Moderator of the 034 issue | Dong Ziqi
Unexpectedly, the two bottles of Coke bought before the sealing turned out to be scarce. The chat history of Coke for everything in the community group has been transferred many times, and some neighbors have also changed their group nicknames to "lack of Coke" or "xx for Coke". Because I was reluctant to have only two bottles of Coke left, I planned to drink it, taking a sip every day, and finally the Coke gas ran away, and then drank like the sweet sugar water of the nineties. Remembering the last bottle of Coke in the human world written by Cormac McKinsey in "The Road", when reading it, I still think it is a writer's American exaggeration, and it is all at this time, who cares about Coke. But people are so contradictory, on the one hand, they need meat, eggs and milk to maintain life, and on the other hand, they also need "non-essential" materials such as cola coffee to maintain their composure, which also re-understands the division between "necessary" and "non-essential".
What are the key points for hoarding at this time? Someone has long been prepared for the long term. When the epidemic broke out in 2020, I connected with the writer Ma Yuan. He lived in the Nannuo Mountains in Yunnan, when the mountains were also sealed, and the mountain gate was set up and could not be entered and exited, but fortunately he grew vegetables at home, and there were two large refrigerators, which were full. He said, my wife is very happy, said that there are greens in the field, there is fat and protein in the refrigerator, and it is no problem to hold on for a month or two.
Hoarding is a preparation for an uncertain future, but how well can this preparation be? Probably the most complete is Kafka's cave. Written in the final stages of Kafka's life, Cave of the Earth tells the story of the protagonist's careful planning to build caves and hoard items in preparation for an opportunity to attack his enemies. His construction and hoarding resembled a kind of mental paranoia, and he willingly became one with the bunker, for it was a completely autonomous territory, but no matter how well prepared, fear always followed, "The cave is not only a life-saving cave, but when I stand in the outline of the city where high meat stocks are piled up, I look at the ten passages that stretch out here." ...... This is my castle, which I have overcome the hard ground by grasping with my hands, nibbling with my mouth, stepping on them with my feet, and touching my head, and it cannot belong to anyone in any way. ”
During the 2020 pandemic, we have a compiled manuscript of a new book titled Bunkers: Built for the End, which also reflects the changes in people's mentalities in the face of crises: throughout the recorded history so far, the existential threats facing humanity have never been more deadly and numerous than they are today; there is also a proper term used to describe these people who are preparing for the end of the world , that is, "preparers", who are actively preparing for the crisis of not limited to biological weapons and the new crown virus.
First, cola became a hard currency, and people used non-essential goods to find their balance in life
Pan Wenjie: In the view of the French thinker Georges Bataille, this kind of behavior, which is classified as consuming non-essential goods, is to maintain the supremacy of man. He proposed that consumption can be divided into two kinds, one is productive consumption, which is necessary for survival and development, and the other is unproductive consumption, which is not aimed at production and does not seek returns. In the book "Leading to Bataye", the author Zhang Sheng saw that the ancient people's festival carnival or pyramid construction was not to increase social wealth, but to spend excess wealth, and war was one of the luxury forms of human society. In these processes of depleting wealth, kings and monarchs can acquire a fleeting, shining supremeity, and at the same time they spread the supremacy to more people. According to Bataille's theory, because everyone is not willing to be enslaved and has a yearning for supremacy, people are willing to squander their wealth and apply it to unproductive consumption in order to maintain their supremacy from being forgotten in the productive world. Therefore, consumption, waste, and squandering are actually a kind of liberation.
Zhang Sheng
Nanjing University Publishing 2020-7
Yin Qinglu: The news of Coke barter these days makes me feel very empathetic, because I am a person who drinks Coke every day, and I think that the small canned canned coca-Cola is one of the most perfect inventions, which satisfies the addiction and does not waste endlessly. I think I was deeply influenced by Ken, a foreign teacher in college, who was middle-aged, had a big belly, carried a bucket of ice Coke with him every time he went to class, and taught us: "Coke is the healthiest drink in the world, much healthier than tea!" ”
Coke is pleasant because its sweetness and carbonic acid stimulate the mouth to achieve a wonderful balance, and the taste is connected to the spirit, so it can also make people find balance in an imbalanced state. When people are desperate, they will ask for large doses of sweets, but also to speed up the return to the balance of life, and when despair becomes a daily routine, the continuous supply of cola is the reason to live. I had also read about the importance of Coca-Cola in World War II in the United States, and the servicemen who served overseas were deprived of all personal-related items and there was no familiar cultural mark around them, and Coca-Cola became a psychological sustenance and symbol. Soldiers often write home saying they are fighting for their right to drink Coca-Cola. I deeply believe that living is not for the minimum desire, but also the sense of dignity that Wenjie mentioned, in this sense, Coke coffee should be a necessity of life.
Lin Ziren: A few days ago we were lucky enough to call for a takeaway, in addition to two boxes of braised pork and two cans of Coca-Cola. My husband and I solemnly took out two cups to share a can of Coke, and I took a small sip of the brown-black soda that rolled over the tip of my tongue, it was so delicious, I never seemed to have ever felt that Coke was so delicious.
