Misadventures of Covid 19 Lockdown in Trichotomy

Disney ride

We stayed in our house for the most part during the first month of the pandemic lock-down. The only time we left the house was to take our daily walks around the neighbourhood. Around the beginning of May, we figured because the weather had gotten nice, we could venture out to a state park nearby for our walk. It’d be a nice change of scenery, and we got to run the car to make sure it was still working.

The car was a little sluggish when we started it - it hadn’t been started for almost 2 months at that point, but after a while it was running fine. When we got to the state park, we noticed the parking lot was full and there was a crowd there. At that time we didn’t know the relative risks of outdoor transmission and didn’t want to risk it, so we drove onto a new area.

According to Google maps, there was a church right in front of us that has a nice green area around it, so I figured we could just park at the church and take our walk there. What Google map didn’t show was the tiny island in the middle of the church’s parking lot entrance, and La Professure drove right over it. We heard a loud pop, and realized a tire was shredded.

It was stressful for us because it was a Saturday, no one was around, and we were stuck in the middle of nowhere in a tiny church’s parking lot, thinking we had to get a taxi or Uber in the middle of a pandemic, and possibly leaving the car at the church. We called several places for towing services, and after half an hour we managed to get hold of a towing service.

The driver of the tow truck was very understanding, and told us that he’d be happy to let us ride in our car while it was being towed. So we did. It’s definitely not safe (or legal) to do so, but we figured it’s more safe than hopping in an Uber. Besides, the car was transported on a flat-bed truck, so we were actually sitting up high and no one could see us. The ride was actually quite fun - it reminded me of taking an amusement park ride.

He dropped us off at our car’s dealership, we paid him by cash (all of this transaction is very much under-the-table), and walked home from there. The next day we arranged to have the dealership fix the tyre and do a checkup on the car (it was due anyway).

At least we got our walk in.

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The right perspective

There was a Canadian anthropologist who studied my grandfather’s village. He became friends with our family and would show up once every few years to visit us. Uncle Johnson, we’d call him.

He retired a few years ago and wrote a memoir with his wife about the experience of doing research in Hong Kong during that era. It covered the tail end of the Cultural revolution, a couple of riots, rapid industrialization, development of social infrastructure, a separate cultural identity, and westernization.

There were many aspects of my family that I did not understand growing up; why my uncles needed to divide rent amongst themselves, why we owned rental property in the middle of town, why they knew some other villagers and not others, why we never ventured to the to tier of the village, or why the grave sites we visited in Ching Ming were so far from our village. Even last year, my father asked me to take on the role managing some sort of fund that’s tied to the village’s chapel somehow, even though I had not physically been in that chapel for 20+ years.

The book cleared up a lot of things; now stuff starts to make sense. Sometimes you need the perspective from an outsider to explain it in a way other than “that’s the way it is”.

The most enlightening of all: Uncle Johnson wasn’t an anthropologist at all; auntie Johnson was. He was a sociologist.

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Voice

After the George Floyd murder many organisations put out statements showing their support. The music group I belong to is non-political, but it’s as much a community organisation as it is a performance organisation. Our Black contingent is very small, but we have presented works by Black composers in the past. So it felt appropriate to release a statement.

Turns out it’s not that difficult to be apolitical and still talk about racism. The ideas of justice and equality should transcend politics, and affirming these values is not a political topic.

I know for sure there are Trump supporters in our group, but we haven’t heard any objections; that’s a sign that we hit the right note.

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