How The Coronavirus Stole The Grinch

                 A few months ago, I was contacted do a four-afternoon, three hour unit program based on Dr. Seuss' The Grinch Who Stole Christmas for a middle school in Miaoli during the lunar New Year break. The school wanted written and oral presentations on the fourth afternoon so I would divide the fifteen students into groups of four for cooperative learning, the writing process, phonics, and reported speech. If I could incorporate some improv (role plays) that would be great but it may be too much to ask. I would make a PPT and call it "The Grinch Symposium" A symposium is a meeting at which specialists deliver short addresses on related topics and publish a collection of their work. Yes, we could produce a collection. That was before the coronavirus scare hit Taiwan. All winter break programs have been cancelled and classes, scheduled to start February 10th have been pushed back to February 25th. Life goes on.

   An appropriately-titled book

           I went with my wife to the Westside of Taichung yesterday for Korean lunch with business re-opening ceremony lions and drum corps dancing nearby. I walked to Eslite and found an interesting book, Season of the Witch; How the Occult Saved Rock 

and Roll. An appropriate title for this eerie season of coronavirus outbreak. There is going to be plenty of time to read it with the school in Miaoli cancelling next week’s four day twelve-hour “Grinch Symposium” due to the panicky precaution. Meanwhile, the Taipei International Book Exposition I'd been looking forward to has been pushed back to May and my language exchange partner is uninterested in having meet-ups next week. 

Back to business, maybe. 

As late as yesterday afternoon, the contact from the United Daily sponsored enrichment at Da-Tong Middle School in Miaoli was advising us that all students and staff were being required to wear facial masks as a precaution against the coronavirus. In fact, a few students of Chinese origin had recently returned from the Mainland. I was being asked again to provide materials to be copied and the PowerPoint presentation I was going to show. I was going to finish the PPT in the evening and send it off but when I woke up from my nap, everything had changed; the program was cancelled, if not by the Dept. of Ed. Or by Miaoli, then by the school itself; I’m not sure which. I lost the four-day twelve hour program I was looking forward to facilitating. 
  For myself, and for every teacher and worker in Taiwan who will lose money for their lost time and effort, we should not let bosses and managers get away with it; even if it is "an act of G-d" such as an epidemic that causes the cancellation of work hours. I spent more than three hours planning and writing the PPT I would use with the students next week and I expect to be paid for it; we should not work for free. I will ask for two hours wages, wages that can be subtracted from the twelve hours at a future enrichment program  unless  re-scheduling is for the summer break making teaching The Grinch That Stole Christmas irrelevant.  

"I've got my mask on; do you?" 

Yesterday, the World Health Organization said the virus represents a risk outside of China as the United States reported its first case of person-to-person transmission. The number of deaths in China reached 300, with confirmed infections near 20,000. However, the virus does not seem to be as deadly as SARS, which killed 774 people from 2002 to 2003. SARS had a mortality rate of 9.6%, whereas about 2% of people infected with the new coronavirus have died. But the number of people infected after one month has already surpassed the SARS outbreak's eight-month total. While the world isn't taking precautions, it is an all out panic in Taiwan, perhaps for political anti-Chinese purposes. Many patients with coronavirus have already made full recoveries. According to Chinese officials, most of those who've died were elderly or had other ailments that compromised their immune systems. It is overkill here and inconveniencing everyone.

In Taiwan, the ninth case of coronavirus was reported; a carrier who passed it on to his spouse. Meanwhile the Ministry of Education announced a temporary ban of Chinese trainees and exchange students and suspended applications for Chinese nationals to participate in trainee or exchange student programs. Earlier, the entry of degree-seeking Chinese students was postponed for two weeks. It remains to be seen if public school classes will resume on schedule, Feb. 10th, after the Lunar New Year break. Bushibans (cram schools) will be cancelling classes, too. 

Glad at least the pool re-opened!

I have to find ways to keep busy with my plans compromised over virus outbreak precautions. I have Chinese studying to do, music to listen to, books to read, and I love to swim in a private pool a fifteen-minute bike ride away; nothing better to do with the coronavirus scare closing almost everything else. The pool reopened a few days ago and I hope it stays so. There is always bike riding up the Han River to stay active, TV and YouTube to entertain us in the evening. We watched a 60's American TV drama called Wild Wild West to start things off. Ironically, we saw an episode in which Michael Dunn, who played mad scientist Miguelito Quixote Loveless, wearing the same surgical mask that is flying off the shelves in Taiwan now. 

