The Corona Virus has reached my wife’s village

Lihong’s village is located between the city of Chaoyang in Liaoning Province and the border with Inner Mongolia. Liaoning is that part of China that borders North Korea. In earlier times it was called Manchuria.

Lihong’s parents work on the land. The main crop is maize. The dried stalks are stacked high in the yard to be used as fuel for the oven. The oven is the heart of the house. Lihong’s mother cooks on it, but the furnace also heats the water that is piped under the huge communal bed. The family sleeps on this bed in winter when temperatures drop to minus 20C.

Chemicals from industrial waste have leeched into the water supply. Many villagers die in their fifties and sixties from cancers. Younger villagers have left for b...

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