11:45 online meeting. After that I knew that my landlord is going to city center so it could be a good chance to take over kitchen for long time. So first, noodle for some days (finally I finished it in 5 days… I know it’s already not healthy I can’t eat that more than twice in one day).

Then the apple pie I always wanted to try. Apparently it’s not successful, although my landlord claimed it’s good. I’m doubting old German guy’s taste very much now.

Cooking is tiring, especially when you made mistake. I didn’t put anything under the apple pie when it was being baked, and the filling was out of the cake. I spent much time to clean the oven and passed an internet event. After that I rested too long, so almost didn’t achieve anything more.

UK Prime Minister is in ICU, it’s very absurd time (everyday since Covid-19 outbreak is, but some days are even more absurd). I wish I will not soon evident an important leader to die in his tenure.

08.04

Online meeting at 11:00. I did it first time in bed room.

It’s getting warmer but in cellar it’s always colder. Maybe it’s just because everywhere else is warmer so I feel it’s colder in cellar, but as result, it’s more difficult to let myself go to studio now.

In evening I finally went to the studio and made a video of my improvisation set, which I wanted to do from beginning of March. It’s just not easy to start even an improvisation when you have to prepare all equipment beforehand and plan how to record the sound and image better. And it’s also not a good feeling to edit sound from different mics as well the video all myself.

A friend of mine once said, he won’t do solo tour. Because musicians already spend a lot of time to practice themselves, if they have to organize and perform a tour all alone, it will be very depressive.

Well, seems it’s true. I still didn’t make the recording public. But I will still send it someday to get a solo performance chance. I mean, it would be cooler if it’s not a solo performance. But a solo performance chance… is still a chance.

After work I found there’s no one in kitchen. So late night soup, very rare:

And you can see the spring onions grew a lot! It’s a bit weird to put cooked spring onions and growing ones together, it let me think of the picture of Donald the duck eating grilled duck; or the story of Tod and the chickens in Bojack Horseman.

But spring onion is really easy-planting plant. The only small problem is it makes slight spring onion smell in the room. I used it as a reminder to open the window everyday.

“Quarantine, no human right; no quarantine, no human left.”

“Wearing mask, no human right; not wearing mask, no human left.”

These sentences became popular these days among ethnic Chinese people. But I disagree with them. Quarantine doesn’t necessarily mean people will lose human right, so as wearing mask.

People who don’t know about things in China may think these are jokes. But in some areas of China, people were insulted for not wearing mask (they were not able to buy them), or be stopped from bringing food to their old parents. So quarantine/ mask is equivalent to demising large part of human right can be true. You can’t treat these sentences as jokes if you knew it. Because people could understand it as if embracing the most strict policy is the only way to control the pandemic.

After several days full of online meetings, I didn’t go out of bedroom for almost whole day. I started planting spring onion. Without eating the plant, I have no motivation to plant anything. And other vegetables all need soil and plant container. which are hard to get these days (yes garden market is opening, but I don’t want to go out for unnecessary reasons).

Finished another film, did some reading. Computer-free day, wonderful (if it’s just one day).

06.04.2020

Online meeting at 14:00 and 16:00.

I finally wrote a proposal I thought for long. I illustrated my idea with Adobe Illustrator in half an hour. I found I had some progress in digital illustrating. But painting is still a very distant thing for me, I still can’t do more than nail painting if deal with physical materials.

The package from Asia Go is here. I didn’t get four of the items I ordered. Before I try to contact the customer service I checked my Paypal, they did send me some money back, but still 1.3 euro less than they should. And they didn’t inform me about the changes in item at all.

But at least I got 5kg rice. And I think it’s a time to support the local, at least I should support them more than Amazon.

Have you ordered any food delivery these days? How much tips have you paid? I’m get used to not calling food delivery since I was in Shanghai, so the only time I ordered food in Germany was for other person, I didn’t take it myself. In Shanghai there are relatively often typhoons, there was a frequently discussed topic: should we call delivery if it’s dangerous for the delivery people to bring the food? Either we make them in risk, or we make them lose money.

Now I think there shouldn’t be this discussion because there should be a safe working environment for all. Unfortunately, it’s still somehow risky for the delivery people to work. Will you pay more for them?

Probably this month I will use “pay now eat later” service to support some restaurants I like. To be honest the only thing I want to eat but don’t have home is toast since the quarantine life. Maybe I will buy some in next food shopping, perhaps in two weeks.

