Women's Fangcang Survival Battle: After unblocking, my "battle" is still not over

(Author: Xiaoqian)

It's been over three weeks since I planned to write this post. A few days after returning from the cabin, I began to experience delayed trauma. I took two weeks of rest before consciously recovering most of it. Although Shanghai's "anti-epidemic" seems to have come to an end, I think it is never too late to record and speak out.

Ten hours after diagnosis

I was diagnosed positive on April 25, and got on the bus to the shelter that night.

Before the diagnosis, I actually did a lot of homework and prepared various packing strategies and pet placement resources, but when the reality hit my head, I was still completely dazed. The power of sisterhood was revealed at that time. My female friends quickly contacted someone who could accept cats and called Flash Delivery for me. When Taozi was taken away by the neighborhood committee downstairs, I screamed loudly. I grabbed the iron gate railing and burst into tears, praying that she would not get sick from stress, and that she would understand that I wanted to prevent her from suffering a more terrible fate. decision.

No time to be sentimental, I started to pack according to the strategy sent by my sister. M flashed a large package of wet toilet paper, eye masks and snacks, and Z reminded me to bring more sanitary napkins, so that I can support other women when I go. I usually use a menstrual cup so bring all my tampons and pads. When choosing clothes, I subconsciously choose loose clothes with plain colors that can cover up my secondary sexual characteristics as much as possible. I also pack my basic makeup, just to reassure my parents when I video call them.

Put on simple protective clothing at the gate of the community and get on the bus. The special police car cleared the way, and the contrast between the privilege and security symbolized by the police lights and the destination it was escorting made me laugh out loud. Visually, there were only two women in the car besides me, so I made up my mind to hug each other to keep warm. When we arrived at the station, the driver asked us to get off in groups of four. I watched the other two women start dragging the boxes. I ignored the driver's yelling, squeezed through the big and small luggage, and got out of the car behind them.

The Fangcang seems to have been remodeled from an unfinished office building. The hall is magnificent, and each of us received a washbasin of supplies, took the elevator to the 400-bed Datong shop made of cement. A female volunteer saw the three of us and took us to a row of camp beds near the women's bathroom. I rushed forward and was successfully assigned the bed between them.

While sheets, pillows, and sleeping bags were being thrown over, the female volunteer pointed to the bed and said, "You are C-027," put on a patient wristband for me, and hurried away. While thinking about the prisoner number 24601 in "Les Misérables" and the picture of Granny Tang taking Chihiro's name away in "Spirited Away", I was looking for the zipper of the sleeping bag, and started my endless survival battle in the shelter.

"You have entered a first-level combat state"

In the first few days, I needed to work in the cabin, and the charging station was six beds away from me, so I couldn't change the bed according to the regulations. I asked a security guard for help, and I successfully set up a "workstation" by the wall next to the charging pile with an empty bed.

On the third day after I set up the workstation, I was squatting and going to work. Another security guy came over and pointed at me seriously and asked, "Where did you get this bed?" I pointed to the opposite side of the aisle. The little brother continued to solemnly declare: "Let me tell you, do you hear that your bed is going to be moved back? Our beds are all fixed, and you can't move them casually!" Ten empty beds, and a few crooked beds that were moved by the little security guards when they were playing games, and said "Okay, I understand". The little brother walked away with his chest out.

The naming method of the square cabin hospital is very interesting. The ideal interpretation of the word "hospital" includes a clean and tidy environment, a doctor who can treat you, and if you want to be hospitalized, there are also a full set of supporting facilities to help you recover with peace of mind. The actual situation is that after entering the cabin, there is no doctor to check the bed to inquire about the underlying disease, and a cabin mate who suffers from insomnia only gets a sleeping pill after a few days; You can buy it); everyone breathes the same unventilated air, and they take off their masks to breathe when they eat; the medical waste bins that harvest countless sputum every day are open to you 24 hours a day.

