Posts Tagged ‘covid-19’
2020: a timeline
2020 was a bit of a weird year. I might summarise what it felt like sometime. I might not. But here is a concise timeline of the year.
December 30, 2019: London Gatwick to Hong Kong.
Celebrated NYE at a houseparty then went to Central island with Masha and Katya, Wing, and met Laurie. Saw in the new year with drinks on the street.
Woke up late on Jan 1 2020, had Vietnamese lunch with Masha then we joined the crowd for the New Year’s Day demonstration. Watched Knives Out in the evening at the cinema.
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January 8: Hong Kong to Cebu City, for 3 days. Then Siargao where I was adopted by some locals and learned how to surf.
Published: The National – Growth of Haidilao feature
Read the rest of this entry »Freelance life under lockdown
I am home in the family abode in Sussex and England is under lockdown. It will end in December but, for now, most things are closed, and many are working from home.
When I left Japan, in September, and finally returned home I did not expect that the situation, in Europe and England, would get worse. But it did.
For whatever reasons [widespread mask use; good hygiene; differences in social customs], Japan never really experienced huge spikes in cases of Covid-19, despite being a densely populated archipelago of 126 million.
From March to September, of this year, a hostel in a shopping arcade in Fukuoka, the biggest city on the southern island of Kyushu, was my home. And I made it work. I would shop at my local supermarket, often venturing there late in the evening to snap up bargains. I cooked in the hostel’s kitchen. I worked in the common area. I even entertained guests (Hi Heloisa and Debs!) at my hostel, cooking for them, or just drinking away splendid evenings.
I wrote articles for the BBC in the evening, while hostel guests chatted with me, and I had to politely tell them “yeah, I’ve got to finish this” and the next day I’d wake up and the article would be published for millions to read around the world. I filed stories about China and about Japan, for the likes of Business Insider, BBC, and The National.
Anyway, all that is now in the past. Usually when I go on one of my stints of travel, I am wistful and nostalgic about them afterwards. And although I do miss aspects of living in Fukuoka (mostly these aspects are derived from the fact Fukuoka is a city of many people and I have finally realised I enjoy city life) this time, even though I am under lockdown in parochial England, living a quiet life of rural runs and PlayStation, I do not feel so nostalgic about that time. Mostly because there were periods of stress, pressure, and misery in that hostel, while pandemic lockdowns bloomed around the world.
Over the past weeks, I’ve been busy, falling into a mostly satisfying schedule of pitching, reporting and writing my freelanced articles. Very recently, however, my productivity has plummeted. And I think this is because I’ve been straining against my real inclination. Recently, I’ve wanted to concentrate on working on my own writing. My creative projects: essays, nonfiction, and fiction. That’s the stuff I’m truly passionate about.
Journalism is great and I’m so grateful that I’m still employed and earning, doing a job that is varied, interesting, and full of feedback (even if it is not the most remunerative in the world). But we all have our true obsessions and literature happens to be mine. I just couldn’t get to it as much as I could recently; I couldn’t dedicate my time and attention, my sole focus, to it; and I raged at having to finish the work I had to do, on time, and as close to the lofty standards I set myself. Perhaps it is this friction that can lead to some form of burnout.
Lockdown is boring, of course, but with these restrictions and limitations I don’t feel it’s a limitation on creativity per se. Having a sheltered time to read good books and to think about writing is ideal for me (although obviously I wish I had the option to do other things as well).
For now I can only bide my time and work on the things I care about, write the things that earn the money I need and save up for the travel that will, eventually, be open again. Patience and forbearance have always been virtues. While angst, resentment, and despair have never been very useful emotions however “appropriate” to the current situation they may be.
My writing life
It’s been some time since I last updated this blog. I just haven’t felt the need or energy to do so. I focused on paying gigs and the secret writing I do in my spare time. And the blog inevitably took a backseat.
I’ve been enjoying reading, ripping through Tolkien’s The Children of Hurin (a good yarn), finishing Rachel Cusk’s Outline (deep and precise), and enjoying Tim Marshall’s Prisoners of Geography (clear-eyed and illuminating). I’ve also been gaming a lot, completing The Last of Us Part II and starting Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. And watching a lot of movies and shows. Hashtag lockdown life.
