Documentary of Wuhan made by Japanese director

Yesterday, after introducing a video concerning covid-19 in this blog, I remembered another video found on YouTube. It is a documentary “LONG TIME NO SEE WUHAN (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4ABOJ1y5iM)” made by a Japanese director Takeuchi Ryo (竹内亮). The title is “好久不见, 武汉” in Chinese and “お久しぶりです、武漢” in Japanese. In this video, the director had interviews with ten ordinary people in Wuhan, including a restaurant owner, nurse, junior high school teacher, etc.

Takeuchi Ryo has a good command in Chinese and talks in a friendly manner. At a company that manufactures masks, surgical gowns, and protective suites, he tried on a protective suite and said that the inside felt like a sauna house. I could also imagine how hard it was for doctors and nurses to work all day with such a suite on. On the next day, he had an interview with a nurse, Ms. Gong. Though she was a cheerful person, she had difficulty telling about the death of patients. I realized the work of medical workers is hard both physically and mentally. One interesting thing is that they can enter sightseeing spots free of charge by showing their ID. I think it is a very nice privilege. Such consideration and respect to medical workers are also necessary in other countries.

As a whole, I got an impression that the video naturally conveys the voices of people in Wuhan. Personally, I liked to hear female interviewees speaking openly and lively in Chinese (In Japan, many women extremely disguising their voices in public. Such voices are not pleasant to hear).

Among the male interviewees, I was especially impressed by the interview with Mr. Li who did the electrical and wiring work in construction of Wuhan Leishenshan Hospital, which was an exclusive hospital for covid-19 and built in only ten days (normally, it would take six months). It seemed that in China, they made every effort to fight against covid-19 and handled it in a very careful manner. According to Mr. Li, the company he belonged to provided Chinese medicine to all the workers, and he took it after meals to boost immunity. I wondered what kind of medicine it was and got interested in it. As Japanese drug stores have a corner for Chinese medicine, you may be able to find some tablets with a similar effect. Since Chinese medicine is said to have less side effects, it is sometimes used for chronic disorder even though it can be more expensive compared with western medicine. When I was little, I ate Chinese medicine for several months to cure poor blood circulation.

In “LONG TIME NO SEE WUHAN”, I could see some food and wondered if it is easy to find vegetarian/vegan restaurants or street food there. The restaurant owner Mr. Lai in the video said that people in Wuhan love to eat fish as the city is by the Yangtze River. He was a regular customer of Huanan Seafood Market but barely saw any wild animals sold there.