"This coronavirus will torpedo David's plans!"

"Put your mask back on; you fool!" 

          The news about the coronavirus, stressing its origin in China, is unrelenting in Taiwan media; they mention "Wuhan" every chance they get.  Of the six TV news stations, there is no mention in the media comparing the 8,000 dying of the flu in the U.S. this winter; that is more important news that China cares for the health of its people more than the U.S. does. The “Epidemic Center” (as it's called)  spokesman we see on TV assures Taiwanese that Taiwan will  kill the yellow peril across the Strait and set up isolation tents outside certain hospitals just in case, but they want their Taiwanese businessmen back anyway, infected or not.
           One gallivanting Taiwan businessman came back infected from China and shared his disease at a dance hall infecting a pitiful prostitute. He was fined hundreds of thousands of Taiwan dollars for trying to hide his fever with Tylenol at the airport. The PRC is taking the threat seriously and is throwing every resource it has at containing the deadly virus while Taiwan mimics U.S. media contention that China is incapable of handling it. 

          The TAIEX stock market yesterday lost 696.97 points, or 5.75 percent on panic selling as worries over the coronavirus outbreak deepened. Taiwanese firms in China extended the Lunar New Year holiday until next month.

          The government plans to purchase 4 million masks a day to ensure continued supply and availability. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) on Tuesday announced that it would be releasing 6 million masks a day onto the market for three consecutive days.There was still a shortage of masks though more than 19.7 million masks were distributed to convenience stores and pharmacies.

          It is inconvenient for everyone. For me, it looks like my proposed trip to Beijing and Hunan in late June may be out until the coronavirus abates. There was a chance of meeting up with a Brooklyn College friend settled in Budapest but in China for a week on a teacher exchange; even the possibility of sharing a ferry from there to Taiwan.

Chairman Mao Revolutionary Tour &

 Nanjiecun People’s Commune Pre-Tour Information

John McGovern Sales & Personnel Manager M: +86 19991452995 Email: John@YoungPioneerTours.comWeChat: johnmcgovern “budget tours to destinations your mother wants you to stay away from”

Hi John: I don't want to leave you hanging so I'll tell it to you straight. If I go on any tour in China, your Mao tour will be the one. I have one consideration; time. How much leeway do I have to get the visa and send the down payment to make this happen. Sometime after the Lunar New Year I will know for sure and make arrangements. Is that okay? I appreciate your prompt response and will be in contact. Thank you. 

          Wuhan, where the virus broke out, is on the high speed rail line from Beijing to Hunan. It would be risky to plan my trip there until the epidemic is under control. It's amazing how many times life has gotten in the way of my visiting China. I originally came to Taiwan in '79 because I couldn't get a visa to study there. And now this with the virus. My proposed trip to China from June 29-July 6 is out until further notice. Glad I decided to wait to pay until after the new year. Whew!
       So goes my trip north to spend a day in Taipei at the International Book Exhibition; it will have to wait until May. [NOTE: The Expo was cancelled completely] I only hope the Green Day concert we are going to in Taipei March 17,[NOTE: The concert was rescheduled for March 16, 2021] or their other eight Asian tour dates aren't affected as other entertainment and sports events have been, cancelled, postponed or moved elsewhere. Let's hope the outbreak reaches its peak in the next few weeks and subsides. 

There goes my trip to Taipei, too!

Is it the “Season of the Witch” or only witchcraft by unscrupulous anti-Chinese governments spreading panic to defame China when they should be helping? It is one thing to be precautionary, another to inflate a danger for political purposes; either way, the common people suffer as the coronavirus, the Grinch that stole this season, moves on as the world  does its best to cope with the outbreak caused by foolish people at an illegal Wuhan market selling and buying meat from infected wild animals. 

www.readingsandridings.jimdo.com

Purchase "Unnatural Beauty;Poems from the Han Riverside" here.

Copyright © 2020 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved