Saturday, February 22, 2020

COMFY TOILET PAPER

There were two chocolate bars in the kitchen. My apartment mate does not particularly like dark chocolate, so I left the milk-chocolate caramel one for her, and ate the other one for breakfast. I do not quite understand why she disfavours dark, which is just one of many things in this world I do not understand.

The tweaking fellow on the bus. Why is he here? Why did he have his ears pierced and stretched for disks? Why is he fussing neurotically with cans? Why are his pants ripped?

The dude crossing the street without looking because he's on his cellphone; why is he still alive?

Why is that old woman looking at me so villainously?

Elderly drunks at the bus stop.


The near-emptiness at the place where I had lunch Friday.


Salt fish and chicken fried rice (鹹魚雞粒炒飯 'haam yü gai naap chaau faan'), which was delicious. Why so empty? Yeah, I can understand white people staying away, they're scared of Chinese people and Chinese food even at the best of times, which these aren't, and they're terrified of catching the Wuhan plague just by looking at a Chinese person. But even the regulars were largely absent. No table full of boisterous Toishanese salts of the earth, none of the little old grannies, or middle aged couples .....
Teapot Uncle was there. But he left early.

The fear of infection is rather illogical. There are over ten million people in the Bay Area. Of which a dozen, more or less, may have Wuhan corona. Of the diagnosed cases world-wide, approximately three percent will snuff it. Max. Cases outside China are few, largely quarantined, and under observation. Wuhan Corona Virus is spread mostly by air-borne droplets, far less by contaminated surfaces. So the chance of getting it by looking at Chinese people or eating Chinese food is altogether negligible.
Approaching zero, in fact.

Wash your hands. Clean your surfaces. Enjoy your fried rice. It's delicious with a spoonful of hot sauce, the bowl of pork and lotus root soup was very nice, and the small dinner roll was hot enough to melt all the butter and nearly burn my lips. I thoroughly enjoyed the Hong Kong milk tea afterwards.


Wuhan is cut-off from the outside world. There is no regular travel inside the city or out. For the foreseeable future that situation will be maintained. There are two small pockets in Korea, among members of a seriously nut-ball Christian sect, and people may also have been exposed to the Wuhan virus in the Iranian holy city of Qom. Hong kong has a few cases.

Even if you are a nut-ball Christian or Shia Muslim, you have little to fear.
If you run out of toilet paper in Hong Kong you may panic.
Apparently people are hoarding it.


My apartment mate keeps us well-stocked with toilet paper, the comfy kind, so I am not particularly worried.


Need more chocolate.



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