Before the Gate of Pandemic

Jan 2021

When I woke up in the quarantine hotel room, I found myself transformed into Gregor Samsa. I was confined to a small room with a vague view of the outside hospital building. I was fed three times a day food which is not to my taste. Most horribly, I had no one to talk with face-to-face. I felt forgotten and abandoned, like Kafka’s hunger artist in a cage. I felt my very existence threatened and tormented, like the trapeze artist.

I am not the only person who suddenly wakes up in a Kafkaesque nightmare, feeling trapped and isolated. Obviously, Molly Yong believes so when she says, in her New York Times article Quarantine Was Driving Me Crazy — So I Decided to Lose My Mind on Purpose, “Insanity can keep you sane if you can’t live normally, why not find little harebrained ways to warp reality?” However, failed to find any harebrained ways as an antidote to my 14 abnormal days, I felt lonely and unsure of the future in the poorly lit and cheerless quarantine hotel room.

This feeling of disorientation was strangely similar. It suddenly reminded me of my first experience of meeting the unhoused people at the local homeless shelters and food banks. I remembered their empty stomachs and eyes. I also remembered their empty shelters: sturdy and long-lasting, but also cold, metallic and unfriendly. Many of the spaces were underground and poorly lit. The cold, artificial lighting made me wonder how someone could feel hopeful in such bleak surroundings. Whenever I finished my service, I always felt relieved back to our campus with well-lit classrooms, bright public spaces, a serene lakeside view, and a caring and proactive community.

Would they be even more lonely, helpless, and unsure of their future confined to the bleak underground during the pandemic? How would architects and urban designers, with their “evocative ideas” and “transformative visions” create public spaces that “both advance wellness and knit communities together?” This question dawned on me when I was having my daily online stroll on my third day of hotel quarantine. It seems surreal to see governments playing an endless round of whack-a-mole: crises of public health, housing, PPE shortages, business shut-downs, and educational disruptions cropped up in an endless cycle. Our global village closed borders and suspended most human interactions. If even privileged communities felt the impact, then what about the more vulnerable groups?

It has been recognized that homeless people are among the most vulnerable to the coronavirus, and they are 10 times more likely to die than the general population. However, it has been less recognized that socially distanced public services may aggravate their emotional crisis. How can we build spaces for vulnerable communities that are not minimal in the most basic, physical way? How can they get supported both physically and emotionally? How can we integrate our public services or commonly-accessed spaces so that vulnerable communities can have safely distanced interactions?

When “the gate of law” is shut and everyone becomes the countryman, I hope, this time we can do something to the doorkeeper.

Reference:

Molly Young. “Quarantine Was Driving Me Crazy — So I Decided to Lose My Mind on Purpose.” The New York Times, 11 May 2020.

James S. Russell. “Building Public Places for a Covid World.” 11 September 2020.

Jordan Sisson. “Homeless People Are Among the Most Vulnerable to the Coronavirus. Yale Psychiatry’s Lo is Making Sure They Still Receive Care Amid the Pandemic.” 04 May 2020.