Piazza Privilege
This post is about privilege. Today we decided to use our tiny balcony to pretend that we were in an Italian piazza rather than stuck in our Shanghai apartment. This weekend we made a feast out of the fanciest cheeses and cold cuts from our fridge. We’ve recently watched Dune, The Power of the Dog, West Side Story and CODA, all from the comfort of our (increasingly sagging) couch. And we’re surrounded by neighbours in our compound who have been very kind and supportive to one-another throughout these harsh few weeks of confinement. Even though we’ve lost our freedom for a total of 56 days and counting, we’re still luckier than 99% of people in Shanghai.
Living for so long in China starts to make you a little inured to the all-pervasive miasma of state power. So your messages of support over the last couple of months have not just been a massive morale booster, but also a useful reminder that this hasn’t been ‘normal’, and there is such a thing as individual human dignity. Having said that, it has been a little uncomfortable to read comments about our “bravery” and “endurance”, when in fact for the most part we’ve been able to wallow in the luxury of denial and disassociation. That’s the power of privilege, even in times like these.
We’ve certainly had our lows. This whole time, Denny has been working from home with a broken hand. And while I’ve been telling myself that I’m functioning fine, my body has been telling me that I’m not. One day let me regale you with all the fun and creative symptoms it came up with. But for now, I’m taking a cue from the weather and am starting the week with a sunnier disposition. Parts of Shanghai are supposedly opening up this week. No doubt there will be many days of continued false hope and confusion before this means anything to us. Until then, I’ll be in my Italian piazza. Finché c'è vita c'è speranza.
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Dystopia Level Silver
So we’ve reached the crappy milestone of our 50th day of lockdown in Shanghai. That’s 9 days in March, and 41 consecutive days since April 1st. Dystopia Level Silver unlocked.
Despite official reports that the number of cases are going down, the lockdown has perversely become even stricter. In our district, more barricades are going up; fewer deliveries are being allowed; and now if even one person tests positive in your building, *everyone* gets carted off to central quarantine. It’s yet another doubling down on the exponential lunacy of Zero-COVID. What once could be seen as a policy with some degree of merit has long since become detached from the bounds of logic. The same singular strategy that has prevented us from stepping outside of China since February 2020 is now preventing us from stepping outside of our compound. Zero-COVID has overtaken Omicron in terms of its indiscriminate menace.
We’re surviving on a diet of cheap distractions. Denny has something called a ‘job’, which appears to keep him busy. Apart from that, it’s down to the basic routines of eating, drinking, and looking at willies on the internet. The whole city has taken a bumpy nosedive down Maslow’s pyramid, and we still don’t know when we’ll reach rock bottom.
We’re so lucky to be locked in together. We’re a good team: he does most of the cooking and cleaning; while I do most of the deliveries and dishwashing, and quiet sobbing in a foetal position. Despite a universe of anxiety, our little solar system is still spinning on its constant axis of jokes and hugs. I would rather not have another 50 days of this. But I’m grateful that we’ve been through it together.
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China as an Overbearing Parent
A few residential compounds have started to open up in Shanghai, and there’s hope that this represents the beginning of the end of this harsh city lockdown. In our case, one of our neighbours has been entrusted with the key to the lock on our gate, and she has started to leave it unlocked at random times of the day. We have no idea how this seemingly arbitrary decision got made, or by whom. But we’re in no mood to enquire; we just want to take a walk around the block.
There’s no thought of celebrating yet, while so many of our friends remain behind closed doors. Besides, the streets remain empty; shops remain closed; and everyone is nervous that the slightest uptick in positive COVID cases may put us all back to square one. And square one is where most of the city still languishes, just by luck of the lockdown lottery.
The two questions we’ve recently been asked the most are: 1) Why is China doing this? And 2) Why would anyone now wish to remain in Shanghai? To answer the first question, I would need to explain how China works, and only an idiot would try to suggest one unifying theory. So here’s mine.
China seriously cares for its people. That’s a fact. But it cares for them as a 1.4 billion collective, not as 1.4 billion individuals. China is an overbearing parent looking after their single child. They only want the best for it. They let it play, albeit under very tight supervision. They tell it what to do, and scold it when it steps out of line. No nuance; no negotiation. Does an overbearing parent always know what’s best for their child? And when other parents offer them unsolicited advice or criticism, does an overbearing parent get offended?
It’s an only child: the child is one; the child is indivisible. The parent does not need to understand each of the 1.4 billion individual cells that constitutes their child. Why would the concept of a cell even occur to them? The same goes for certain clusters of cells, certain organs and systems. If the parent feels that they’re keeping the child in general good health, does it matter to them what a tonsil does? Or a gallbladder, or an endocrine system? So long as China feels that it’s keeping 1.4 billion people in indivisible harmony, then what do the needs of a specific minority group matter? Or a city? Or a functioning system of public discourse? There’s a fundamental disconnect between the pure parental love of the child, and the complicated tangle of biology beneath its skin.
