Are we allowed to make plans for 'the big day' yet?

As the Year of the Pig recently handed the baton to the Year of the Rat, a donation of masks and thermometers from the Japan Youth Development Association in Tokyo to the coronavirus-stricken Hubei province caused quite a bit of attention on Chinese social media.

This was in large part due to the powerful poetic message written on each box, which literally translates to "Mountains and rivers on foreign land, wind and moon under the same sky."

Now, over a month later, the contagion continues to make headlines and cause headaches across the land, with outbreaks now impacting neighboring countries of Japan and South Korea as well, making the "same boat" mentality of the Japanese poem all the more poignant.

Having been the top news story for nearly two months, many people can be forgiven for perhaps daydreaming at times about what they plan to do on "the big day"－that blessed morning when the National Health Commission declares the epidemic effectively over, rings the proverbial all-clear signal and the country's 1.4 billion-plus people can get back to their pre-pestilence lives.

I know I've caught myself fantasizing now and then in the long bouts amid a skeleton-staffed office or self-imposed homebound isolation about what I will do that glorious morning. And actually the Japanese poem had something to do with it all.

When I was a "few" years younger, my first in a string of Japanese motorbikes was a Honda Mini Trail Z50－not a particularly comely contraption, but a good starter minibike to be sure. With only three gears (no reverse) and a humble top speed of under 30 miles (45 kilometers) per hour, it was good enough for a teenager in the wooded foothills of the Adirondacks.

By the way, in the interests of full disclosure, that's "Z"50, not"2"50, in case you thought otherwise.

A year later, in middle school, I upgraded to another Honda－a CT70 this time－which was even less of a head turner than the 50cc model.

But it did the job, and I spent entire summers heading back and forth to bass-filled lakes and desolate summer-home shops for a chunk of cheese or a box of day-old donuts for the camp.

The sheer joy of effortlessly flying up and down hills while flipping through the gearbox to a miles-away destination and arriving without a bead of sweat on my brow despite it being midsummer was my definition of a perfect August day－maybe with some U2 or Van Halen in the background to make the picture perfect.

So, in a nutshell, that's what I plan to do on "the big day".

I know that Beijing has restrictions on motorcycle riding within various concentric ring roads, and to be quite frank, I can't say as I know anyone who owns an actual dead dinosaur/ancient fern-burning variety kick-start motorbike here. Nearly all have gone the way of the "don't forget to take your lithium-ion backbreaking shotput inside after locking up your e-bike" motorbikes.

That's a good thing, don't get me wrong. But come the all-clear signal in the nation's capital, I will be looking into daily rentals for a nice 125/250 cc bike that can get me in a hurry somewhere nice, and green, and scenic, and relatively quiet. If that special day coincides with the blossoming of most flora in the city, then a motorcycle day trip to a lesser-known portion of the Great Wall, the Ming Tombs or maybe the Fragrant Hills will be my itinerary for that glorious day. Somewhere where the trees and shrubs are in full bloom, the birds are tweeting without cellphones, the bees are buzzing without stinging me in the cornea, and life is back to its bountiful splendor all around me.