just like snowflakes.
On Feb 7th, I reposted the words “No. Can’t understand” alongside with thousands of other people as a revolt against the admonishment of Dr.Li. The post is no longer viewable by anyone else expect myself.
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Collective anger was not a usual thing on Chinese social media, especial during the past two years, when internet censorship and patriotic propaganda had worked hand-in-hand to lure the public into an “amazing China” narrative. The narrative had showed signs of crack in 2019, when economic growth slowed down and private enterprises went into trouble, but it stayed solid at least from the outside. Then, coronavirus hit, and Dr. Li passed away.
Something had certainly tumbled down.
The day after Dr.Li died, a commentary “If you think our country is not good enough, you should help constructing it” triggered a mass revolt. Having witnessed the incompetence of the authorities against the virus, people were simply tired of the collectivistic argument that we bear the responsibility of building the nation. The argument quickly turned into a sarcastic meme as people began to joke about all undesirable phenomenons are caused by their own actions.
“If you think your country is not good enough, you should help constructing it. If you think porks are too expensive, you could become a pig…if you become a pig, pork wouldn’t be over-priced anymore!”
“If you think the Oscars is not good enough, you should help constructing it. If you don’t like Parasite winning Best Picture, try to become a voting member yourself.” (Yes, many people are struck by the fact that Korean films are winning the Oscars and what we are showing the world is the Wolf Warrior.)
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A set of WeChat screenshots was leaked a couple of days ago (yes, again, screenshots!), where several acclaimed Chinese investors were holding heated arguments on whether it was the disease or the authority that had taken away Dr.Li's life. It was rare to see political commentaries from the business community in China, but the death of Li had certainly evoked their emotions so deeply that they had to take a stand.
A civilized group-chat turned into hurl insults due to members' different political views.
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Almost ten days have passed since Dr. Li’s death, and the people’s demand for vindication of Dr.Li as a rumor monger hasn’t been answered yet. On February 7th, he National Supervisory Commission announced a “comprehensive investigation” into the issue, so far, nothing out.
It's OK, we have time. We’ve all been waiting, and we will keeping waiting, keep remembering, and keep calling for a result, an answer, a truth.
"The First Seven" refers to the seventh day since a person's death. On Dr. Li's First Seven, a lot of public mournings were erased.
Thanks for writing this.
Thanks for being a honest, independent voice. Similarly, I was so angry as I was following the news, how could someone possibly “died twice”? The absurdity of the situation made me laughed and howled at the same time.
Like everyone, I am waiting, and I hope it is worth the wait.
我很爱我的祖国，但是我现在真的非常难过。
That’s why this freedom on this kinda sites and Facebook YouTube and VPN services etc etc are forbidden because on this the censorship in China doesn’t have any grip! Farewell Doctor Li Rest In Peace
My brothers and sisters in China, you are in my prayers. Thank you for sharing your honest reporting. My heart is so sad about Doctor Li!
I just read this today and… he’s been so forgotten by now.
Yes. We all spoke out, questioned, connected with each other, and morned, altogether, as a force. But as a force against whom?
我操你们的妈，有毛病吧，觉得中国的疫情防控不行……那你们可以等着看，纽约市长说什么百分之八十都是轻症，好啊，你们等死吧
第一，全篇文章我们是在悼念李医生，没有评论中国的疫情防控。不过钟南山院士团队前两天发表的论文表示疫情管控措施如果提前几天实行，感染人数将小得多。想象一下李医生的声音当初没有被压下来，现在全国乃至全球的情况又将有何不同？第二，中国cdc的一篇论文也说80%是轻症，就是不知道纽约市长的话和我们有什么关系？
先哲曾书写，爱国进步民主科学？
先哲…曾书写…爱国进步民主科学？
Do you hear the people sing?