Among the photographs taken by photographer Liu Xiangcheng in the early days of China's reform and opening up is a photo of a young man in a military coat holding a bottle of Coca-Cola at the entrance of the Forbidden City. Liu Xiangcheng has always been known for being good at observing and capturing the subtle changes in people's looks and behaviors during the period of social transformation, and the various elements in this photo reflect the collision and tension of different zeitgeist and social trends. For me, Coke was a thing that was so common that it was not worth mentioning, and even avoided it in many cases to maintain weight, but when I could no longer drink it naturally and instantly, I really felt the deep meaning of Coca-Cola as a symbol of the commoditization of the market economy for the first time.
Jiang Yan: I don't have much say in this question, because I haven't touched things like tobacco, alcohol, cola, and coffee for many years, and occasionally friends get together to drink some tea, but I rarely think about brewing at home. Once my Chinese medicine doctor asked me what I usually like to eat, probably to see what needs to be adjusted in the diet, I was stunned there for a few seconds, I felt that the name of the dish was not appropriate, and finally held out a sentence "I like to eat." However, I agree with Qinglu that people may need to find some new balance in the imbalance, but my question is, does this process of finding balance have to rely on external forces, or can it also be found in an internal way?
Second, vitamins or potato chips coffee, what to stock up on to maintain a fragile modern life
Xu Luqing: In the earliest days, I heard that Shanghai should be fully sealed and controlled, and when I hoarded materials, I read a bunch of public articles, listened to their nutritional advice, and accurately calculated the nutritional content, storage time and space occupied by the comprehensive cost performance. My favorite foods: puffed foods with empty calories and a large volume, juice drinks with far less vitamins than a few fruits, cookies with an unusually high sugar content, were all swiped off my purchase list. I hoarded cereal, egg cream, abcde vitamins, and estimated that after a few months of lockdown, I would not only be nutritionally balanced, but also reborn as a healthy person. But it turned out to be a huge mistake, and I found that the more insecure people's basic lives are, the more comforting supplies they need, such as excessive calories, fats and sugars, and their significance is ignored by nutrition.
More than a month after being banned, potato chips, coffee and alcohol are the things I regret not hoarding the most, the nutrition is low, but it can give people great psychological comfort. Some time ago I exchanged a large bag of pasta and neighbors for a few Nestlé instant, caffeine is like cocaine, life has a new meaning at the moment of satisfying the "addiction". I began to understand that in World War II, when the German rear did not have enough to eat, they had to fry some wheat and rinse it, and make low-grade coffee. When life revolves around life, everything has to be calculated with the finger of the input-output ratio, and there is no point in living. It is these fallen non-essentials that are saving our lives, and they are about dignity and freedom.
Non-essential and necessary construction behind the implied power structure, before a Douban friend neighbor wrote, there are girls in the community want to organize group purchase ice cream, in the group was scolded not to understand the grassroots volunteers, do not consider the overall situation, but in fact just a large group of men organized the group to buy cigarettes, the explanation given is that there is no way to addictive substances. But why can't there be an ice cream addiction? Why should cigarette addiction be put before ice cream addiction? It also reminds me that sanitary napkins have been classified as "non-essential" since the Wuhan epidemic, and when women complain about the shortage of sanitary napkins, the response is always: When are these needs still being raised?
Jiang Yan: In fact, it is difficult to assume that the expected situation may be very different from the actual situation when facing these problems, just like Lu Qing's assumptions and actual operations have deviated. If I were just a figment of the imagination, I might seriously consider how I could grow some edible plants on the balcony. In addition, many nutritionists only discuss the consideration from the intake level, without taking into account the impact of individual differentiation on nutrients, that is, whether they can absorb it after eating it and how much they absorb.
Ye Qing: I used to be a person who bought green onions and roots and garlic cloves (the vegetable market in the south can be like this). Dangdun's ingredients must be bought and used now, especially can not understand why hoarding a bunch of things, stuffing the refrigerator full, taking a thing has to be moved, and finally many things are broken/expired and not eaten, which is both wasteful and environmentally friendly. But if you open the refrigerator door now and see a full of food, you probably feel full of security. It can also be understood why some elders like to hoard things, they have experienced the era of material scarcity, and thinking of danger in peace has probably been engraved in the genes. Now we have a similar experience to some extent, before because the refrigerator is too full this thing did not nag my mother, did not expect to have a day with her refrigerator and solution.
Lin Ziren: A week ago, I started worrying that there was not enough salt at home. Thinking that I used to think that Chinese hoarding salt after the Great East Japan Earthquake was ridiculous, I couldn't help but laugh at myself, "The Clown is actually myself." This week, the amount of salt stored in the seasoning jar has become more and more precarious, and I accidentally sprinkled a little salt on the outside of the pot while cooking at noon, which is painful. Calculating that this salt will definitely be eaten within this week, it will be necessary to overcome social fear and thin skin to ask for help from neighbors. Unexpectedly, the third wave of supplies just received had exactly a bag of salt, and the crisis was lifted.
By the time you've been sealed for nearly a month, you'll find that there are more "necessities" than you think. In addition to food, any consumable becomes a necessity when there is no channel to buy: rolls, detergents, laundry detergents, sanitary napkins, disinfectant wipes, medicines, vitamin tablets... Therefore, the hoarding of materials cannot be avoided at all, because the demand will increase with the development of the crisis. From this point of view, it is not enough to stock up on freezers or to buy freezers and pin their hopes on them. In my opinion, the resurgence of hoarding reminds us of the fragility of contemporary urban life – a life of convenience based on a high degree of social division of labor and the smooth operation of the entire supply chain of goods from production, transportation to sale. And most of the time, we accept this underlying logic of social operation so naturally that when the real crisis arises, we are caught off guard.