The children’s bellies were swollen out with an empty wind, and one never saw in those days a child playing upon the village street…[The children’s] once rounded bodies were angular and bony now, sharp small bones, like the bones of birds, except for their ponderous bellies.
Pearl Buck, The Good Earth, page 77.
If you’ve ever seen a picture of someone in an acute famine, you’ll recognize the accuracy of this description from Pearl Buck’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Good Earth. The Good Earth is a fascinating, well-told story of a farmer, Wang Lung, who lived in China in the 1920s. And even though it’s fiction, it displays an important principle crucial to surviving and thriving as an expat: movement, especially early movement, can save your life.
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The natural disaster
Early on in the book, Wang Lun’s village experiences a natural disaster that destroys their local crops. Famine soon sets in. Unable to grow, find, or buy food, the villagers consume everything they can to stay alive: corn cobs, tree bark, straw bedding, animals. Every green thing for miles around had been consumed by people desperate for food. Wang Lung and his family even eat dirt in hopes it has nutrition and so that, if nothing else, their bellies are full. This is how Buck depicts their tragedy:
They scarcely rose at all now, any of them. There was no need, and fitful sleep took the place, for a while, at least, of the food they had not. The cobs of the corn they had dried and eaten, and they stripped the bark from trees and all over the countryside people were eating what grass they could find upon the windy hills. There was not an animal anywhere. A man might walk for a handful of days and see not an ox nor an ass nor any kind of beast or foul. The children’s bellies were swollen out with an empty wind, and one never saw in those days a child playing upon the village street…[The children’s] once rounded bodies were angular and bony now, sharp small bones, like the bones of birds, except for their ponderous bellies
Pearl Buck, The Good Earth, page 77.
The people were devastated; the rich were willing to spend exorbitant sums to buy food, but they could not. There simply was no food to be found. Rumors began to spread that villagers were resorting to cannibalism, and even pillaging bands were murdering families in order to consume them. So severe was the famine, Wang Lun believed the rumors.
At last, Wang Lun decides that his family must leave or else they will die in their home. In desperation they sell all their possessions at rock-bottom prices and decide to head south, hoping for better opportunities. The money from selling their possessions is just enough to buy a 100-mile train trip and, unable to travel further, that’s where they end up.
When they get off the train, they find that begging and day labor can provide them with a meager supply of food. They eat just one meal a day and live in poverty, but they live. When the famine ends, they’re able to return to their home and land.
Wang Lun’s family lived because they moved. They lived because they sold everything and fled. Moving a mere hundred miles made the difference between death and survival.
Movement saves lives
Whether it’s a hurricane, a tornado, a terrorist attack, a fire, a riot, a famine, a drive-by shooting, a volcanic explosion, a bombing, a forest fire, or a war zone, the best way to survive danger is to not be there.1
Movement saves lives.2
This may sound obvious, but it is quite profound: the longer you’re in danger, the more likely you are to be hurt, the more skill it will take to survive, the more costly it will be to leave, and the less likely you will be able to leave.
Just think of this principle as it applies to Wang Lun’s family:
- Another day, and perhaps the murderous band would have killed them.
- Another week, and they’d be too weak to travel or survive the trip.
- Another two weeks, and they’d have burned their furniture for fuel rather than sell it.
- Another month, and they’d be dead.
Movement, especially early movement, saves lives.
Movement and the paradox of safety
One reason people often don’t move out of danger is that they believe it’s temporary or not as bad as predicted. Hurricane evacuations are notorious for this phenomenon. Without fail, people stay in danger’s way, because they believe it won’t be that bad.
Often, they’re right. Not every hurricane is as destructive as Hurricane Katrina. Perhaps those who flee will feel sheepish that they did. But the Paradox of Safety is that, by the time you realize the danger is great enough to justify fleeing, you probably won’t be able to. You can make preparations before danger which end up being unnecessary, but it’s impossible to prepare after the danger shows you that preparations were needed. That’s the paradox of safety.
Early movement may prove to be unnecessary, and you may regret wasting time or money. But that regret is good regret because it means you’re alive to regret your preparation. If you wait to move until it’s clearly needed, you may be unable to regret anything at all.
Historical examples
You don’t have to look far to see examples of how early movement saved lives throughout history. In many cases, whether someone fled a day or a few hours later made a difference.
