What do we want to be "normal"

Maybe you have seen this picture: When classes resumed, a group of kindergarten children, each with a printed QR code hanging on their chests, lined up to do nucleic acid.

I couldn't find the source for a while. Baidu's "children hang QR code" searched for the incident in Xingyang, Henan Province in November last year, but the children's clothes on the picture were much thicker, and this time it was obviously summer clothes. However, it may not be so important where it happened. After all, we all know that as long as the epidemic does not end, this scene can appear anywhere in the country.

It's not surprising that many people's reactions are "so cute" and "beautiful enough to make people feel distressed", but to be honest, the first reaction I saw was very uncomfortable: Have you ever thought about your child's self-esteem by doing this? Don't think that the child doesn't understand - my second child is 9 years old, and he said disdainfully: "I don't want to hang this kind of dog tag!"

Children are a special target of current epidemic prevention and control: on the one hand, almost all public places will not check children, and parents who want to check are also checked; but on the other hand, they can be said to be the most strictly checked objects. Shanghai primary and secondary schools will return to school on August 31, but since the 29th, parents must report that their children are negative for nucleic acid within 24 hours every day - adults only require 72 hours.

Even so, it is even possible to overweight. Yesterday afternoon, the eldest brother was going to take a robotics class, but the education and training institution said that those who have already done the test but did not get the result are not counted. They only recognize the 24-hour green code. "No way, it is stipulated by the Education Bureau." Although we found out later that this was probably their own overweight, we can only delay the child to do nucleic acid testing early in the morning, because the nucleic acid test result has to wait 5-7 hours. If it is done too late, then there will be no Law class. For this, yesterday morning, the house jumped around for a while.

The problem isn't how troublesome it is to poke in the throat, it's that it forces everyone's life rhythm to revolve around it, and it's exhausting. More importantly, you don't know why it is necessary to do this, why does the child have to have a 24-hour nucleic acid report, so that the extra code can give the child more safety?

This is the kind of overprotection you don’t want, and it even makes people feel as if parents don’t have the full right to protect their children’s physical and mental health, and it’s not up to you to decide what’s good for your children—just like “living for the country” Baby" implies, "your child is not your child", you are raising a healthy and qualified member of the country.

It's not just Shanghai that does this. 24-hour nucleic acid is now said to be a new folk custom in Shenzhen. Do nucleic acid every morning, and if you don’t do it, you will be called to death. You don’t have to go out every day. Line up on the outer three floors. Not to mention children, they must be tested on the same day, uploaded on the same day, and have a time limit, so that some parents are so angry that they call Shenzhen 12345 to complain.

A parent of a high school freshman in Shenzhen left a message on the Internet to the Municipal Health and Health Commission. She said that she has always "very supported Shenzhen's epidemic prevention policy and cooperated with the government's epidemic prevention and control work. The whole family has been doing nucleic acid every day for 2 consecutive months". But what she is worried about is that now the children are always unable to resume classes. "If you leave a safe learning environment and don't use it, but stay at home every day for online classes, the children will be ruined." Her request is very simple: just let the children be like senior three students, "closed management and learning in the school, parents concentrate on making money, and the family economy and life will be guaranteed, and the society will be stable."

I have also seen more than one person express this view on the Internet: during the epidemic, other things can be tolerated, even if they are not going to work for a while, but it is really unbearable that children cannot go to school. This is not only due to concerns about children's studies, but also the intergenerational conflict that has been detonated at home. An announcement was circulated on the Internet, and parents even suggested that if their children can't be attacked, it is better to beat their children in exchange. Although this is inevitably joking, it can be seen on the Internet that this emotion is common.

This kind of social mentality reveals a sense of exhaustion. What people want to say is: In fact, our requirements are low enough, and we don’t want to let go immediately. As long as we can not be so disturbing to the people, children don’t have nucleic acid 24 hours a day, so that they can resume classes with peace of mind. , If adults can concentrate on making money, they can bear it, but why can't they even do this?

Indeed, when Shanghai was closed, I heard more than one person say this: as long as life can be normalized, even doing nucleic acid every day can be tolerated. Sometimes I really sigh that the Chinese are really rare obedient people. They always have an unbreakable belief that their obedience can bring a minimum of stable life, so they can squeeze their own space again and again.

Behind this, there is a special sense of political participation in China: as long as it does not disturb his stable and small life, he can cooperate, endure, or even treat it as non-existent. In the long era of traditional politics, this was indeed possible, but Chinese politics in the 20th century has shown that this is a naive fantasy, and that every ordinary person has become the object of mobilization and has no right to stay out of it. The above is very clear: "It is unrealistic to always want to live a peaceful life and not want to fight."

Complaints like this "minimum security is not available" can easily resonate in society, but they do not necessarily bring about change, because in the end, people only expect a degree of relief, not a paradigm. transformation on. In fact, if it is completely released tomorrow, and nucleic acids will no longer be used, many people will be horrified.

Everyone wants our lives to return to normal as soon as possible, but what does "normal" mean and what needs to be done for this "normal", the answer is very likely to vary from person to person. The problem is that we rarely realize that each other "Normal" as understood is not the same thing.

Some people say "normal" is "returning to the way it was before the epidemic", but most people will doubt that it is impossible; some people say "normal", in fact, "like foreign countries", but this But it is what others fear; perhaps more people's "normal" is to be able to carry out necessary daily activities unhindered at the minimum cost under the condition of less frequent interruptions - that is probably It is close to Shanghai's earlier "precise epidemic prevention".

I have also met quite a few people who have been struggling for more than two years, even struggling to make a living, desperate to get back to normal life, but if you think they are against clearing, you are wrong, on the contrary, they believe , Only by clearing it can life return to normal.

The problem is that this last "normal" understanding means that the end of the epidemic is far away, just like the joke: I dreamed of going to the temple to ask for a signature, and I wanted to know when the epidemic would end, but in the end, a piece of paper fell out of the ticket box. A cotton swab.

One thing we should recognize is that if we do not coexist with the virus, we must coexist with epidemic prevention. In fact, this is not even a multiple-choice question, but a reality that we will face sooner or later.