Compared with the physical environment, this kind of control without dead ends may have a stronger and longer-lasting impact on people's mind. Here, you are erased from any other identity and value, and the meaning of existence is reduced to a code. You can't see the nucleic acid results, the nucleic acid done the next day will always show "testing", and the time for your Schrödinger to leave the cabin is all in the hands of Dabai holding the A4 paper, and they will tell you that they have no Background data permissions, everything is subject to the notification of disease control.

This kind of control deprives you of your name, freedom, dignity and resources, which is a great loss of personal willpower. Continuous loss of control over reality and life will bring about a huge sense of anxiety and powerlessness, which will gradually wear away your uniqueness and meaning as an individual existence, and once you lose this subjectivity, you will be more easily tamed, accepted and catered to this control.

I slowly began to form a battle plan to take the initiative to fight against this engulfment. I keep pumping myself, listening to playlists from my favorite musicals, listening to podcasts like "Silent Loud", reading books I love, watching my friends cheer me on, watching my cat at a friend's house Another piece of furniture was scratched.

I have also insisted on output: maintaining communication with the outside world, talking to my parents and friends from all over the world for several hours a day; humming all the songs of "Hamilton" while walking; taking pictures to record life, writing bilingual Cabin diary; unable to exercise, I walk around Datongpu every day, taking more than 10,000 steps.

When I packed my luggage, I deliberately brought my favorite pillow, computer table board and "feminists look like this" T-shirt, wanting to customize the cabin experience. After entering the cabin, I used a bed sheet to cover the number plate number C-027, and made a bedside table with a small table. I arranged the things on the cabinet neatly every day, trying to make myself live a decent life, and find my way out of impermanence. A little order .

Every morning when I go to the toilet, I always hear the game notification sound released by the security buddy: "You have entered the first-level combat state, come on special forces!"   Now that I think about it, the context is particularly appropriate.

Fangcang from a female perspective

The lights in the shelter are not turned off 24 hours a day, which will deprive you of your privacy and comfort, but also remind you that everything you do may be monitored. But this unchosen discomfort gives women a strange sense of security . If the 400-person Chase shop is completely dark, the risk of theft, sexual harassment and even sexual assault will definitely increase.

The women's restrooms are in slightly better condition than the men's restrooms and are equipped with toilets. But the cubicle doors are broken and cannot be locked, and two male security guards are in charge of cleaning, and the security guards are stationed just outside the women's toilet door. Every day at one o'clock in the morning, I waited until the snoring in area C was thunderous and the security guards were addicted to games, then I went to the toilet, closed the door, and hid behind the door to simply scrub my body with a wet tissue.

The male gaze is everywhere. Our floors are basically construction workers sent over by the construction site collectively, most of them are men. Habits developed over the years have allowed me to be acutely aware of the gazes being cast on me, and this includes moments when I perform basic physical movements, such as stretching, walking, or looking up. I was amazed that the cows in the Fangcang Club on Xiaohongshu could dance Latin dances with full make-up and hair, wearing navel dresses, because in the shelter where the male to female ratio is about ten to one and there is no privacy, I only wear loose hoods T-shirts, wash your hair less and change clothes less, try to keep yourself low-key so that no one will notice.

This kind of staring is most likely harmless (after all, the luggage of the workers is only one or two bags and a mobile phone, and of course they are willing to watch new entertainment programs), but it will definitely bring a faint sense of uneasiness and discomfort to women. Let's not relax completely.

Because it is impossible to determine the safe boundary range, women surrounded by gaze will consciously limit and narrow their safe space. I exercise almost every day at home, but I can't find any space in the cabin that can be used for exercise without being watched by the crowd. It is even more impossible to wash underwear. When I think that the washed underwear is placed on the window railing out of my sight and can be seen by everyone, I make up my mind that if I have to stay for more than two weeks, I will recycle the old underwear. , with pads to wear.

In stark contrast to these cautiousness is the sense of comfort and presence of men who swell to the ceiling: loudly coughing up phlegm; Walking around half-naked; smoking day and night in the Datong shop without any partitions; blatantly jumping in line when doing nucleic acid, and being angry after being pointed out... There are boxer underwear hanging by the window and on the wall everywhere.

