Coronavirus - those in China, and general discussion

[Weyland]

520

[Tomsima]

update from quarantine here:

 

- first lab test results are back, and the whole group has tested negative, which is obviously great news.

- were going to be tested again this saturday, then again two days before the 14 day period is up, because apparently some symptomless carriers don't show up on early tests.

- i am closing in on completing my written memorisation of 千字文, I have written it out so much now I am starting to really hate it…which is always a good sign, shows I'm definitely reciting it enough

- hit the 30 mark for classical poems learnt by heart…

- so bored ive ordered a neo geo to the quarantine centre so i can play metal slug. I literally never get bored of studying, but damnit if my brain doesn't need to unwind sometimes

[Guest realmayo]

Pleased to hear it. 

 

BTW your earlier report of the outside of the hospital, people screaming and boxes with blood slopping remains the most vivid, and disturbing, discription I've come across in all that I've read about this disaster so far. Others I know in Wuhan/Hubei are just hunkered down - and trying to persuade me to wear a mask in London. 

[Tomsima]

I really wish I had been a bit braver and subtley taken some videos, because it really was so surreal.

 

When we were indoors for those few weeks, despite reading all the shocking social media posts, I really didnt expect anything once we were outside, and tbh once we were off our little alley and onto the main road, it really wasnt anything remarkable, just an empty street (although that is fairly remarkable in china i guess). It all got all bizarre and apocalyptic-like once we had to go to the centre of town, where all the govt buildings and hospitals are. As long as you were on foot and passed the temp check, police were letting anyone walk in and out of the areas cordoned off to cars in the city centre.

 

In two hours we must have seen around 20 people in total, mostly queueing up to scream at govt officials who were locked in rooms with an open window to talk to people about whatever problems they were having. We had to go into the hospital body check area, and thats when it got scary, bad timing on our part I suppose: we were being tested by a guy in a hazmat in one of those outside tents when a man started hysterically screaming at a doctor across the road from us. Then an ambulance pulled up and a bunch of doctors jumped out in a panic and started unpacking coolers and boxes with blood on them. We immediately jogged off without trying to look in a panic ourselves. It was one of those moments where you just kind of look at everything as if you arent really there, almost like it was too weird to really be happening.

 

Presumably large parts of Wuhan, Yichang, Huanggang, Jingzhou etc. are the same right now, ie. understaffed and overinfected.

 

I would hazard I guess that many people living in Hubei dont know what its like outside because they haven't been outside nor do they want to. The only people that are outside are those who absolutely have to be out for some emergency reason, causing a concentration of panicked people to all be congregating in one place.

 

edit: added a photo I took of one of the 'windows' where people were shouting, this one was for applying for the 通行证 permit that would get you out of town. Also added one of the many signs up at the entrance to every road
 

[imron]

3 hours ago, Tomsima said:

ive ordered a neo geo

old school!

[Meng Lelan]

5 hours ago, Tomsima said:

so bored ive ordered a neo geo to the quarantine centre

 

Is everyone required to stay inside their assigned rooms for the entire two week duration at Milton Keynes? What is the plan for the 14th day as in where will the quarantined go after completion of the quarantine?

[Shelley]

They are free to go home if they are clear of the virus.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/13/all-wirral-coronavirus-evacuees-set-to-leave-quarantine-after-testing-negative

[Dawei3]

20 hours ago, Tomsima said:

When we were indoors for those few weeks

Thank you for your updates.  The details you provide on your situation and hearing about your feelings makes your posts particularly interesting.  

 

Please keep posting (I expect many would agree with me).  

Edited February 14, 2020 at 02:56 PM by Dawei3

[thechamp]

Agreed. These posts are fascinating.

 

Metal Slug is fcking awesome. Good lad. I'd definitely want to play Metal Slug if I were quarantined.

 

Also, which classical poets?

