Southeast Asia and the Virus

We left for our Lunar New Year trip to Malaysia on January 24th, flying to Kuala Lumpur and then taking the train to Penang. When we left, the corona virus was unraveling, but it had not yet been declared an emergency. There was one case in Vietnam. We boarded the plan with face masks on for the whole family. There were a spattering of passengers also donning the masks, but it felt like maybe we were overdoing it. We had one container of hand sanitizer and some wipes.

We explored KL for a few days and then went to Penang by train. The train station in KL was out of sanitizer, but in Penang we bought some and went about our days. We enjoyed the city, but as we followed the news a feeling of creeping unease arose. Suddenly, lines appeared at pharmacies selling hand sanitizers and masks.

Was this a pandemic? Yes. Our daughter sneezed at a train station, and a menacing British man confronted her. The children’s school created a new health policy–a runny nose meant no school and a doctor’s clearance note to return. The AQI in Hanoi hit 400.

We decided to spend some extra time in KL as we waited for this to play out– not wanting to be trapped behind no fly zones and city-wide quarantines. No school and terrible air were a rough combination. Two days later the schools closed in Hanoi, and they remain closed. Meanwhile, we enjoyed our time in Malaysia, more on that later.

We’ve returned to Hanoi to discover a new normal. A city in which people were once reluctant to wear pollution masks is now masked. At our favorite cafe folks work away with covered faces.

The efficacy of the masks is debated, but they signal a new normal. They are a sign of the global alarm that moves from catastrophe to catastrophe. We are now at a historical moment when air, water, and even intimacy among friends, forms of privilege, are no longer free, requiring purifiers and costly membranes.

The school sends daily home study units for music, gym, art, math, and reading. We have some childcare. We’re waiting this out with great uncertainty. We know we can come home to Nashville. The Vietnamese government is doing an excellent job of containing the virus, controlling alarmist memes, and so for now things are static. Meanwhile we are spared the racism that we might face in the US.