May 8 was World Smile Day, which was officially created by the World Mental Health Organization in 1948. It is also a day when people are encouraged to not only put on a smile for fellow human beings, but also to treat them with warmth and kindness.
Smile is the common language in the world. Because of the prevalence of COVID-19, we are now masking ourselves. Although we have to mask our faces, we cannot mask a smile. People in adverse conditions especially need smiles to give each other warmth, confidence and courage.
With the negative influence of the pandemic, many Chinese enterprises are now in stressed situations and some are even going bankrupt. Reduction of salaries and unemployment are frequently seen in our daily lives. However, we must face the music and tide over present difficulties with a smile. On the positive side, the pandemic is offering China an opportunity to upgrade its industrial structure and enhance economic resilience. It is also offering Chinese people a chance to get out of their comfort zone, boost their skills and find new ways to make a living in some emerging industries such as live-streaming, e-commerce and food delivery. For example, many young startups in Shenzhen are now making live-stream broadcasts on Douyin and other short video platforms to lure businesses and attract customers.
Public employees such as medical staff, pubic security officials and grass-root community workers also need a smile to mitigate their bodily stress and psychological burdens. When the country was on the highest level of vigilance against the pandemic, they were working around the clock to protect our health and safety. With medical staff as an example, when Hubei was hardest hit by the pandemic and in great danger, more than 40,000 doctors and nurses from all over the country rushed to the province to assist. As China now has basically controlled its domestic outbreaks, more and more Chinese medical experts are being sent to other countries such as Italy and Serbia to help them quench the pandemic.
Hundreds of millions of Chinese students, who have been away from schools since mid-January this year, especially need a smile to continue their disrupted school life. Some of them will have to adapt to greatly shortened and intense preparation periods and take their entrance examinations to qualify for senior high schools and colleges.
The Chinese Government also needs a smile to strengthen its contribution to the international community. Despite the fact that China has made utmost efforts to stem the spread of the pandemic both at home and abroad, it is still misunderstood, distorted and attacked by some Western countries. For example, U.S. President Donald Trump and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have on multiple occasions, verbally and politically abused China and falsely linked the virus to the Chinese city Wuhan.
When I know that you will smile and I will smile, the rest is easy. In my point of view, optimism and endurance, which are signified by a smile in adverse situations, are the best qualities of the Chinese people. Such qualities have helped China survive all catastrophes and made its civilization unceasing during its long history of 5,000 years. We should not only pass on these good qualities from generation to generation, but also introduce our optimistic attitude and China’s ample practices that have proved to be effective to other countries and help them stem the spread of the pandemic as quickly as possible.
(The author is the editor-in-chief of Shenzhen Daily with a Ph.D. from the Journalism and Communication School of Wuhan University.)