Fortune Forgotten

by Brandon Amato (United States of America)

I didn't expect to find China

The sun had just set over the crops of the countryside. There should have been music and dancing and the chatter of the town square bouncing off the concrete high rises of the city center, but there was only the sound of solemn footsteps echoing off the streets, as if the masks over our mouths, stifling the spread of disease, somehow suppressed the sound of the city as well. We were out of diapers and my wife had asked me if I minded walking to one of the nearby shops that still remained open these days. Of course I didn’t mind. Anything to get me out of that two-bedroom apartment and into the open air, even if only for a moment. It had been less than a week since we arrived at my mother-in-law’s house in San Shan, a provincial suburb serving as farmland on the outskirts of a major metropolitan. We had expected to ring in the Chinese New Year with a familial feast of duck and dumplings, chicken soup, countless vegetables sautéed in pork fat, and a whole fish that would remain untouched, as it would symbolize a bounty of leftovers spilling over into the new year. Family and friends would be knocking at the door to partake in the abundance of food and exchange generosities. For the children, Hong Bao, red packets stuffed with money that they would use for candy and toys, and for the family, boxes of fruit and milk. The men, meanwhile, would exchange expensive cigarettes and toast each other from seemingly bottomless bottles of Bai Jiu, that spicy clear Chinese liquor that would go down hard like rocket-fuel, and then soften the sting of the winter wind by warming our blood and reddening our cheeks. Mah Jong tiles would scatter jovially around the tables as the laughter of spoiled children and drunken relatives would echo throughout the halls, and the bursts of fireworks blasting throughout the night would warn the mythical monster ‘Nian’ to keep its distance from the bounty of the new year. But it wasn’t Nian we would have to worry about this year. A virus had come to steal Spring Festival from China, and no amount of fireworks or red banners could stop it. Travelling to China for the Spring Festival, we had expected to find family visiting. Instead, we were visited by government officials. My brother-in-law had just travelled home from Wuhan where a new virus was taking hold and they were here to take his temperature and distribute masks for the household. He was officially quarantined, and by association, so were we. So, on this particular night, when diapers were needed, I welcomed an excuse to venture onto the streets and forego the warnings of masked authority. My footsteps echoed off the buildings as I made my way to the local grocer. The streets should have been filled, but were empty, save for a few local elderlies who, having lived through an epidemic or two in their lifetime, sure as hell weren’t afraid of some new one. In the store, I quickly found a package of diapers and took the opportunity to grab a bottle of Bai Jiu. There wasn’t a long line, but there was a line long enough for me to hear the locals lament over the hard times. A restaurateur dealing with spoiled goods that anticipated hundreds of hungry holiday patrons before being forced to close her doors, or the local grocer who had a barn full of fruit, that had been waiting to be distributed by visiting neighbors that would no longer come. This wasn’t just my problem of a lost holiday. This was an issue of lost revenue, lost tradition, and a lost community. I walked home, deciding to take the stairs. Eleven flights of wondering where this would all end. When I arrived home, my brother in law half joked about me spreading the infection. I laughed, poured him a drink of Bai Jiu, and made a toast to our long health. That night, we drank together and celebrated the coming of the Year of the Rat, whether it bring disease or fortune, we are here and we are together.