Bylines, bylines, bylines
I was delighted to debut in my first literary journal, a piece of nonfiction for nature writing journal The Willowherb Review. I wrote about videogames, the nature within videogames, my journey from China to England (and vice versa), and traveling to the Philippines:
I spent two months while I was in Japan interviewing the right people, getting endless feedback from my editor, researching and learning about wind turbine design, the energy situation in Japan, climate change and typhoons to write this 2,000-word piece for BBC Future Planet:
The wind turbines standing up to the world’s worst storms
I also spent an ordinate amount of time researching and interviewing for this in-depth feature for Business Insider, exploring why Japan’s software industry kinda sucks:
I had fun writing about how I got hooked on Call of Duty: Mobile’s mode ‘Attack of the Undead’, while I was living in Japan, for UK publication GAMINGbible:
The Undead of ‘Call of Duty: Mobile’ Got Me Through Lockdown
Ups and downs: the rollercoaster of freelance journalism
I would not advise anyone, currently, to consider going into journalism. It has been a tumultuous time for the industry. Over the past couple of weeks, job cuts have been announced at VICE, Quartz, Conde Nast, The Atlantic, Buzzfeed, Vox Media, LA Times, The Economist, among others.
The printed word, as a business, is in a very precarious position as ad spend, the events arm, and other money-making parts of this industry, have been decimated owing to effects from covid-19.
Yet, more than ever before, people are reading and clicking through. Many media titles have reported increases in traffic. Social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter reap benefits from the content created by news media, making their platforms go-to places for potential sources of information, yet the media do not reap the financial rewards. Facebook and Google suck up the vast majority of worldwide ad spend (in the billions of dollars), while journalism — which plays an important civic role, especially local newspapers — continues its downward trend.
On a personal level, as a freelancer, my fortunes have rollercoastered. If my finances remain fairly stable (although still low) the feeling of freelancing in this current predicament has been fraught and stressful.
Some days, I feel despondent at the entire process of coming up with ideas, researching, crafting a well-written and precise pitch, waiting for editor replies (some of which never come). It is a lot of investment, plus mental labour, for relatively little return. And yet, job cuts and furloughs are not confined to the journalism industry. Whole swathes of the economy are in trouble. Airlines, hotels, restaurants, theatres, retailers, are just a few examples of businesses facing a black hole. Tourism and all the people who rely on it are facing existential crisis.
To be a freelancer, at this time, is to feel simultaneously insecure, and yet, in some way, also stable and liberated. Because I am still working and able to work, as long as I continue toiling and pitching to those editors still with the budget to commission and pay. I am somewhat protected. So maybe do try going into freelance journalism — just know that you’ll likely be competing with the hundreds of journalists who have just been laid off.
And it is remarkable how just one commission, with a new publication, and on a subject close to my heart, can energise and renew my faith in this lark. Freelance journalism is mostly dining on greased up junk food, paying out little nutritional value, but occasionally you get to savour a gloriously fulfilling meal with plenty of vegetables (you’re not an adult if you don’t like vegetables).
View from the rooftop of my hostel in Fukuoka.
But my finances remain on the edge. I realise now, in hindsight, I committed a couple of cardinal errors in the first three months of this year. In February I was in Thailand and I spent too much money, and earned far too little. I should have been more prudent. Now, in Japan, I am enduring on break-even income, budgeting hard, and working hard. I guess mistakes are made, and lessons will be learned. Had the pandemic not have occurred, I would have been in a cheaper country by now, yet having to remain in one place for so long (I have been living in the same hostel since March 13) has done wonders for my productivity and output.
So I will continue toiling until such time something changes.
My writing life
I have been interviewing many people this week for a story I’ve been working on. It’s a feature about British Chinese, a minority group to which I belong. In October 2013, the New Statesman published this story: ‘Where exactly are my British Chinese role models?‘ To this day, it remains the article from which I have received the most email. Although I remain somewhat cynical about journalism, sometimes it really does have an effect on people, and the emails I received from that story are evidence. Hopefully, this new article will have a similar effect.
Recent bylines:
BBC Worklife — Life after lockdown: How China went back to work
The Wandering Freelance Journalist In A Pandemic: Stuck in Japan and Staying Productive
Hi reader,
I write you from a hostel in Fukuoka, Japan. I have been here a few weeks. Same hostel, same city. Fukuoka is in Kyushu, the southernmost island of Japan’s five main islands.
Since I arrived, I have seen borders close and citizens in cities around the world stuck indoors. We are living through a pandemic, which is defined as the worldwide spread of a new disease. Pubs and schools are closed in the United Kingdom, something that seemed unthinkable. Wuhan, the origin point of the virus, a city of 10 million, was placed under strict lockdown. America and Germany saw infections balloon. France, Italy and Spain have borne the brunt of fatalities. Boris Johnson, Prime Minister of the UK, whom I interviewed 10 years ago when he was mayor of London, is in intensive care.
And me? How has it affected my freelance career; my wandering life?
