Chapter 1209: Changes in Life

No matter which industry you work in, personal connections are very important.

This is true for ordinary people, let alone Fan Wubing, who is at the top of the business world. If he had not had a certain network of relationships in the country that he could use, he would not have been able to develop domestically so smoothly just by relying on his own financial advantages. He has become an industry leader in many industries and even monopolized several resource industries.

In the past ten years, Fan Wubing had a good relationship with the previous two leaders because of the care of his elders. Therefore, I can get things done with ease and don't need to worry much about government constraints. However, things are changing now, so I have to be cautious and see the situation clearly before making plans.

Especially now that his father Fan Heng has served as a member of the Standing Committee and Executive Deputy Prime Minister for the second time, Fan Wubing hopes that his father can stay in this position safely and retire with honor. If his career was adversely affected because of his incompetence, Fan Wubing would still feel guilty.

Although the Fan family has nothing missing now, if Fan Heng can serve as a member of the Standing Committee for this term and another term, it will be considered a record. After all, those who can serve as a member of the Standing Committee for three consecutive terms have already There are less and less, and there will be even less in the future.

From the end of April to the beginning of May, the number of COVID-19 cases in the Kingdom of Jin continued to rise. The city that used to be always overcrowded during the Golden Week experienced a different kind of desertion for the first time.

In shopping malls such as Wangfujing, Xizhuo, and Ruo. There are far more people selling things than buying things. Figures show that the sales of Jingcheng Department Store have dropped by more than 70%.

A new term was born - "target shopping", which refers to a very small number of shopping warriors who come and go in a hurry and decide not to stay. The scene of bargaining and comparison shopping has become a reminiscence of the prosperity of the past.

Most of the restaurants are closed, and some have hidden signs such as "interior decoration". There were very few subway passengers, making the huge underground space look a bit eerie. At its worst, there were only three viewers a day in the cinema, and the Hollywood blockbuster "The Lord of the Rings" currently being screened in theaters in Beijing set a record for the worst box office in the world.

When Fan Wubing and his women went on an outing to the Ming Tombs to relax, he looked around. Counting himself, there were only a dozen tourists in the huge Ming Tombs attraction. The staff were bored sitting under the trees to bask in the sun. Wearing a large mask, there are also large buckets of disinfectant, spray equipment, etc. beside him.

According to statistics, Beijing's tourism revenue dropped by 99.1% during the May Day period. The bustling tourists in the past have failed to live up to the green mountains, green water and grass growing in the capital in May.

For taxis, even though the fare has dropped from 90 yuan to 30 yuan a day, taxi drivers still complain. There are fewer people riding in the car.

Money is hard to make. They suffered from traffic jams on weekdays and lamented that the traffic in Beijing has never been so smooth, and the traffic police at major intersections seemed to be at ease.

In the Mainland, the IELTS exam before mid-June has been postponed, as has the postgraduate re-examination, and the College English Band 4 and Band 6 exams have also been postponed.

An international metropolis where new miracles appear every day has never been so quiet, as if time has stopped here, as if the entire city is covered, covered, and suppressed under a huge mask.

Obviously, the desolation of urban streets does not stop at the capital.

A survey by the Shanghai Commercial Economic Research Center on the service industry in 34 cities across the country from mid-April to mid-May showed that sales of department stores and chain stores fell by more than one-third. Even in Guiyang, which has no confirmed cases of COVID-19, department store sales fell by more than one-third. Sales also fell by a third, and restaurant industry revenue dropped by nearly half.

Will the hardest-hit service industry become the first domino affecting China's economy? Some economists are worried about China's 9% economic growth target, some judge that the current short-term fluctuations will not affect the overall national economy, and some use the hot figures in other markets to tell people that there is reason to remain optimistic.

Fan's Investment Group's business is undoubtedly very hot, especially in the Northern Automobile Trading Market in the capital. On May 9th alone, it received more than 2,000 customers. The passenger flow and transaction volume were several times that of usual, and buyers Cars are 100% personal, and private cars have become the safest means of transportation in people's minds.

Less people are using cash and more are swiping cards. The average number of people applying online for cards at the Peony Card Center every day is four times the usual number. Disinfectants and health care drugs in pharmacies are selling like hotcakes. During the May Day period, drugstore chains under Jiangnan Pharmaceutical Group achieved retail sales. A year-on-year increase of 60%. The queue to buy traditional Chinese medicine is more than ten meters long. For this reason, they have to start the production line to boil bottled liquid medicine 24 hours a day. Traditional Chinese medicine, which has been wandering between tradition and modernity for many years, seems to be... Found the exit.

Of course, the earth has never been quiet for a while.

Not long after the Chinese peacekeepers entered the country, a tribal feud broke out that shocked the world. canada.com. The Internet breathed a sigh of relief as the obesity epidemic eased, and bad news about mad cow disease spread. The North Korean nuclear crisis intensified. The characters in the U.S. Poker Cards were brought to justice one by one, while the National Defense Building once again raised domestic security alerts to prevent heat terror attacks, etc.

