The Daily Signal - An American in China Talks About Life Since COVID-19 Struck

Episode Date: March 30, 2020

It is challenging to know the reality of how the coronavirus has and will affect China. The virus has claimed a reported 3,298 lives as of Friday afternoon and infected over 81,000 in China. While America and the rest of the world are now facing their own rampant outbreaks of the virus, China has already weathered through months of the pandemic.  Joseph Strickland is an American teacher living and working in Nanjing, China, just over 300 miles from Wuhan, where the virus was first discovered. Strickland explains what life has been like in China over the past few months and what lessons America can take their experience. Also on today's show: Savanna and Mat Shaw are using their singing talent to bring hope to millions through viral videos. Check out their videos if you need some encouragement: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCR_SOhBL-5BSaIuqhj1U18g. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Monday, March 30th. I'm Robert Louis. And I'm Virginia Allen. On today's show, we share my conversation with Joseph Strickland, an American teacher living and working in China. Joseph explains what life in China has been like during the coronavirus and what the future may hold for China. We also have your letters to the editor and a good news story of hope about a father and daughter who are using their singing talents to inspire millions of people during the coronavirus. Before we get to today's show, we want to tell you about another great podcast from our colleagues here at the Heritage Foundation. Heritage Explains is a weekly podcast that explains all the policy issues we hear about in the news at a 101 level. Host Michelle and Tim mix in news clips and music to tell a story, but also bring in heritage experts to help break down complex topics.

If you want to know how the coronavirus will affect our economy, what peace with the Taliban actually means, or what is happening in Britain now that Brexit has passed, subscribe to Heritage Explains. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. We even put the full episode on YouTube. Now, stay tuned for today's show. Coming up next. I am joined by Joseph Strickland, an American living and working in China. Joseph, thank you so much for joining me.

Hey, thank you, Virginia, for having me. Now, you live in Nanjing, China. How far is that from Wuhan? Nanjing is about 300 miles or so from Wuhan. If you were to travel by a car, it would be like eight hours, maybe approximately from Atlanta to Orlando. Okay, okay, that's helpful. And how long have you lived there? We've lived here for a total of a year and a half. We were here, arrived in the fall of 2017. And then we were back as teaching at a school in South Carolina for a year last year. And then I was asked to come back here. And my wife and I live here for the last seven months.

Okay. Great. What do you teach in China? We are theater teachers. We teach acting and performance. We both graduated from Southeastern University with theater majors, somebody's the God School. And we're out here teaching drama to high schoolers, middle schoolers, and even primary

students. So obviously the main news that everyone is talking right now is coronavirus. And so many people want to know what it's like in China and, you know, how it's kind of progressed there. So let's kind of go all the way to the beginning and talk about when did you first hear about coronavirus and when did it kind of become real to you and you begin to understand what was actually happening in China. Well, we've became aware of it probably in the middle to early part of January is where a lot of the information was starting to kind of pop out and around. At first, it was just a few people on WeChat, which is the Chinese version of social media that they use inside the country. We, of course, have WeChat accounts is how we communicate pretty much for everything here. And so there was a few conversations and things you would see on what was basically a form. of like a Facebook feed or wall. It was called the WeChat moments where the people you follow, you can kind of see things pop up here and there.

And so we saw a little bit of, you know, people linking an article here or there or discussing it, but it wasn't really present as far as in the national discussion yet, I would say, to the point where it was coming to us consistently. My wife and I had a trip planned already to Hong Kong, due since the Chinese school year ends in the middle of January as it gets closer towards the Chinese New Year celebration. And things started getting a lot more serious once we hit the middle of January and to heading towards the later part of January. We decided to go ahead and take our trip at that time because we had a feeling that it was going to be a problem as we started hearing more and more about infection spreading and people potentially shutting things down. And so we headed to Hong Kong, then decided not to return to China, flew back to America until spent about a week and a half at home with my mother, just to see her anyway, and then returned to China about the middle of February, beginning of February.

So we've been here since then. And when you returned, what was the atmosphere in China? What were you seeing? What were people saying? We have an interesting thing here when you live in China. There's a strong foreigner or expat community. identity that kind of keeps in touch with each other, especially our company employs a lot of people from overseas. All four drama teachers actually that work for our company are from America. And so we have our own little we chat channel group that we chat in and kind of update each other on what's going on with each other as well as in different parts of what people see. We also have a lot. We also our company run speech and debate and many other things.