In extremely harsh environments, it is especially important for women to help each other in groups. I lent the shampoo to Auntie Zuopu and the girl from Shop Right, and Xiao R lent me a hair dryer. I shared snacks with Xiao R, and I also told Auntie to sleep in a place where there are few people at night, and just come back before dinner in the morning. I helped her around (Auntie's nucleic acid has been negative, because of some human error, she was pulled here for five days). Before leaving the cabin, my aunt came over shyly and asked me in a low voice if I needed disposable underwear, and then gave me all the rest she had: "It's very inconvenient for girls to be here, it would be better to have this."

After my aunt got out of the cabin, little R and I depended on each other for life. She said that she hoped that the two of us could go out of the cabin together. If I left first and left her alone, life would be much more difficult. Chatting with little R every day is full of trivial and ordinary topics: whether to wash your hair today or save shampoo, whether the nucleic acid results came out, who just said that he will leave the cabin tomorrow. Although it is plain, a lot of courage and strength can be generated from these interactions and connections, making us convinced that we are not an island, anchoring a little inner stability in a cement room that is very unfriendly to women.

I can't go gentle into that good night

On the morning of the eighth day in the cabin, Dabai suddenly came to ask C-027 to pack his luggage. I ejected from the bed, high-fived little R, and shared a bag of potato chips to celebrate freedom. Scan the QR code to log out, and retrieve the green code. Everyone is carrying big bags and small bags, waiting for the train at the elevator entrance like waiting for the Spring Festival travel train. We lined up for disinfecting, got the discharge certificate, got the Chinese medicine package, got the precautions, and got our names back.

Buses are crowded and hot, making only short stops at various street meeting points. Workers who were not sure where to get off were yelled at, "Don't you know where your home is?" and decided to get off first before asking. He staggered a few steps, a few black plastic bags scattered, and the apples that were distributed every other day in the cabin rolled out. Gululu rolled out of the car along the luggage gap, and then rolled down the road. He quickly bent down to pick it up, and before he finished picking it up, the car drove away.

After returning home, I took a day off and "returned to work" with everyone after the May Day holiday. In the next few days, I was very passive and slowed down at work, and I was full of resistance when facing work emails. I made an appointment with a consultant with the mentality of "solving procrastination", but as soon as I opened my mouth, I started to break down and cry.

Looking back now, it was me who stretched out my hand and pulled myself.

I realized that I had never cried or vented before this, but had been calm, even combative and humorous. Because when in great danger or extremely harsh environment, people will unconsciously trigger the self-preservation mechanism and try their best to survive. At that time, I was busy dealing with the 360-degree deprivation, wear and tear without dead ends, and I didn't realize the trauma that this continuous and delayed violence might bring.

In the cabin, the objects I need to fight against are easily visualized. It is the dazzling incandescent lamp above the head, the blurred white face, the nucleic acid report that is always "testing" and the locked elevator door. But after returning home, these specific portraits were gone, and the adrenaline that kept me writing the diary and walking more than 10,000 steps was gone. The monster I fought became a vast, invisible force that melted into the air, a reminder of my powerlessness with every breath. I suddenly collapsed.

I feel that the violence of this regime is different from the trauma of natural disasters and birth, old age, sickness and death. The artificial control it exerts is almost ostentatious, because it tells you "it can". It has the power to erase your voice, your identity and your beliefs, leaving only a token. I ran out of energy because the core values I believed in (as a feminist) lost their meaning at that point.

This also leads to another layer of reason behind my crash. After I came back from the shelter, I felt that I was "well", and most of the people around me, including my parents, colleagues and friends, also thought that I was "well". After I posted the last diary of leaving the cabin, everyone liked it, and life continued-the most terrible time is over, isn't it?

The truth is, there is no immediate way for me to go back and wind up my clockwork and fulfill my responsibilities as a social being. People returning home need time and space to face their trauma. No one discussed what happened to hundreds of thousands of people who had experienced the shelter like me when they returned home. This kind of not being seen and told is also dangerous, because if political violence is not recognized and not allowed to be defined from the beginning, then our repair and reconstruction will be more painful and difficult.