For a number of years in the 20-aughts, I worked in Wuhan, Hubei Province, People’s Republic of China. China being China, and Wuhan being a provincial outpost of old China, an amalgamation of three towns incorporated under the one name, observations of life there then might be of interest now, given the tumult over the mushrooming conflagration of the coronavirus. Because I lived on the outskirts of town, near a squealing pig farm, many buffalo in the fields, goats occasioning the streets, wild dogs inoffensively wandering about most of the open-air eateries not presumptuous enough to call themselves restaurants -- a few plastic chairs and unwashed PVC tables scattered near a rough kitchen, basically -- I was faced daily with the critical choice: Shall I risk whatever microbes or bacteria or whatever we might ‘catch’ or go along with the locals, who ate whatever was on offer without much of a tremor or fret. Most of the time, frankly, I was hungry, and...(Read Full Article)