And so all these teachers were kind of communicating back and forth. So when we returned, we kind of had an idea of what things were going to be like. Most people were saying that at that point, they had enacted mask laws where you couldn't go outside without a mask on. And then the government policy locally was to, you were not allowed to go into a store if you didn't have PPE, which meant that the store owner could reject you at the door if you didn't have the ability to protect others from any kind of infection you might have. And so delivery, fortunately for China, delivery systems are instant and everywhere. And then at that time, masks were starting to run scare. So we returned.

The situation was a little testy at first because we were more nervous about whether we could get masks. So one of the reasons we went home, instead of coming directly back from Hong Kong, one of the reasons we returned to America first was to buy masks. So I actually sent my mother a message from Hong Kong realizing it was getting serious and told her, to go buy us two packs of masks, basically, from an American drugstore before it became a big problem in America. And she did. She bought us two boxes. We did not hoard. I want to be clear on that. And that allowed us to be able to safely return in a sense. Of course, it's not 100% safety. But it gave us at least enough comfort to feel like we could get back and get on a plane, you know, at that time when it was a very serious problem in Asia.

So do you personally know people in China who have had the coronavirus? Yes. There's a few people I know that have had it near me. I won't say their names just because I want to, you know, for their sake, I want to keep their business here. But in our neighborhood, the Chinese government has released an app that kind of shows you local hotspots of where infection have occurred, as well as so you can kind of protect yourself better. And we also have some friends who, a friend. who's engaged to a lady who's got family from Wuhan. And so we have kind of like conversations about what's going on there as well. How rapidly did things really progress and change in China? I mean, I know you were you were gone for a little while, but, you know, from the time that

you came back in February, how have you seen the situation evolve? Oh, goodness. The situation for a while got kind of serious. I don't mean in a sense of a negative way. just more of the virus, really, you know, we weren't sure of what was going on. The, you know, no one I think was prepared for this. It was, I don't think it's possible to be prepared to change your whole lifestyle completely. And nor should we live that way, honestly, waiting for it. But it, so it was, the impact was pretty severe. It had a time frame at one point where you struggled to feel safe.

that you were going to get supplies like masks to continue to purchase things from stores. That was a real concern. What they did is they started rationing them, basically, offering like two masks to be purchased at a time, which helped a lot. But the other thing is, our company and our Chinese friends, our Chinese community here, I mean, I had several coworkers reach out to me offering me masks for free to have them sent by an express delivery person over to our house. We did the same thing with what we had. We were offering it back to them. And so there was a lot of sharing going on. The other thing is that it's been a while since we had, we've not seen anyone face-to-face that we work with or no, really since the beginning of February.

So we've been in our house. Now we have online video chat. I've been teaching students remotely. But other than walking over to a store with gear on to go and purchase some food and things like that, we've not left the house. Now, you've kind of touched on it. But tell me a little bit more about just the community. kind of grassroots effort to actually be watching out for one another in your community and to fight the coronavirus?

Well, it's definitely come from two prongs. So I'll talk about the community first, but it's almost impossible to talk about the community effort without the government's hand in it because it's really been part of the same plan brought from both sides, I'd say. The Chinese have a very, very strong mindset of community. That's just the different. Here comes the Western civilization and civil. teacher in me coming out. They have a very different mindset from our view of Western civilization.

And it comes with its pluses and minuses. Being an American, I obviously would prefer where we come from in a sense of how we do things. But I do think it's fascinating. And they have the idea of the community comes first. And so for them to jump on this and to do their part, to sacrifice what they need to do in order to get through this together was really quite important. It actually blew me away, honestly. I did not think that it could happen without civil unrest. I thought it would, because I just couldn't see it. I didn't have a lot of frame of reference for that.

But briefly, I'll mention some of the things that we saw. Our security guards have done an incredible job. What they do is they come in and they block off all subdivisions, for instance. You can't go in someone's subdivision complex. The Chinese government ordered that no one that doesn't live there is allowed in. And so what they do is they have these, our normal security guys at every subdivision area in any major city, they are only letting residents in. But all the delivery for supplies and food are managed by these guys. They have a whole table spread out.

