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Ms G

Since March last year, we have made so much effort together to try to end the crisis.

We stayed away from people who we would have loved to meet; we cut much of the fun part from our life by not going to parties and dinners; we shelved plans to travel to new places.

Just as we thought the advent of a new year and the availability of vaccines is finally bringing us light at the end of the tunnel, we are thrown into another tough lockdown in a very distressing déjà vu.

But no doubt, we are more hopeful now than we were when it all first began. We know how the virus transmits; we know how to treat the symptoms; and we have the prospects of vaccines. The finishing point is, after all, visible. But this last stretch of the journey could be the hardest, as any marathon runner would tell you.

It makes of think of a moral story well know in my culture. And I would like to share it with you in the hope that we can all draw some inspiration and encouragement from it.

More than 2 200 years ago, the land we call China today gave birth to the Qin Dynasty. This was the first empire that unified the many smaller kingdoms at the time and established centralised control over large swaths of modern China.

The cultural implications were profound, because it the was first time China began to have standardised written script, weights and measures, and currency. A nation truly unified.  To ending decades of wars among the various kingdoms and realise the unification of the land,successive emperors of Qin worked diligently. But like you and me, the strongest also have their moments of vulnerability.  As victory looked increasingly within reach, the Qin emperor began to lose motivation, handing over state affairs to his royal court while indulging himself in drinking and all kinds of fun.

One day, an old man requested an audience with the emperor, saying he had travelled very far just to talk to him.

The emperor, in courtesy, said, “It must have been a very tiring journey for you, traveling all the way to see me.”

“Oh, yes indeed,” said the old man. “I travelled 90 km in 10 days and another 10 km in 10 days to reach the capital.”

The emperor was curious, “How come you were only able to walk 10 km in the last days, but 90km in the first 10 days? Was something wrong?”

The old man replied, “In the first 10 days, I was very focused and eager to travel fast. But after I finished the first 90km, I was tired and bored. The last 10 km seemed much longer than it really was. Every step became exhausting to me. That’s why it took a lot more time. Now looking back from the finishing point, I think the first 90 km can only be considered half the journey. ”

The emperor nodded and said, “You have a message for me to travel this hard.”

“Yes. I only wish to share with Your Majesty what I learned from my journey. Your ambitious goal to unify the country is about to be fully achieved. We are now at the 90km-point of the 100km journey.

“But Your Majesty will be a very wise man to realise that this is only work half done. The remaining bit may not looking as intimidating as what has been achieved; but it is in fact very challenging. If we slack off now, we may never reach the final destination.”

Greatly inspired by his words, the emperor immediately called off the carefree life and devoted himself again to his lofty cause. And the rest is history.

Today, as the moral from this story, the Chinese always say, “The last leg of a journey marks the halfway point. ” It is a lesson worth remembering as we stick together to put the pandemic to an end once and for all.