Most people outside of China (and some of us within!) just view the situation from the perspective of the cell. But in making this entirely accurate assessment, we’re also missing half the picture. The cells are also the child is also the cells. So an average individual in China feels both loved and unloved at the same time. Hugged too tight, and heedlessly ignored. Schrödinger was late to the game, the Chinese have understood the paradox of yin and yang for centuries. Today’s China is a mixture of Confucius, Han Feizi and Mao. While from the outside, we only see it through the prism of Beckett, Kafka, and Orwell.
So having lived through China’s recent metaphorical heart attack in Shanghai, we need to turn to the second question: why would anyone who has a choice decide to remain in China?
This is a question that every person must answer individually, so I can only speak for myself. My answer is that cross-cultural experience isn’t just about traveling the world comparing delicious desserts. You can learn more from panic attacks than you can from patisseries. Would I prefer to be eating pear tarts in Paris right now? Oui. But do I also value being able to think like I do, and view the world like I do? And at exactly what point does that privilege come at a price that I’m no longer willing to pay?
Making the decision to stay or leave one place or another is always a question of principle and practicality. When the effects of COVID-19 were ravaging your city, did you break your lease, quit your job, cut ties with your community, and relocate? It would be understandable if you had, but just as understandable if you hadn’t. We won’t stay in China forever; at some point the winds of fate that blew us here will also blow us away. Until then, we’re going to continue making the most out of our time in this land of paradox.
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Silent Protest
Our compound has officially been designated as unsealed. But surprise surprise… it’s not. This is the 35th day that Denny and I have spent behind our gate, and no-one can adequately explain why these unsealing ‘rules’ don’t apply to us. Somebody somewhere has decided that it’s just easiest to keep us behind a padlock.
We’re still totally fine. It’s not that we’re getting used to it; we’re just trying to let the nonsense wash over us. The good news is that we’re no longer constantly worrying about food supplies. Government rations and collective purchases arrive in bulk at random intervals, triggering impromptu rounds of Vegetable Tetris and Egg Jenga. Most of our neighbours are Chinese, so these deliveries skew towards the dumpling and the wonton. There’s sadly no chance of organising group purchases of Haribo and Valium.
We’ve both been receiving little burns and cuts to our hands, evidence not only of how much time we’re spending preparing food, but also of our general cognitive decline. In the shower this morning, I forgot whether I had already shampooed or not. So maybe I did it twice today, I honestly don’t know.
I can’t speak for the whole city, each compound has it’s own set of circumstances, and all I can do is describe our own. One unifying factor is that we’ve all been asked to share photos of our negative test results in community WeChat groups, so at least these have become a creative outlet for silent protest. Apart from that, there’s nothing any of us can do but continue playing our parts in this theatre of the absurd.
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Digital Scavenging
So far Denny and I have been locked into our compound - in 2 stints - for a total of 24 days. In all this time there has never once been a positive case of COVID-19 in our lane, and it’s becoming clear that this fact doesn’t have any bearing on our ongoing collective imprisonment. We’re getting a little taste of what it means to be under extra-judicial house arrest. Shanghai has temporarily become a city of ten thousand modern gleaming mini Warsaw ghettos.
Before you worry, Denny and I are still doing fine. I’m checking in with friends and acquaintances across the city, and they’re also all doing fine, to varying degrees. None of us will starve. But on a daily basis we are all being forced to reflect on our primal needs for food, freedom, shelter and sanitation. In Chinese, one of the most common ways of greeting someone is ”吃饭了吗?” meaning “Have you eaten?” It’s only now that I’m realising the history of deprivation that must lie behind that phrase. Today, the first thing we say to each other over calls and texts is: “Do you have enough food”?
If you ask anyone in Shanghai what they’re doing, the answer will most likely revolve around food. Digital scavenging for online provisions before they sell out; keeping up with hundreds of text messages to bid for collective purchases; doing inventories of fridges and rearranging the contents in order of what’s rotting first; rationing ingredients; planning meals; preparing meals; cooking meals; washing up after meals: it’s an endless obsessive cycle. And a short sharp kick in the backside to a city that had become reliant on an over-abundance of restaurants and delivery services. Fancy diets are out the window at this point. We’re counting our carrots, preserving our potatoes, and oil is liquid gold.
This level of food scarcity may well be familiar to many who experienced some kind of lockdown over the last two years. But it’s freedom that’s in just as short supply in Shanghai. I don’t want to go into all of that right now. But let it be another wake-up call to those who complained about being encouraged to take vaccines, or politely asked to wear masks in grocery stores. Please have some perspective, your human rights will be just fine.
We’re still keeping healthy and happy, and in the last couple of days we’ve managed to get our hands on some butter, frozen steaks, and wine. This already makes us feel like some of the luckiest people in the city. So I’m not trying to elicit sympathy with this post, I just want to keep everyone up to date. Many many thanks to everyone who has been in touch, it really means a lot. I don’t plan on writing other updates after this, so you can assume that this will be the status quo until further notice. That’s going to be our assumption too.
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A Small Taste of Freedom?
