Back in January, when the COVID-19 pandemic was only a seedling of unsettling “Far East” news, I traveled through Wuhan, China when I was returning to Malaysia from San Francisco. I have a huge fear of pandemics, to the point where I can’t sleep for days after watching The Happening, 12 Monkeys, or any other virus-centric films. My friends joked about how I would get the virus in the airport and be left for dead in China. I wore a mask while I was traveling, and in the airports as panic beads of sweat ran down my face and I stayed as far away from everyone as I possibly could until we were crammed into the vessel.
In February, I bartended for a bar on the infamous Love Lane in Georgetown, Penang. I didn’t wear a mask and I came into contact with travelers and their empty glasses daily. There wasn’t any panic about the virus in Penang at this time.
At the end of the month, I had to go to Kuala Lumpur to visit the US Embassy to sort out some visa paperwork. Nobody was wearing a mask behind the bulletproof glass that separates US embassy workers from the locked-in customers seeking documents and visas but a few of the Malaysians there for their visa interviews were wearing masks and repeatedly walking over to the hand sanitizer dispenser to wet their hands. Later that day I decided to explore a bit of the city as I had never been there before. At 9 am there were lines wrapping around the blocks in front of pharmacies filled with people hoping to get in on the new shipment of masks, hand sanitizer, and gloves. By 10 am there were aunties and uncles on the street with small plastic baskets full of these items being sold for ten times their value. I didn’t wear a mask.
In March, I continued to work at the bar- but the customers were only trickling in.
I brought hand sanitizer into the bar with me and I avoided the customers as much as I could manage. Eventually, I quit bartending with only a few days left before the lockdown order was put into place. The event that influenced my decision to leave was the first confirmed case of COVID-19 on Penang island.
March 18, 2020: The Malaysian government issued a Movement Control Order (MCO). In Kuala Lumpur, this meant that people were prohibited from leaving their homes for anything considered non-essential. Businesses shut their doors indefinitely and panic flooded the city. In Penang, people stopped going to restaurants to eat, hanging out in malls, and lounging on the street. But panic was present, though masked individuals in public were still few.
Today Penang is a completely different place than it was two weeks ago.
If you are caught by a police officer without a mask or for being out after the 8 pm curfew then you are stopped and either fined or taken into custody. Two nights ago, I watched from my balcony as a car was pulled over at 9 pm by a policeman and the driver was taken into custody while their car was left on the side of the street. There are very few people outside, and most restaurants are closed. The few restaurants that are still open have a barricade of tables between the staff and the entrance to minimize contact with the delivery drivers who come clad in the armor of gloves, masks, and eye shields to deliver hot food to the hungry Penangites.
Every time I leave my apartment I feel like I am walking into a zombie apocalypse. I don my mask (I have been reusing the same disposable mask since I came from Wuhan because none are available) and avoid touching anything as I run to the 7/11 to purchase cigarettes or take money from the ATM. Both the teller and I dutifully avoid speech and touch by placing everything in a basket between us for transfer. After, he offers me a pump of hand sanitizer and a nod as I scurry out the door. Upon return to my home, I immediately wash my hands, scrub my arms with alcohol wipes, and carefully place my mask in a bag on the back of my door that I lined with alcohol wipes.
I look out my window and see beautiful skies, clearer than I ever thought was possible; and after years of living in the thick pollution of Hanoi, Vietnam, Penang is unbearably beautiful most days. The birds are lively, and the streets are desolate. The homeless men that lived in front of my door have moved on to somewhere new. I look out my window and I see obedience. Every so often I see a man with no mask wandering down the middle of the road speaking to himself and dragging an empty plastic bag along the ground behind him, no doubt he isn’t aware of the world we live in, blissfully ignorant to the panic plaguing the nation.