When Virtual

Life Turns Into

Quarantine

CORONAVIRUS AUGUST 2020

A SPECIAL REPORT FROM NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC VOL. 238 NO. 2

MY FIRST NAME COMES from the children’s books

about Thomas the Tank Engine, The Railway Series.

My eldest brother had been reading the books, and

Oliver the Western Engine was one of his favorites.

My mother thought the name was beautiful, and so

I was named after a train.

The name also served a poetic purpose: I was born

an identical twin, which placed me onto a set of par-

allel tracks with my brother, Ethan. If you’ve known

twins, you’ve heard a version of this story before. We

were dressed in matching outfits, our hair cut into

identical shiny black bowls. We looked the same and

were treated the same, always together.

As we grew, Ethan and I were eager to establish

separate identities. We made different friends, wore

different clothes. In high school we often avoided

talking to each other. Then we chose different colleges

and were living apart for the first time in our lives.

This was exciting to me: life without a twin,

BY OLIVER WHANG

MY GENERATION THRIVES IN THE VIRTUAL WORLD. BUT WHEN COVID-

CUT US OFF FROM THE PHYSICAL WORLD, SOMETHING WAS LOST.

M

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