----- 3 stars ----- City of Solitude / California Sunday Magazine For 76 days, 9 million people in Wuhan slept, ate, and waited inside the largest quarantine in human history. Four people reveal what they saw and what happened after the lockdown ended. [...] BAI, 40, NOODLE SHOP OWNER I’ve run my noodle shop for over two years. Guozao — eating breakfast — is a very Wuhan thing, and the atmosphere in our shop was good. Many regulars came every morning to eat our dry spicy noodles for breakfast. The old ladies would leave their own cups in our shop so they could use them the next time they came, and sometimes they’d bring little bottles of wine. They’d eat noodles, drink, and chat about this and that. Across from our restaurant is a hospital, Pu’Ai No. 4, and in the mornings, patients would come. Many were too sick to eat and could only drink rice soup, so when we made porridge, we’d keep the liquid left over for them. The nurses and doctors at the hospital were also frequent customers. Their regular orders, the flavors they liked — we’d remember it all clearly. We closed shop for the Lunar New Year. Wuhan’s outbreak was getting bad — the doctors and nurses who came into our shop had urged us to wear masks, saying that the pneumonia was serious. I returned to my hometown of Huangshi, outside of Wuhan, and the day after, they began to seal off the city. Our restaurant is 70 square meters with ten employees, and after wages, rent, and utilities, we earn, at most, 3 or 4,000 yuan ($420 to $560) a month. The pandemic wiped it all out. While in Huangshi, I heard on the news that when Wuhan reopens, business owners could negotiate with landlords to reduce rent. We thought if the landlord could give us some relief, or postpone payment, maybe we can survive. [...] Before I returned to Wuhan, I called each of my employees to tell them we were closing. It was hard to say the words; we’d become a small family. They treated this noodle shop as their own, and they handled their work with more care and expertise than I did. There was one person I was especially reluctant to let go. She was a waitress in her 40s. She was older than me but called me Older Sister. She made people laugh — I bet many customers came just for her. When I told her, she said that she didn’t know what to do next, because she’s divorced, and I don’t think her son looks after her, so she depends on herself for her livelihood.
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----- 3 stars ----- City of Solitude / California Sunday Magazine For 76 days, 9 million people in Wuhan slept, ate, and waited inside the largest quarantine in human history. Four people reveal what they saw and what happened after the lockdown ended. [...] BAI, 40, NOODLE SHOP OWNER I’ve run my noodle shop for over two years. Guozao — eating breakfast — is a very Wuhan thing, and the atmosphere in our shop was good. Many regulars came every morning to eat our dry spicy noodles for breakfast. The old ladies would leave their own cups in our shop so they could use them the next time they came, and sometimes they’d bring little bottles of wine. They’d eat noodles, drink, and chat about this and that. Across from our restaurant is a hospital, Pu’Ai No. 4, and in the mornings, patients would come. Many were too sick to eat and could only drink rice soup, so when we made porridge, we’d keep the liquid left over for them. The nurses and doctors at the hospital were also frequent customers. Their regular orders, the flavors they liked — we’d remember it all clearly. We closed shop for the Lunar New Year. Wuhan’s outbreak was getting bad — the doctors and nurses who came into our shop had urged us to wear masks, saying that the pneumonia was serious. I returned to my hometown of Huangshi, outside of Wuhan, and the day after, they began to seal off the city. Our restaurant is 70 square meters with ten employees, and after wages, rent, and utilities, we earn, at most, 3 or 4,000 yuan ($420 to $560) a month. The pandemic wiped it all out. While in Huangshi, I heard on the news that when Wuhan reopens, business owners could negotiate with landlords to reduce rent. We thought if the landlord could give us some relief, or postpone payment, maybe we can survive. [...] Before I returned to Wuhan, I called each of my employees to tell them we were closing. It was hard to say the words; we’d become a small family. They treated this noodle shop as their own, and they handled their work with more care and expertise than I did. There was one person I was especially reluctant to let go. She was a waitress in her 40s. She was older than me but called me Older Sister. She made people laugh — I bet many customers came just for her. When I told her, she said that she didn’t know what to do next, because she’s divorced, and I don’t think her son looks after her, so she depends on herself for her livelihood.