On May 6, 2024, it was announced that the "Healthy Shandong Service Account" would be discontinued. This account had served as a platform for the dissemination of information on the COVID-19 pandemic and the operation of Shandong Province's electronic health code.
Those lost three years, just like this account, were wiped away with a single government document or even a verbal notice.
They have no memory, but I do.
I will not forget the memories of those three years.
In early 2020, during the winter break of my first year of high school, between the end of the final exams and the start of the official winter break, I had already completed all the tasks for the break. However, as the campus reopened in May, those assignments were no longer mentioned.
On the eve of the Spring Festival, during a family gathering, people talked about the raging epidemic in Wuhan. No one would believe that this epidemic would spiral out of control under the great, glorious, and correct leadership of the government. But even with doubts about its extent, my mother firmly prevented me from taking the high-speed train to travel to neighboring cities. She knew very well that although our local area was unaffected, precautionary measures were indispensable.
In a slight state of anxiety, we spent the Spring Festival. Family members returned home from Hong Kong, Beijing, and other places, and we had a big family dinner together before immediately returning. A well-informed elder pointed out that "special epidemic prevention measures" would be implemented next, and if we didn't return immediately, we might be trapped here.
On the second day of the lunar new year, the planned chemistry Olympiad training camp was abruptly canceled due to epidemic prevention policies. On the fourth day, while discussing possible policy adjustments in an online group chat, the school administration suddenly issued an announcement asking us to "prepare for temporary online classes." Subsequently, the textbooks for the second semester were mass-delivered to our homes. I set up my study room and prepared for the upcoming "online classes" that I had never experienced before.
On February 2nd, the first appearance of online classes seemed somewhat primitive. At that time, the school had not yet fully adopted modern tools like DingTalk or Tencent Meeting, so the teachers could only awkwardly use "QQ group live streaming" and "QQ group voice chat" to conduct classes.
"QQ group live streaming" is a live streaming function within a group, similar to other platforms' live streaming. The list of viewers is not fully displayed, and viewers can send gifts to the "host" (i.e., the teacher). Faced with familiar teachers and unfamiliar platforms, most students were particularly excited and kept sending cheap gifts to the teachers—I wonder how much live streaming revenue the teachers received. After about a week of online classes, "QQ group classrooms" were hastily launched, removing the gift function and only retaining the live streaming function. "QQ group voice chat" is similar to the voice chat function on other platforms and has nothing special about it.
Since Tencent Meeting had not been introduced yet, we enjoyed a certain degree of privacy during online classes. We didn't need to turn on the camera and only needed to turn on the microphone when asked a question, creating a relaxed atmosphere in the classroom. During class, we enthusiastically communicated in our respective class and grade groups, as if having private discussions in a real classroom. I posted a message in the group saying, "We have successfully imitated the lively private conversations in class," and received reposts from half of the classmates.
One day, while browsing "Island City's Old Eight" short videos, I was unexpectedly called upon to answer a question. In that moment of surprise, I quickly grabbed the microphone of my computer to prepare to respond, but accidentally forgot to pause the video playing on my phone. As a result, all the online classmates unintentionally shared the sound of "No worries about three meals a day, let's eat Old Eight's special mini burgers today."
Our assignments were all given and submitted online. The political assignments were prohibited from being downloaded by QQ due to the involvement of "sensitive content" related to simplified Chinese internet. In addition, some students became lazy and copied sections from others' assignments in an attempt to pass off as their own work. However, in their haste, they neglected to change the name, and the teacher reported these actions to the entire group.
During this time, although epidemic prevention measures were continuously tightened, we still had a relatively free range of movement. In the early morning of March 10th, before the faint light of dawn had faded, we witnessed an astronomical phenomenon—a supermoon. With a close friend from elementary school who lived in the same neighborhood, we eagerly climbed to the rooftop to capture the bright and radiant moon, as if holding onto the beauty of this celestial body hanging high in the deep purple sky.
The next day, I broke up with my girlfriend at the time after an argument. Fortunately, this cloud gradually dissipated with the mediation of our four close friends. After much contemplation and emotional communication, we eventually reconciled. However, the QQ symbol that lit up through daily interactions was extinguished midway due to this argument.
During this time, my girlfriend and I changed our couple avatars multiple times during online classes. Initially, we used cartoon hamster pictures, and later we switched to selfies with each other's hair tied up in a bun. Many teachers discovered our relationship at this time and privately messaged us, gossiping about it. Most of them expressed their approval of us as a couple (using today's language, "shipping us"), but they hoped that we wouldn't neglect our studies due to excessive flirting. After watching the anime series "ID: INVADED" together, we even changed our couple avatar to a screenshot of "Hole Brother" from the show.
During class, we were unsupervised, so we could freely engage in activities we loved. My girlfriend and I used the streaming platform to catch up on a large number of anime series (according to Bilibili's 2020 annual report, I surpassed 99.7% of users). This included "Initial D" and "JoJo's Bizarre Adventure," among others. At the same time, we immersed ourselves in watching classic movies, completing all the films directed by Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick, as well as many of Charlie Chaplin's films and numerous masterpieces from the IMDb Top 250 list.
Being bored at home, I started trying my hand at running a personal media account. The Zhihu account and the main Bilibili account I managed both reached 10k followers and 23k subscribers, respectively—before being banned one after another due to touching on "sensitive topics." On my Bilibili account, which was primarily used for watching movies, I uploaded some music-related articles and videos, and the number of followers reached around 1k. However, due to long periods of inactivity, it has now declined to around 700.
In April, the school switched to using Tencent Meeting for online classes. We were required to turn on the camera, but it still didn't affect our slacking off in class. At this time, rumors spread that we would soon return to school, but we immediately received a rumor-dispelling notice from the school administration, announcing that online monthly exams would be held at the end of April. Many students cheated extensively during this exam, and the school rankings were particularly exaggerated. Students who were originally at the bottom suddenly jumped into the top 10%, sparking intense discussions among us. Afterwards, I participated in the THUSSAT organized by Tsinghua University and achieved a top ten score, at a time when my learning performance had not yet declined due to psychological issues.
In May, Bilibili released a video titled "The Next Wave," which sparked heated discussions online. On May 6th, I reposted a comment from the internet: "You liked the next wave, and I promoted the 'entry' [referring to a popular phrase at the time], he filmed the non-mainstream, we are all promising young people of the new era." Thinking back to the "entry" that was widely praised but now has no vitality since the epidemic, I couldn't help but find it ridiculous.
The day before school started, I broke up with my girlfriend, which became the catalyst for my ongoing psychological problems.
Attached to the article is a short poem by Jiang Ruijin:
"I Know You Have Nowhere to Rely On"#
Jiang Ruijin
I know you have nowhere to rely on
Like a tree in the wilderness
Swaying in the storm
I know you have nowhere to rely on
Like a fish in the scorching sun
Flipping and jumping in the riverbed
No one knows
No one knows
When the sun will rise
When the flood will come
Yesterday won't
Today won't
Perhaps tomorrow will know
Suddenly seeing a tree from yesterday
Growing in the forest of yesterday
Bathed in the morning sun
Suddenly seeing a fish from yesterday
The river is full
Leaping upwards
Ha, it's all false illusions
Beautiful things that easily lead people astray
Better to look forward to tomorrow
Before the future of tomorrow arrives
Burn passionately
This article is also updated on xLog by Mix Space
The original link is https://ursprung.io/notes/25