This is also an eventful season in the country: submarine crashes, Hunan mining disasters, fires in the Greater Khingan Mountains, etc. However, for many Chinese, especially residents of the capital, all these events do not seem to be news in their eyes.

It seems that they only pay attention to two words nbsp;nbsp;**. Watch the Ministry of Health's weight loss briefing at four o'clock every afternoon on time, pay attention to the live TV broadcast where medical experts are guests, browse the official news and gossip about the epidemic online, and carefully read the anti-Japanese reports in several pages of newspapers. These have become Complete daily tasks.

Among the various anti-infection prescriptions widely rumored among the people, some people discovered that one of them was exactly the same as the Boxer Rebellion prescription to prevent and treat poisoning by foreigners. Researchers concluded that such prescriptions were just a sign that people wanted to do something when they were panicking.

At the "We Are With You" consultation hotline at the Beijing Emergency Center and the Beijing Center for Disease Control, more than 100 college student volunteers each answer an average of 150 calls per day, with the maximum number being more than 200. It is said that the callers can be roughly divided into two categories: those who always feel uncomfortable and are trying to scare themselves, and those who feel depressed at home and want to talk to someone.

There are several online jokes about several ways to die during the epidemic, exaggerating but concisely summarizing the misfortune of the person trapped in the trap as: wearing a mask and suffocating yourself to death. He was burnt to death in a vinegar fire, poisoned to death by drinking a large amount of traditional Chinese medicine, and his colleagues got sick and died of fear. People who coughed in public were squashed to death, people who spread rumors online were scolded to death, people who were quarantined and died of depression after returning from a business trip, people who suffocated to death doing nothing at home, etc.

Fortunately, even in the most fragile time, the wisdom of ordinary people still shines.

Be more transparent on the situation and government initiatives. After the public security organs arrested the originator of the rumors about the city's lockdown, the rumors that were once widespread on the Internet and through text messages gradually subsided. However, around the beginning of summer, a "baby talking" rumor spread throughout rural and urban areas in 14 provinces including Anhui, Jiangsu, and Shaanxi within a few days.

In different versions of the story, the birthplace of the baby is different, and the words spoken by the baby have also been modified in localization, but the main content is surprisingly consistent, "A baby can talk when he is born, telling people that setting off firecrackers and mung bean soup can prevent **"

Similar rumors actually existed in the old days. But China born in the 21st century is somewhat difficult to understand.

Sociologists have analyzed that this is because farmers are using their familiar knowledge system to deal with catastrophic emergencies such as the **, although it is understandable. It also reflects the embarrassing reality of scarcity of information in rural areas in the face of disasters.

However, what is even more embarrassing is that even though I had not heard anything about the situation before, on the day of the Beginning of Summer, the whole city was filled with the sound of firecrackers. This further shows that the science popularization work has a long way to go and needs to continue.

As the hardest-hit area in mainland China and the main battlefield of the anti-Japanese war, Beijing, which accounts for one percent of the country's population, is home to more than half of the coronavirus cases. Therefore, in the eyes of some people, Beijing residents are regarded as virus carriers and are feared to be avoided.

Several Jingzi cars appeared at an intersection in a certain village, and the village boy standing guard immediately placed them on the message tree. The village party secretary rang the old bronze bell at the head of the village eagerly, and the people from the capital entered the village! Folks, please wear a mask! A mobile phone text message in the style of a Japanese enemy entering a village has been widely circulated.

Another joke seems to be more gray. A woman is walking in a dark place at night and is hugged by a pervert. The woman suddenly coughs. The pervert immediately stopped and touched the girl’s forehead, it was hot! Listen to your breathing, gasp! The pervert was so frightened that he immediately ran away. The woman looked innocent and shouted: I am just too nervous, and I am not from the capital!

The threat of disease has brought people a healthy lifestyle, which may be an effect that any patriotic health campaign cannot achieve.

For the first time, I learned that masks are divided into 12 and 16 layers, and I learned about the different brands of disinfectant. For the first time, I strictly required myself to go to bed early and get up early, and wash my hands for thirty seconds, even though this had already happened in elementary school. It’s the same truth I’ve talked about before; it’s the first time I insist on going downstairs for a jog and playing badminton, but in the past I was always too busy to talk about exercise and I didn’t have time; it’s the first time I studied recipes carefully and found that my craftsmanship is no worse than that of restaurants and bars outside; It was the first time I sat down and quietly read the book "Quality". I hate how much good time I spent reading inadvertently.

Anything that flies in the sky, except airplanes; anything with long legs on the ground. Cantonese people who eat everything but the bench no longer dare to eat wild animals, and the meal-sharing system has once again become a hot topic of discussion. There are fewer people spitting. If you accidentally take a mouthful of phlegm, you will have to pay a fine of 200 yuan. After major cities across the country imposed heavy fines on spitters since April, an article in the "European Times" stated that China will erase the stigma of being a big spitting country.

The garbage mountain next to the community has been cleaned up, the living environment of migrant workers has been greatly improved, and dogs are no longer allowed to be walked in public places. It is said that dog hunting orders promulgated in Xi'an and other places have even made abandoned pets a new social problem.

It may not be too late to start everything from now on.