Wuhan’s’Chrysanthemum’ Shortage… “Corona Deaths 3,000, I Can’t Believe”

A flower market in Wuhan, China, one day before the Lunar New Year. Shops are crowded with customers who want to buy chrysanthemums to commemorate the family who died from Corona 19 last year. [웨이보 캡처]

On the 12th, the Hong Kong South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported on the 14th that a shortage of chrysanthemums occurred in all flower markets as customers attempting to commemorate the deceased family members flocked to Wuhan City, China on the 12th of the Lunar New Year.
In Hubei Province, to which Wuhan belongs, there is a custom called Sao Qing-xiang, where chrysanthemum flowers are garnished and incense burned at midnight on the Lunar New Year when a family passed away last year. This year there were especially many memorials. Lunge, a Wuhan citizen, was staying at home to avoid the crowds on the New Year’s Eve.

Mr. Tsu, the owner of the flower wholesale store Tsuri, told SCMP that the shortage of chrysanthemums was caused by a novel coronavirus infection (Corona 19), and said, “The flower farms concerned about the re-proliferation of Corona 19 have reduced production.” He said, “Chrysanthemums were sold in all cities of Wuhan,” and “I was told that a chrysanthemum sold for 100 yuan (17,230 won). I recommended to the customer that carnations and roses are okay for memorial purposes.”
Wuhan is the city where the first Corona 19 patient first occurred on December 31, 2019. For 76 days from January 23 to April 3, the entire city of Wuhan was blocked. The authorities counted that as of the 14th, the cumulative corona19 confirmed in Wuhan was 5355 and the death was 3869.
There is an atmosphere that Wuhan residents cannot believe the victim statistics. A Chinese netizen with the ID of’Muksoo Space’ posted a post on Weibo (Chinese version of Twitter), “Would all the flowers have been sold because 3,000 people died in a metropolitan city with 9 million people in Wuhan?” Blame it for bypassing statistics.
Free Asia Broadcasting (RFA) said that the exact number of Corona 19 deaths in Wuhan is still a mystery, and pointed out that the cremation furnace at the Wuhan funeral home last year was operated 24 hours a day, non-stop for a while. It is reported that the actual number of deaths is estimated to be more than 10 times that of the official announcement, based on the number of ashes sold in Wuhan. With the scarcity of chrysanthemums occurring during the Lunar New Year, Wuhan residents are again raising suspicions of official statistics.

Hubei Economic TV reported the scarcity of chrysanthemums in Wuhan during the Lunar New Year and analyzed it as “retributive consumption for flower decoration, which was not possible in the Lunar New Year last year,” and it was criticized by netizens. [웨이보 캡처]

Then the local state media started to eat news. Hubei Economy TV channel told Weibo, “The owner of a flower shop selling flowers for 50 hours without a sigh said the highest boom in 30 years.” The flower sold out phenomenon occurred due to the retaliatory consumption of consumers who bought it.” When the report went out, a netizen named Feng Wei Zhai (瘋語宅) was angry, saying, “I don’t have the courage to tell which flowers were sold, only flowers for wreaths were sold.” Although this netizen’s article was deleted, Weibo of famous historian Tanbonyu, who shared the screenshot, recorded 140,000 likes and 30,000 shares until the morning of the 14th, and comments of sympathy are flooding.
Beijing = correspondent Shin Kyungjin [email protected]