Paella, was the alias of him
On my anonymous account in a Chinese social media

At first I just used
“the Spanish guy”
Until a net friend said
it makes her want to have Paella

Calling a Spanish Paella
is almost racist
Almost like to call a German Schweinshaxe
Or a Chinese Spring Roll

But that’s how much I know
About Spain
I even don’t know
What is this dish called in Spanish
after long time I used the Chinese word of Paella

The only situation I used this word
Was in this social media
To write about him

There are walls of language between us
walls of prejudges
walls of monogamous relationship principle

He grows wildly towards the sun
I am in the shadow he left

My words about him
are always secret
They’re hidden from people
hidden from rite
hidden from the physical world

In digital world
they are still behind the Great Fire Wall

wrapped in Chinese
under an anonymous account
and with all kind of alias

I was told
not to say them loud
but after hiding them long
I found I cherish these words so much
that I’m afraid other people to find them

They were part of me
He cut them from my body

Either they are not found
Or people try to place them back on me
In millions of wrong ways

When I was in Spain
I first time used this word for the food
Later I became vegetarian
And I lost my Chinese phone number*

“Paella” remained vain
I stopped to give it a meaning

*In all Chinese local social media people must login with a Chinese phone number.

The no-weekend mode is finally on. Actually for me as a freelancer it’s almost never off. But I hope other people don’t have to live in this mode because of home office.

At 11:00 I found I wrote a wrong GMT time in the performance announcement, and I must use computer to change the announcement in Facebook group. So I started being in studio from about 11:10.

At 21:00 was the live-stream. We planned 4 pieces and there was one piece suddenly need a new performer, one piece which I have to check the audio and the props, and one piece I have to practice. Between these jobs, I also sent an application. There are still a few applications I should finish in these days, but I’m just procrastinating.

After the live-stream I spent some more time in helping people solving technical problem. We were just using very common program which is supposed to be easy to use, but still there are a lot of technical problems. When you really need technologies, you may find it’s really not so developed as you thought.

Here is something you need aside from the everyday-same spaghetti. Thank you Go Chu Jang! Life saver of people who’re lazy and need spicy food.

04.04.2020

Online meeting scheduled at 11:00, 14:00, 19:00 and 17:00 an online workshop. It turned out that the one at 19:00 was cancelled, so finally I had some time for myself except the break between the first two meetings.

These days I’m often waked up by the online meeting reminder. Coffee became again essential. A musicologist posted “is it coffee in my vein?” during her last month working on her thesis. I don’t know what would I need when I came to that point, or maybe I will just give up my thesis half way.

Again something special for today. I think I need something really spicy. I made an order on Asian market a week ago, now I’m regretting not getting any seasoning bag. DHL said it will come today or Monday. Seems like it still needs some time.

I finally answered some E-mails asking about my recent situation. This kind of concern come every day. Thanks to all the friends, but there’s nothing dramatic in my life. So in general I’m fine, sometimes I’m not, but I forgot. If I didn’t, I may write it here.

A new dish for not cooking for 4 days, or let’s call it “how to use 400g pesto to cook 500g spaghetti”:

Online meeting at 10:30, 15:00 and 19:00. So I must keep awake whole day. The good news is I finally watched a film since quarantine.

Before the online meeting at 19:00, I need something warm and with liquid. So some kind of improvised tortellini soup.

It’s still cold to work underground for long. Sometimes I need a blanket. People are saying “spring is not canceled”, but spring, after all has not so much to do with me.

02.04.2020

I went to take my REWE online order. It’s hard to make myself go out of home because all kinds of protection and the mental pressure it brings. Besides that it’s not so easy to find all clothes to go out if you didn’t wear them for long. I’m also not sure about the weather. Some days ago while recording some sounds outside of the window, I realized for the first time since very long, there is wind in this world. I need a windshield!

But after went out it went quite well. Enough space in bus, buses on schedule, no racists. There are also more people are wearing masks and the shop assistant seems has no problem to talk with people with masks. The nearest REWE which has take out service is still about 3.5 km from my place, and the bus lines in remote areas are tricky, so it took 45 for me to get there.

The order was contained in a big plastic box. For hygienic reason now it’s not allowed to take the box out of the supermarket and bring it back later. The shop assistant asked me how do I transfer my food, with car or bicycle, I said with backpack. She was a bit surprised but she was to busy to see how I put everything in one backpack and two shopping bags. Yes, finally I made it. And took 45 minutes with bus to go back.