Some positive news. 😊
Firstly, we managed to secure some supplies of food through a combined purchase with 2 other neighbouring compounds. 🍚🍎🍊🥛
Secondly, we left the compound for 10 minutes for a streetside COVID test, our first small taste of freedom in 5 days. ☀️🆓☀️
And finally, I suddenly remembered that we had some spare wheat beer that was gifted to us by Peter Fuchs just before we went on a wheat-free diet. So we decided to donate it to our compound, and brought a few smiles to the community. 😍🍻
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Guys, You Can’t Control Omicron
Here’s a quick roundup of our personal situation in Shanghai right now.
We initially had a 9-day lockdown, after which we had 6 days of freedom. Now we’re on day 7 of our second lockdown, which has been even harsher than the first. But there are some people who have been locked in for the entire 3 week period. And others have tested positive for COVID-19 and have been carted off to central quarantine, separated from children and pets. So the situation for us isn’t as bad as others in Shanghai.
The food supply chain has practically ground to a halt, and grocery deliveries are almost impossible. Some of the larger residential compounds have been able to organise bulk orders from a few suppliers. But smaller compounds like ours have no buying power. For the first time, all the people in our compound have formed a group on WeChat, and it’s a full-time job to keep up with our collective attempts to bulk-purchase essentials such as eggs, milk, bread and apples. We have somehow managed to form an alliance with a couple of the other neighbouring lanes, so here’s hoping we can successfully manage something soon. In the meantime none of us are allowed to leave our individual apartments, and the gate to our compound remains locked from the outside. For the last few days, the only delivery we have personally received has been a care package of 10 eggs, some cured pork, and some weird powdered medicine.
We still have
- Netflix
- Booze
- Negative COVID test results
- Enough food for the next few days
We’re running low on
- Everything else
Despite all this, we’re doing OK. The sun is shining, the air is clean, and we’re keeping ourselves active and happy. It is what it is. In Shanghai we’ve had it easier than most others around the globe until now, so now it’s our turn. And all this is nothing compared to some parts of the world, where people are sheltering in basements rather than cosy apartments, with even less access to food and water, listening to their homes and schools and hospitals being bombed. 💙🙏🇺🇦💛
You’ll notice that at this point I’m not at all worried about COVID-19 itself. We’re triple vaccinated, and the omicron variant is both low-risk and near impossible to control. Let’s hope that the authorities here can come to the same conclusion soon. In their noble efforts to take care of the people of Shanghai, they’re demonstrating the true meaning of the phrase “killing us with kindness”. 😞
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2022 Reads Like '2020 Too'
As you have probably read, China is experiencing its worst COVID-19 outbreak since early 2020, and around 40 million people across the country are currently on some kind of lockdown.
As I was attempting to leave our compound to get a cup of coffee this morning, I realised that this number now includes Denny and me.
The good news is that for now it’s just for 48 hours, we’re still allowed food deliveries, and the mandatory testing station is conveniently located at the school next door. The policeman guarding our gate was happy to take this photo.
We’re not the only ones in this situation, many of our friends in Shanghai also woke up to the same thing. Which is why for us, 2022 reads like “2020 too”.
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Geopolitical Quagmire
We’ve traveled to the North East of China, to the ski resort of Beidahu. Planned weeks ago, it now comes as a welcome distraction from doom-scrolling through news apps.
I have Russian friends and I have Ukrainian friends, and none of them support this war. I have Swiss friends, and I have Turkish friends, and none of them predicted this fleeting moment of unity. I have American friends and Chinese friends, and we can all agree on the need to create the conditions that will force a diplomatic off-ramp.
I’m the son of refugees from the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. It took over 20 years to even begin untangling that mess. And right now I’m on a ski trip not far from North Korea, another decades-long geopolitical quagmire.
I’m just hoping that we’re not witnessing the birth of yet another one. 🇷🇺🌏🇺🇦
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Retail Therapy
I’m feeling crap about the state of the world right now. So the only antidote I know to momentarily ease this existential angst is to post photos of the latest trend in China retail: brand names that sound like someone clearing their throat. 😷
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The Christmas Entourage
We welcomed Christmas Cheer, but she then invited her friend Christmas Gluttony, who in turn brought along her cousins Christmas Shame and Regret. Those cousins didn’t think much of our home-made egg nog.
Now we need to meet up with Christmas Gym and Christmas Diet, those needy and pathetic acquaintances that we can never seem to shake off. 😤
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Milestone Anniversary
5 years married. 💍💙
We celebrated the day by picking pu’er tea in the hills of Xishuangbanna, the area where China borders Myanmar and Laos. More photos/videos to come..!
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The Slump Behind The Smile
I’m not going to lie, I’ve been in a massive slump these last few weeks. Lethargy; brain-fog; inattentiveness: the works. 🌧😵💫
I wouldn’t say I’m out of the slump yet. But I’m grateful that the last few days coincided with Thanksgiving, an early Christmas dinner, and the first night of Chanukah. These three evenings allowed us to share the company of some lovely humans, and made me feel a little more reconnected. ❤️🦃🎅🕎
I’m sure I’m not the only one feeling this way. So rather than just share a bunch of happy photos, I wanted to be honest about my emotional state behind them. As we approach the end of the year, let me remind you to please take care of yourself, and - if you have the capacity - those around you. 👫👬👫
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