[murrayjames]

19 hours ago, Tomsima said:

i am closing in on completing my written memorisation of 千字文, I have written it out so much now I am starting to really hate it…which is always a good sign, shows I'm definitely reciting it enough

 

Curious: is this your recommended way of memorizing texts? Writing out and reciting them repeatedly?

 

Thank you for all the updates. I am glad you are safe.

[Tomsima]

56 minutes ago, murrayjames said:

Curious: is this your recommended way of memorizing texts? Writing out and reciting them repeatedly?

 

Not exactly. When I memorized it orally I did it by breaking the text into five section, then did a memory palace for each and completed the text in about 2 months roughly from what I remember. But I noticed that once I didnt have time to do daily recitations in the morning, the memory of what characters I was saying, then the meaning and precise tones all faded relatively quickly, only leaving behind vivid memories of the stories and locations in the memory palace. This was really different to when I learnt Sanskrit about 15 years ago, where I sat with a pandit every morning and recited texts by rote for months on end. It was a pretty excruciating process, but to this day I can still recite verses in Sanskrit that I haven't practiced for years, and remember their meaning. I decided to try going back to this rote method to do the written memorisation of 千字文. Im doing the same with the classical poetry too, and have found that in both instances the results have been great. Slow, yes, time-consuming, yes, but definitely doing the job of going deep into my long term memory.

 

In my opinion, you have to think about why you are memorising something: is it for a competition or performance coming up? Memory palaces, mnemonics, all very effective for time-constrained learning. But what if you just want to remember lots of texts/one really long text off by heart, to be able to recall at any moment for the rest of your life? No time constraints? I can only say I have found that, for me, the only thing that really sticks long term in this kind of way is rote recitation and repetition. It is the only method which actually takes in every little detail of the text and sears it into your memory. You can be kinder about the process and split up the text into manageable bitesize chunks, but you cannot let any mistakes slide: one stroke out of place? Back to the beginning.

 

I couldnt recommend it as a good study technique as it isnt 'fun' and certainly requires more time than other methods, but personally I believe it is the most effective way to memorise. It unfortunately requires a lot of discipline too - as I said in my earlier post, once you start disliking the text and you cant get it out of your head, you know its working…

[Guest realmayo]

Quote

... for hundreds of years educators did seem to sense that children’s brains had to be built up through exercises of increasing difficulty that strengthened brain functions. Up through the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries a classical education often included rote memorization of long poems in foreign languages, which strengthened the auditory memory (hence thinking in language) and an almost fanatical attention to handwriting, which probably helped strengthen motor capacities and thus not only helped handwriting but added speed and fluency to reading and speaking. Often a great deal of attention was paid to exact elocution and to perfecting the pronunciation of words. Then in the 1960s educators dropped such traditional exercises from the curriculum, because they were too rigid, boring, and “not relevant.”

 

But the loss of these drills has been costly; they may have been the only opportunity that many students had to systematically exercise the brain function that gives us fluency and grace with symbols. For the rest of us, their disappearance may have contributed to the general decline of eloquence, which requires memory and a level of auditory brainpower unfamiliar to us now. In the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858 the debaters would comfortably speak for an hour or more without notes, in extended memorized paragraphs; today many of the most learned among us, raised in our most elite schools since the 1960s, prefer the omnipresent PowerPoint presentation—the ultimate compensation for a weak premotor cortex.

 

The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science, Norman Doidge

?

[somethingfunny]

Luckily, in the UK at least, we are returning to such traditional methods of teaching. There are high performing state schools that now require their pupils to memorise and recite great works of poetry on a daily basis. Some people hate it, but I’ve seen it in action and I find it massively impressive that 15 year olds are able to recite the charge of the light brigade from memory and then discuss the meaning of it.  Certainly much more impressive than being able to google the text and it’s meaning - which is the common argument against rote memorisation.

[Flickserve]

Some issue with faulty testing kits in the US.