I am fortunate that Japan has a relatively low number of cases. Although a state of emergency has been declared by PM Shinzo Abe, the government here is unable to enforce strict lockdowns due to civil rights abuses during World War Two, and protection of such rights was enshrined in the post-war constitution. Museums, art galleries, schools are closed, but many shops and restaurants remain open here in Fukuoka.
Freelance copywriting work from China has dried up, as many agencies have been affected by clients scaling back their budgets. Many journalism publications, meanwhile, have been under huge pressure to keep up with Coronavirus-related content.
I was supposed to have left Japan, flying from Fukuoka’s airport, on March 23 but my flight was cancelled (still waiting on that refund, Air Asia!). I am glad it was cancelled anyway as my next destination was Kuala Lumpur but the Malay government is not accepting foreign entrants at this time.
I have friends who are currently stuck in Tokyo. After being forced to delay their return to Beijing, where they live, they took refuge in Singapore but had to leave due to finishing visas, but as soon as they left the Singaporean government closed their borders. Now they’re in limbo, with their stuff scattered across two countries. My family in England meanwhile are all at home: with shops and schools closed.
A novelist friend of mine has had her book marketing tour cancelled. Many of my acquaintances and journalist colleagues describe hellish working conditions, as they bury themselves in a deluge of coronavirus reports, or their commissions have all but dried up. A fellow wandering journalist, who had lined up reporting assignments all over India got stuck in Goa, India, but took a hail-mary flight back to London via Rome. Travel journalists, meanwhile, seem the most severely affected. Thankfully no one I know has been terribly affected by the virus, health-wise (touch wood).
Japan
So this is my first time in Japan. I lived in Beijing for six years, but funnily enough I never made it to the Land of the Rising Sun. I always thought it was too expensive, and my suspicions have been confirmed. Truthfully though, Fukuoka at least is not awful in terms of costs. Accommodation and food prices are not as cheap as I’d like but it’s certainly not as costly as, say, the UK.
Everything here is neat, tidy, extremely safe and well organised. But honestly I am not one of these people who are obsessed with Japan, some of whom I have met in my hostel. I’ve never been a Japanophile although it’s always interesting to visit a new country and I was genuinely curious about what this east Asian country would be like. I always find it interesting to compare/contrast China with its historical rivals.
An island in Japan. (All photos copyright: LHL 2020)
But Japan doesn’t reach into my soul like places in other parts of Asia do. The symbols and motifs of Nepal; the distinctive light of Burma; the colours of Thailand; and the sultry food of Malaysia and Singapore all sing to me. The “exotic” aspects of southeast Asia speak to my heart.
However, highlights so far have been going to a random restaurant and having my opinion of tempura completely changed. Consuming a superlative bowl of ramen (which cost £7). Visiting an island and meeting an interesting Australian guy and his wife. Seeing the Sakura bloom — I really didn’t expect them to be as splendid as they are.
I know I should visit Kyoto and Nara, and I will at some point, but I think I prefer to save my money for future travels. Tokyo is also on my wish-list but the museums and art galleries there are closed. Getting around Japan is expensive.
My writing life
While I have been in Fukuoka, I have filed one article, a feature for BBC Worklife. I finished it during an evening in my hostel, while an Australian guy chatted to me about heeding his government’s call for Aussies to return home, and the next day it was published. That article, I’ve been told, has received over 300,000 clicks.
Recent bylines:
How Viruses Spread in Offices – BBC Worklife
How Covid-19 led to a nationwide work-from-home experiment – BBC Worklife
I’ve started work on an essay for which I was contractually commissioned by a literary journal. It has a very long lead-in time (deadline is months away) so I am enjoying this, and I
am excited to write this essay as it marks a first for me.
This week I will work hard on pitching. I worked out I am living on around £25 per day, so I need to file a certain amount of articles per month to keep this show on the road. And I hope the roads will open up soon.
I have seen many writers and freelancers complain of being unable to work and be productive while this pandemic is in swing, but I have found it a clarifying force. I cannot control borders and government ministers and the movement of viruses so I don’t think about them. But I can control my routine. I can control my schedule. I am lucky that I am still able to go outside and wander the parks so I make the most of that. I have a friend here in Fukuoka so we hang out.
Still, I waste a lot of time watching Netflix and bouncing around the various social media. But one doesn’t need to be too hard on oneself. A few days I just spent lounging: reading and Netflix-ing. Watching Snowpiercer and re-watching The Godfather; Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Finishing a novel, All That Man Is by David Szalay. Downloading a game, Forgotton Anne (that’s not a typo), on to my iPad. Sometimes you just gotta settle into a simpler rhythm and enjoy the things you have.
Lu-Hai Liang 