They're checking everything for you. When you come in and out, they scan your temperature. They have an app now that scans you to, in other words, it's part of their where have you been in the last four. days kind of 14 days kind of thing. Um, and so a lot of businesses use that right now. And so a lot of the everything from the private businesses, including the people on the street sharing resources, as well as our local security groups taking care of us has been very, very, very supportive. Um, I want to be clear that it's not what a lot of us would think we think of this idea of, um, a Gestapo, right, of, you know, making certain that, and this Orwellian kind of mindset, right,

that we're falling in line. It's not been delivered that way, the way I perceive it. It's been very, the people, the citizens have been so driven towards citizenship. At the same time, well, the government has done really a phenomenal job of making sure the resources get down to where they need to get to. The shelves have never been unstocked here. They've never had a hoarding problem. At the very outset, I would say there was a little bit of rush on some of the,

things that the people like the most, those were stocked, restocked very quickly. And the delivery chains, especially, were never halted. Now, this is because they're a command economy, and they can, you know, the government owns a large amount of the means of production, so they can ensure that that occurs. But it was quite efficient in achieving its result in the time of crisis. Interesting. Now, what's the atmosphere now in China? I mean, Are people pretty helpful? Or are they looking at things as kind of glass half full? Or is there still a lot of discouragement and feeling like this is still a long road that we have left to walk?

They feel like the sun is coming out now. Now, I think everyone's a little nervous. I've seen a lot of people like, you know, they're excited, super excited that it's coming to an end, but they're still scared to go outside. because no one wants to be the first one. But people have been back to work now for about 10 days. Like our coworkers have been at the office every day. They have a lot of systems in place right now that we're not there at the beginning.

I believe that there's been a lot of discussions at local levels as well as up the chain. And so companies are now, when they're bringing workers back or doing their own testing, of their own employees. And so it's really hard to not feel a little secure when you're getting tested consistently. Plus there's the amount of cleaning that's going on. Our elevator right now, they have a checklist just on our elevator and our one building in our apartment complex. And it's cleaned 25 times a day the buttons and the walls are. And it's on a checklist initialed by the cleaning person. So they have it, they have it down to a science right now. So what advice would you give to Americans who, you know, we're pretty far behind where China is now?

You know, what are things that we should be doing? How should we be approaching the situation? You know, staying inside is the biggest thing. If your house doesn't have, if you're not infected with the coronavirus, then odds all your house is a safe haven. You know, it's your castle. It's your refuge. Stay there. If you're in there and you're not, going out, then you're pretty safe from what's out there. When you do go out, it gives you the opportunity to be prepared and to be really focused on making sure you do the small things right. Like, don't touch your face, making sure you wear gloves. If you feel like you have, like for me, I'm a nervous kind of individual. I have Tourette's syndrome, so I have ticks and things. So my eyes often, I touch my eyes naturally as a thing I would do. So I would wear glasses all the time

to make certain I'm not touching my eyes when I'm out. Of course, masks are very important. They're not as important for you unless you have a very high-quality mask, but they're more important for others around you because it prevents spread in case you happen to be infected. And of course, infecting other people is really the danger here. It's a lot of people I know think in their mind that, well, I'm okay, but it's not about you.

It really isn't. The more people, even if you don't have bad results from this, virus, the more people you infect, the longer you prolong your own problem, because society is going to still continue to be shut down as long as the viruses continues to spread. There is, of course, a lot of debate right now on whether, which is more important, you know, mitigation of the results or going for herd immunity, I've been reading up. But I would say that it's a, you know, right now the main key for Americans, I would suggest is to stay inside and take it. seriously. But don't panic. My goodness. My feet are up on the couch. I posted a video on

Facebook not too long ago. And one of the things I was joking about was my biggest decision every day is McDonald's or Pizza Hut to my wife's chagrin, unfortunately, because she's wore it up on a balloon. But yeah, I think that's the big thing. It's, you know, take it in stride, find out what you can do. My wife and I've been working on our Chinese in this time, taking advantage of practicing that. And, you know, look it as an opportunity, just like anything that comes in life. Yeah. No, I think that's wisdom.

You're right. It is an opportunity. There's a lot we can kind of do with the extra time. But are people in China talking about where the virus may have come from, where it may have originated? I think there's a big discussion right now on where it came from. I know that a lot of people, originally there was a lot of frustration with Wuhan and the government officials there from the Chinese government here. I heard a lot of that. And I know that people have talked about a wet market there.

