The Rite of Passage and Digital Mourning in Fang Fang’s Wuhan Diary

Using Van Gennep’s theory of Rite Passage as its framework, this article examines the impact Coronavirus (COVID-19) on Chinese culture depicted through death and mourning in Wang Fang’s (penname Fang Fang) recently published Wuhan Diary: Dispatches from a Quarantined City. As part efforts to control outbreak, government took over managing deceased, which triggered heated discussions social media. diary, originally written daily entries media platform Weibo, serves voice for those suffering during pandemic, mediating between personal accounts, accounts friends, family living pandemic. These flesh out how virus has not only been disturbing people’s lives but also disrupted rites rituals who have passed. Our infuses digital ontological reading with an anthropological twist that helps understand diary mitigates disturbances inside outside confines metaphysics. We argue these disruptions by allowing people nourish their sorrow identifying symbolic passage online at heart COVID-19 pandemic Wuhan. In doing so, three stages rite passage, including separation, liminality integration they unfold discourses subjectivities based collective individual traumatic experiences are built, form could reconcile both official alternative voices anonymous narratives about handling crisis.