Just blame the Americans. United States military scientists, worried that China might attack Taiwan while U.S. forces were busy in Iraq, invented the virus and set it loose it in China late last year to keep Beijing busy. Now, Beijing is about to be put under martial law. Or completely locked down. Or sprayed by crop dusters. At least that's what the rumours say.
Most Chinese don't trust the communist bureaucrats managing the Sars crisis and are tuning into the modern bush telegraph for news, cures and jokes on the disease. Text messaging, Internet chat rooms, e-mails and word of mouth spread Sars news at instant speed. Offices trill to the beeping of the latest dubious intelligence arriving on mobile phones.
The authorities had to deny rumours that the city would be put under martial law or quarantine. Doctors laugh at the widespread myth that no smoker has caught Sars so people should light up. Many people think Beijing will be disinfected, crop-duster style, by a fleet of aircraft.
The rumours have helped the city withdraw into itself, prompting panic buying of staple foods, a virtual end to nightlife and transforming weekday rush hours into quiet scenes more like Sunday afternoons.
Beijingers well know that this week's rumour has a habit of becoming next weeks' fact. The grapevine helps them prepare. Weeks before the party admitted to the scale of the Beijing outbreak, text messages warned people to stay away from the bar scene in Sanlitun district. The warning was based on the fact that the People's Armed Police hospital adjacent to the bar strip was secretly under quarantine after an outbreak of Sars--a fact that the authorities have still yet to reveal to the public.
DATE: 2003.05.01 - 21:22
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