- Those who fled East Berlin before the Berlin Wall was finished were able to live as they chose. Those who waited a few hours too long were stuck in East Berlin for decades.
- Those who left Russia before their conscription notices arrived in the mail avoided being conscripted into the Ukraine war. Those who waited now have no other option.
- Chinese people were able to leave Wuhan between 2am, when the city-wide lockdown was announced, and 10am, when it went into effect. Waiting just a few hours, though, meant that millions were stuck in the city as COVID-19 spread.
- Japanese civilians who heeded US warnings to flee cities that would be bombed survived; tens of thousands who ignored those warnings, did not.
- Many Jews survived WWII by fleeing cities before the Nazis arrived. We all know what happened to those who were unable to flee.
I’m acutely aware that many people are unable to leave potential danger because they simply don’t have the money or means to flee. This is a tragedy and I encourage you to give to aid organizations who help in crises. We should do all we can to help those without the benefit or ability to leave.
And we should also make sure we’re not one of them. The best way to help people who are unable to get away is to not be stuck behind with them. By getting yourself, your family, your friends out, you leave fewer people behind who aid workers will need to help.
Planning to stay?
When a crisis evolves, some people will refuse to flee for moral, humanitarian, or patriotic reasons. I’m thinking of Christians who cared for victims of the Black Plague, of a doctor friend of mine who flew into an Ebola outbreak to stop it, or of the French Resistance to the Nazis. Such courage is admirable, necessary, and I encourage it, with two conditions.
First, note that the admirable courage of the above examples is when there is something good to do by staying behind. Don’t stay behind because you’re a danger junkie. Stay behind because you’re following your conscience. Sometimes embracing danger is the right thing to do. Know what those things are based on your beliefs and your conscience.
Second, most people who stay behind are people who had, or quickly gained special skills to keep them safe. My doctor friend knew how to stay safe from Ebola and so could go into that situation safely, whereas locals who were fleeing, did not. If your conscience tells you to stay, then do so—and make sure you have, or can quickly gain, the skills and resources you need to stay safe amidst the danger.
Plan for a fast exit
For most people and in most situations, though, the best approach is to move—and move early. Doing that means you need to be ready. Rather than attempting to tell you how to flee any possible danger you face, let me instead suggest three basic parts to a plan:
1. A place to go
My suggestion is to be able to get 100 miles away in 6 hours (for a local problem) and into another country within 24 hours (for an international problem).
Where would you go? You’ll want to have a couple options so that you can react to different dangers. Don’t just plan to go north because that may be where the danger is. Don’t just plan to evacuate to one country, because that country may have the problem.
2. A way to get there
Car? Bus? Train? Boat? Commercial plane? Private charter? How would you get there, and do you have what you’d need (gas, maps, visas, etc.) to make the trip? Consider multiple methods. Ideally, you’d leave before the masses do, but do you have a backup if the masses make our primary untenable? Think PACE for your plans.
3. A way to pay
You need a large quantity of money not only to flee amidst a crisis but also to live after you’ve left your job and home. The typical financial advice is to have 3-6 months of living expenses.3
For expats, I suggest you need that emergency fund plus enough money to get out of your host country within 24 hours at emergency prices. You should also consider keeping that money in cash, since whatever is causing the danger may also destroy the digital payment infrastructure we’re used to.
Conclusion
The Good Earth and countless historical examples demonstrate how movement saves lives. Without a strong reason to stay in the face of impending danger, you should plan to leave a dangerous situation, rather than try to survive through it. By identifying early signs of danger and acting swiftly, even before it’s certain that movement is needed, you dramatically increase the chance of keeping yourself and your loved ones safe. Think your potential dangers through, think through how you’d respond, and when risks appear, remember: movement, especially early movement, saves lives.
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Footnotes
- The other day one of my social media followers asked me how to prepare to be bombed. There are answers if you know it will happen—missile defenses or warning systems from your military, a well-stocked bomb shelter for you, etc.—but the best way to prepare for a bombing is to not be there when the bombs fall. ↩︎
- This is a phrase I picked up from Jason Hanson’s book Spy Secrets That Can Save Your Life: A Former CIA Officer Reveals Safety and Survival Techniques to Keep You and Your Family Protected. It’s a surprisingly useful book. ↩︎
- Three months if both spouses work; 6 months if you’re single, only one spouse works, or if both people work for the same company. ↩︎
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