I know a lot of my fellow Chinese friends and things during that time were posting a lot of memes and pictures on Wii chat that a lot of people were doing, which was saying that, you know, this is, please stop doing this or stop doing. that because this is what happens. I don't think anybody that I know knows. So we're not privileged to that information in a sense of exactly what is what. I do know that I would find it very surprising if it was anything more than just a freak accident, just because the amount of shutdown that has occurred here. I do know there's been some discussion about, and I've heard it through the channels about America being the source as well. I don't know about that. But I've not, I've not seen anything in my time here that's made me concerned about any kind of craziness. I do know that Wuhan was the main source from what people have said. Are people in China

concerned about a second wave of the virus that, you know, if people are now being allowed to go back to school slowly and go back to work slowly, are there concerns that this might actually not be not be over and we would see a second relapse. Oh, I think it's absolutely a concern in everyone's mind. They've done a very effective job of staying on this. I think reintegration is going to be one of the biggest keys. It's making sure people don't feel like, oh, well, shifts over, time to resume normalcy. There's got to be a transition period where people are very careful, but out and about.

I feel like, you know, President Trump, some of his comments recently, I really, resonated with some of the things he was saying about, you know, making sure that the cure is not worse than the problem, right? And, you know, there's, there comes a point where you can do your best and mitigate the results, but at some point you can't pull down the very structures of everything you have that you depend on to make certain that life can go forward. And I think that's one of the challenges of managing a crisis like this is trying to find that right way forward to what that's going to mean. A lot of people, I would say, would be concerned. Unfortunately, I haven't heard a lot of that conversation yet because we're still inside. I know some of our

Chinese staff is, they're kind of rotating how much they're working right now. Some of them will take a large amount of the shift and some will kind of peel off. So it's kind of a touch and go right now. But even those who are back to work, they're heavily screened currently and people are very, very meticulous. There's also been a change in policy with foreigners too, though. So China has focused a large amount on making sure they're preventing imported infections, which you probably heard a little bit about in the news in America. But for instance, if you were a foreigner or someone who's traveled outside of China, basically, in any of this list of countries, which includes the U.S., then when you return, you were basically

escorted from the airport to a hotel, a foreigner hotel. There's like a handful of them a list that's designated for them. And it's at your own expense, of course. but you are required to stay there for 14 days and you're monitored, you know, temperatures inspected, things like that just to make sure that they're not going to import any more cases. There's all high attention to making sure that that doesn't happen right now. Interesting. You do have such a unique perspective just being in China, living in China, but also being American and kind of being in touch with so many people here in the States.

I want to give you just kind of a final opportunity. Is there anything that you want Americans to know that you feel like we should take into consideration moving forward. First of all, I'm just a guy. Nothing I say is filled with any secret knowledge or anything like that. George are born and raised, and I'm a teacher. I love God and I love people. And I, but the thing I have learned is that people are people everywhere. And that's part of the core beliefs that I have,

not just as a person of faith, but as an American. And I believe that the Chinese are fighting this thing as hard as you all will be. And I think that it's going to take a lot of resolve, but it's not a big deal if you focus on what you can do in the meantime. To put things in perspective, in our history, American history, we've had people in times of crisis have to go to war into a foreign soil and defend our rights in our rights. freedom. And this crisis means we kick our feet up on the sofa and watch a little more Netflix. It's hard to feel sorry for ourselves, I think, in that regard. But I do think what we can do is make sure that we're thinking about our community more than just ourselves. That's the one thing I would suggest we learn from what China and South Korea and many of these Asian countries have been able to

accomplish. The one thing I would say is that I was so moved by what I saw recently. My wife was showing me actually today, there was a little list posted on Facebook. I can't verify the truthfulness of it. But I will say that if it's true, it was very, very encouraging about the amount of things that the several corporations have done in America recently from redirecting their companies' focus as to handling and helping contribute to those who are trying to get through this crisis. And that, to me, speaks volumes for the value and success of capitalism. So I'm proud of that. And I'm also proud of everyone who's going to be able to walk through this. Yeah, that's the main thing. And please stay home.

Please don't go party on the beach. Please don't. It is a deal. And we all love our grandmamas and our mamas and dads and dad. So please, please, please, stay home. Joseph, thank you so much. We just really appreciate your insight and your wisdom and just taking the time to share a little bit of your own personal experience there in China.