Here is part of the food. I didn’t got the rice I ordered because it’s not available, but still enough bread, bread cream, fruit and junk food.

By the way I feel it’s important to not wear too warm if you’re wearing a mask. It helps a lot to make your mask wearing comfortable.

Because going out to get food is so rare these days, the sense of accomplishment is also huge. So after that I didn’t do much. Tomorrow there will be another online performance of #pajamaopera, but I just did a little bit management job. Today is just not an artistic day.

Edited a recording of #pajamaopera live performance. I think practicing piano improvisation is till now the most unexpected but great thing during the quarantine. Thanks to the composer/ electronic producer Itaru Ouwan, and all people doing this project together.

I composed something for the other collective online art project as well.

New improvised dish for 2 days, before the salad packages go bad.

And from my last Amazon order, I got 4 boxes of milk. So I made a very luxury improvised drink. Spread instant coffee powder on warm milk, and wait for a while, you’d get milk skin with very intensive coffee flavor.

Finally renewed the book list for my thesis. There are always too much to read/ listen/ watch. I still didn’t watch any film yet.

30.03.2020

I met a human other than my landlord today! An art project needs some used clothes and objects, so I sorted some and today someone from the team came to collect them. It’s a bit melancholic to see some old electronic apparatus, out-of-date accessory, bras from high school, violin bow from middle school, hand-made things but no one to gift and things left by some alumni graduated 4 years ago.

I sorted some old pieces as well. https://dongzhou.bandcamp.com/album/sample-set-3

And get E-mail from a friend about a new project. Very inspiring.

Again luxury dinner: instant noodles with vegetables.

There are fewer deadlines these days. But tomorrow is a deadline of a bandcamp release I promised to participant. So some emergency production with reading text before tomorrow comes.

31.03

The bandcamp release is done: https://panpanpanaviandistresscall.bandcamp.com/track/sloup

Yesterday I had all the frozen cake; soon chocolate will be run out as well. So I made a Ba Bao Fan (glutinous rice with eight treasures) with my last glutinous rice and half of normal rice.

Jena started compulsory of wearing mask in public places. About mask, it’s actually a very complicated topic covering science, politic, culture and economy. That’s why I’m very careful with this topic. I think a lot of people consider it only from one aspect and it makes people emotional, sometimes people were arguing, one side was only cultural issue, the other side only scientific fact, seems they’re both talking about mask, but they’re just expressing themselves and ignoring what other people think.

But can an American feel how it’s like to be locked at home in Wuhan? Can a Chinese feel how it’s like to be forced to wear a mask for almost life first time? Can a single strong man feel how wives being abused in quarantine flat?

When the outbreak was in Wuhan, people from other cities don’t believe it will influence them, and they think if they avoid contact with Wuhan problems will be solved. And later the outbreak was in whole China, people in other countries still think it has nothing to do with them.

It’s just hard to think about we could be the next victim of the same disaster. I remembered some words by Lu Xun:

“楼下一个男人病得要死，那间壁的一家唱着留声机；对面是弄孩子。楼上有两人狂笑；还有打牌声。河中的船上有女人哭着她死去的母亲。 人类的悲欢并不相通，我只觉得他们吵闹。”

“A man downstairs is deadly sick, the family next to him is playing gramophone; the family opposite is taking care of a baby. Two people upstairs are bursting of laughter; there is also sound of playing cards. In the boat on river a women is trying for her dead mother. People’s joy and sorrow are not connected. I just feel they are noisy.”

Update 23.03.2020: We set a Skype group for news updating, discussion and live performance; and we will share video recordings/ fixed media in a shared cloud drive and all participant are free to post them on social media with the hashtag #pajamaopera and credit.
Click this link to join the group: https://join.skype.com/iTdZQgTAWggV

Update 19.03.2020: Our first live-stream on 18.03.2020 was stopped by YouTube twice and Facebook once. We played 4 pieces completely, but stopped live-stream due to the strict algorithm. It is said, during the Covid-19 time. there are fewer staff to check the video manually, so YouTube will keep relying on the algorithm for a while. We’re looking for a good solution to keep the performance going. There will be news soon!