 

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/covid19-coronavirus-united-states-faulty-test-kits-12429566

[StChris]

On 2/14/2020 at 1:02 AM, Tomsima said:

so bored ive ordered a neo geo to the quarantine centre so i can play metal slug

 

For people old enough to have been a child in the 90s, I think the NeoGeo has an almost mythical status. I could never afford those games back then, so had to make do with the Sega Megadrive. Speaking of which, the mini version of that console has been helping to keep me entertained throughout the semi-quarantine I am currently under.

 

 

I went on one of my weekly adventures out of my 小区 today. The set-up at the entrance/exit has become more elaborate since last week, with some tents now set up. The dreaded "caronavirus pen" awaited me there, however I was well prepared this time and had brought my own so that I didn't have to use the same one as everybody else in the apartment complex. Unfortunately, as I was half-way done writing my phone number, the pen ran out of ink. It was kind of like one of those cliches in a cheesy horror movie where the car won't start at precisely the moment the main character needs to escape from the murderer. I had no choice but to trepidatiously pick up the communal pen and fill in the rest of my personal info. I had to do the same twice more, once at the supermarket, and again when re-entering my 小区.

 

 

The supermarket itself was the same as it has been ever since the crisis started, with people buying much more than usual (the few people you see outside are invariably carrying at least two full bags of shopping each). The only difference from last week was the extra protection worn by the staff (what looks like a basic, cheap plastic rainjacket for the counter staff, and a more fancy all-in-one white suit for the lady on the left).

 

 

Although only a fraction of the normal amount of traffic, they were noticeably more vehicles driving about, to the point where I actually had to look before crossing the road.

 

 

Apart from the cars, another familiar menace has also returned to Harbin - falling icicles. 

 

 

This sign was part of a barrier chain in front of one a few of my local restaurants and I initially thought that they had been sealed off due to a virus-connected incident. It was only as I walked up to the sign and read it that I realised it was warning about another danger (at which point I quickly 远离ed my way back a few steps).

 

The daily 确诊病例s in Harbin are now down to single figures, so I wonder how much longer they will keep the travel restrictions in place here? I've been pretty much just staying in my apartment all day, every day, except for when I need to buy groceries, but starting from tomorrow I am going to start taking little jogs around my 小区 area every morning. Although I have been doing daily yoga and "prison workout" videos, it doesn't quite make up for the lack of fresh air and natural sunlight (and the air has been unusually fresh since the clampdown). At this point I think that is a bigger danger to my health than the tiny chance of contracting the virus.

[Tomsima]

11 minutes ago, StChris said:

For people old enough to have been a child in the 90s, I think the NeoGeo has an almost mythical status. I could never afford those games back then, so had to make do with the Sega Megadrive.

 

Exactly the same as me haha, of some interest I bought the neogeo mini asian-pacific version, as a friend has it in China and not only is the build quality good, but games can be played in Chinese (not that beat-em ups are exactly dialog heavy…but still)

[StChris]

The Harbin city government is now offering 2,000 RMB rewards to anyone who dobs in what it calls 潜在传染者. Needless to say, I'm going to be keeping a close eye on my neighbours from now on ???

[StChris]

8 minutes ago, Tomsima said:

Exactly the same as me haha, of some interest I bought the neogeo mini asian-pacific version, as a friend has it in China and not only is the build quality good, but games can be played in Chinese (not that beat-em ups are exactly dialog heavy…but still)

 

I bought a 16 game NeoGeo collection for the Nintendo Wii a few years back, and despite it only costing £20, I treated that disc with reverence like no other. Even if those games have since been ported to every modern system under the sun, in my mind they are each still the enormous £130+ cartridges I used to drool over in the back of Mean Machines magazine.

[roddy]

13 minutes ago, StChris said:

The Harbin city government is now offering 2,000 RMB rewards to anyone who dobs in what it calls 潜在传染者.

What's your address? It's for a.... prize. 

[StChris]

12 minutes ago, roddy said:

What's your address? It's for a.... prize. 

 

That reminds me, I should tap up the foreign community here. They probably haven't read the news and will just think that I'm being really considerate when I ask how they're doing...