Hey, Virginia, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it so much. We know that everyone's highest priority right now is staying healthy through the coronavirus pandemic. And our priority at the Daily Signal is making sure you have the information you need to stay healthy. Here is Dr. Deborah Burke's head of the White House Coronavirus Task Force explaining who should be tested for COVID-19. So right now, as we're rolling out testing across America into these high-speed testing laboratories that can get diagnoses back quickly, we're asking all of you to prioritize those in the risk groups to be tested and those first responders and our health care delivery workers who really need to know whether they're positive or not. As we get everyone tested, that really needs it for a diagnosis

because they're so ill, we can move on to those who are less sick. sending us your letters to the editor. Each Monday, we feature our favorites on this show. Virginia, who's up first? In response to Jack Yost's article, what an effective online education includes, Yosef Cindy writes, great article, Professor Yost, in these challenging circumstances, it is important to use effective online education with instructors and students. We need to be united and work together to finish the semester strong. We must be able to manage our time well and be responsible individuals. This type of skill will allow us to be well organized

so that we can accomplish our goals smoothly. I'm excited to see how we can adapt to online teaching. Well, that certainly is true, Virginia. I know with having two elementary school students of my own at home, it is a challenge. I'd encourage our listeners to check out a great webinar that the Heritage Foundation did called We Are All homeschoolers now. You can find it at heritage.org And in response to Lindsay Burke's article by that same title, Drake writes, This pandemic is bad news, but some silver linings like this can force people to look at alternatives previously thought inconvenient, ineffective, or just plain bad ideas. I am a boomer.

Home school only occurred for me the week I was home after a tonsillectomy, but now technology makes it more than possible. Additionally, negative social and cultural realities make the idea of homeschooling. not only appealing, but downright desirable. Your letter could be featured on next week's show. So send an email to Letters at DailySignal.com. Virginia, you have an uplifting story to share with us today. Tell us more about it.

Yeah, thanks so much, Rob. So I recently heard about a father and daughter duet team who were gaining a lot of attention for their inspiring videos during the coronavirus pandemic. I was curious to watch their videos, so I pulled up YouTube, and I was pretty amazed when I began to listen to 15-year-old Savannah Shaw and her dad Matt. I pray we'll find your love and hold it in our home. That video that you just heard has over 2 million views on YouTube and 4 million views on Facebook.

I was actually able to talk on the phone with Matt and Savannah last week and asked them why. they decided to make these videos. They both said that the original video of them singing the prayer, which is the song you just heard, was only ever intended to be for their friends and family just as a sweet way to keep in touch during the coronavirus. But the video quickly went viral, so they decided to make even more, and they've now made a total of five, and they said they have no plans of stopping. They've had people sending the messages to express how much these songs mean to them in such a difficult and challenging season. Savannah told me she wants viewers to walk away with hope. In her own word, she said, I want to give them some joy. There's a lot to be

sad and scared about right now. But I want to be the good thing that helps create joy because I feel like we need more of that right now. Savannah and her dad Matt have never set foot in an actual recording studio. They just record the songs in a walk-in closet using an iPad and a mic. Matt told me that he thinks the reason so many people are enjoying the videos is because it's touching for some people to see a family, a father-daughter relationship, enjoying their talents and spending time together. It reminds them of their own relationships. And wow, we really do all need those beautiful reminders right now. At the end of my conversation with both Matt and Civilization. Matt had this amazing quote that I want to share with you all. He said, I've heard that the only thing

more contagious than a virus is hope. And we are just trying to do our little part in the world to spread a little bit of hope. Wow, I just love that. So powerful. So we will be sure to leave a link in the show notes to Matt and Savannah's YouTube channel so that you all can watch their inspiring videos. and hopefully it brings a little bit of hope to you right now. Well, Virginia, thanks for covering that story. You also wrote an excellent piece at DailySignal.com. I encourage our listeners to check out. You can find that story in our Daily Morning Bell email.

If you're not subscribed, please sign up at dailysignal.com. So, you know, at times like this, Virginia, that I think our listeners, if they hear stories like this, encourage them to send us an email at letters at dailysignal.com, and we'll certainly take a look and see what people are up to. Absolutely. We're always looking for more good news, Rob. It's always important to share, but especially right now, like you say, it's a good time to be spreading those good news stories. Well, we're going to leave it there for today. The Daily Signal podcast can be found on the Rurkishay Audio Network. All of our shows can be found atdailysingle.com slash podcasts.

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