PAST PERFORMANCES

4. PERFORMANCE
28.04.2020 at 16:00 (GMT/UTC +2) in Zoom channel and broadcasted to Facebook group.

3. PERFORMANCE
04.04.2020 at 21:00 (GMT/UTC +2) in Skype group.

2. PERFORMANCE
28.03.2020 at 16:00 (GMT/UTC +1) in Skype group.

1. PERFORMANCE
On request, Dong Zhou will play any of the scores/ instructions or improvise with the audio/ video files provided by then in the evening of March 18th, 2020 at 21:30 (GMT/UTC + 1) at: https://youtu.be/An8El3MKhpA

PROFILE OF THE FIRST PERFORMER DONG ZHOU
Instruments: Violin, voice (f-d2), piano, otamatone

Performance: theatrical/chorographical movement, recitation/ voice performance with specific character in English and Chinese, reading in English, Chinese, German, Japanese, Spanish and Shanghainese (regional dialect of Chinese).

Pajamas:

Remix: Solo Remix – Act 1

Solo Remix – Act 2

Solo Remix – Act 3

#1 Dusk Manifesto

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#2 Tired Snake

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#3 Untitled Graphic Notation for Piano and Violin

#4 Tele-Call

#5 Contamination

#6 Tele – Path

#7 Stay with the Struggle

#8 Tele – Tone

#9 Monday’s Child

Final day of the online course. I was so glad as I started it. I say that quite often since these years, perhaps because I stopped forcing myself doing unwanted things for a while.

During the class the teacher mentioned in a very quite area near our university there were 15 cases reported on a single day. I could feel how drastic the world is changing. Some days ago a friend asked me the number in Germany because he stopped watching news shortly after Covid-19 outbreak. I told him 12000 something, but actually that day Germany has already more than 40000 cases.

After the class I made noodle salad for some days. From my last Amazon Fresh order, I still have 3 package of salad vegetables. I bought them mainly because I have to wait too long time for any of other fresh vegetables. As I mentioned before, after I got my delivery, I couldn’t find any future appointment on Amazon Fresh. So later I checked REWE, their delivery appointments in 2 weeks are also fully booked. But it’s still possible to order online and take away, which will reduce the time we stay in the supermarket. Unfortunately, the nearest REWE which has take away service is about 45 minutes from my home. I hesitated 10 minutes between going there and going to a nearby supermarket, spending longer time in the shop and probably not being able to get everything I need (because it’s not so centered so the shelves may be refilled less frequently), and I still decided to go to that REWE. So I have an exact date to go out of home now. Challenge.

Shortly before 17:00 I got noticed that the online meeting scheduled at 17:00 was postponed. So no discipline again. But I accepted an arrangement job from China, so I had a look at it, and prepared for the #pajamaopera. It will be just a small, almost internal performance, but I really hope from now this project could be presented in a proper way: no interruption by the streaming platform, no waste of time for switching piece to piece, and always showing its open-source and non-hierarchy nature.

28.03.2020

Continuously getting up early made me very broken. I once thought it was the long way to work and go back made me have to rest in the whole afternoon when I started my day from morning. But the staying home life let me know, I’m just not for getting up early.

Today I checked the first time the “world Covid-19 number” website. I used to see a lot other media quote from that website but it’s really the first time I check it myself. People are lazy, I feel like even all the media photoshop the screeshot from the website, a lot of people will still believe them. And I also didn’t do fake check for the website, it’s kind of dangerous.

Struggled until 1 hour before the live performance of #pajamaopera, I could finally start putting all instruments/ props at their positions.

After the performance I found the book I ordered about 2 weeks ago on Wolrd of Book arrived! It’s really a surprise because as I checked the website yesterday, they already stopped accepting new orders. And today DHL, UPS and some more companies stopped delivering in a lot of areas. I really didn’t expected I would get the book before my quarantine ends. Apparently I have too many books to read than I can during the quarantine, but if I need new books for my thesis, it would still be a problem.

In evening I did some arrangement, followed some musicians on YouTube (we’re following each other to try to reach the standard that YouTube pay for our videos) and had a Skype call for another online quarantine art project. I still didn’t watch the films I planned to watch two weeks ago. I can’t understand why some company would recommend you their products for “keeping you busy”. Quarantine life IS busy, like my everyday; I’m even more worried that during the quarantine, more people would be in the status of a freelancer: no weekdays and no weekends, private time would be less respected.