bailewen wrote:everything wrote:bailewen -
could you describe a little of what daily life is like over there? are people relaxing a little? what are errands like going to the store like now?
Sure. And I'll get back to Windwalker a little later. That was a long post and I don't have the energy for it at the moment. It's already like 10:30 at night out here, but I will look over it tomorrow and do my best to offer my honest opinion.
As of about a week ago, I no longer needed to fill out paperwork to leave my housing community and about 90% of us are back at the office instead of working remotely. To enter a larger supermarket like Walmart (not a big box megastore in China, just a normal supermarket sized place)...you still need to either sign a little form with your passport number and name and get your temp taken, but for mom and pop stores, you can just buy stuff normally. You do need to wear a face mask to be allowed in anywhere and you will get SERIOUS stink eye if you head outside without one one, but the N95 masks have been virtually non-existent from the start. We just wear like, disposable masks that look like surgical masks.
About 2 weeks ago I saw the first traffic jam since before I visited LA in January for Chinese New Year. Never been so happy to see a traffic jam in my life.
Public transit is back but you need to flash a QR code on your phone to board a bus or subway. The QR code is linked to a phone app that tracks your movements (Orwellian much?) but the idea is that if you have been in contact with someone from Wuhan or a confirmed COVID patient, your QR code will change from green to yellow or red and your movements will be correspondingly limited. I think it was very buggy, poorly executed, and needlessly quarantined a lot of people based in big data analysis that, honestly, was still in the beta stage.
I have a little app from work that I have to sign into daily where I answer a questionnaire about who I have been in contact with, if I have any symptoms and where I've been. The PSB has also called me on the phone 2 or 3 times since I have been back, mainly asking if I have been outside of Xi'an, when I got back, and where I went.
That being said, it feels (very subjectively) like maybe 80% of the local shops are open again and my apartment complex has stopped asking me to either fill out a form or flash the QR code when I come or go. At work, the cafeteria was still closed, last I checked, but you could get food to go and eat at your desk. My temperature gets taken at work twice a day and every afternoon a guy comes through the office and mists the entire place with some sort of Lysol fog. The company gym was still closed, last I checked, and we no longer have face-to-face meetings, which is hardly a change since 80% of out meetings were always online anyways. I keep saying "last I checked" because I have actually been on paternity leave for a week, which, in Chinese culture, is already effectively a 1 month quarantine.
So the hospital was a little weird as they were only allowing 1 person at a time in the hospital to accompany mom, and officially we were not allowed to switch people, but if I came to the hospital sort of late at night, they would let me trade places with grandma as long as I promised to hide in the maternity ward and not wander about.
Basically, most things are back to sort of normal except everyone still wears masks everywhere and there's a lot of weird regulations at work. Like in addition to what I already mentioned, there are boxes of Kleenex in all the elevators so people can take one and use it to press the buttons. Restaurants are open but still take out only. The family of that Dr Li received some sort of cash compensation and CCTV tonight announce the PSB had offered a formal apology and he is generally being regarded as a national hero.
All in all, it feels like they over reacted, but looking at what is happening in the US right now, much better than the opposite.
So this is why I find it insane that western media keeps acting so surprised. From inside China, this was all on the news, daily, all day, every day. The same numbers you are seeing on the western media have been on Chinese media. The mayor of Wuhan was excoriated by the local media just as bad as by western media. The doctor, after the initial attack from the PSB, within about a month, was reframed as a tragic hero. Public parks are open again. Life is sort of normal'ish. It's very weird, but throughout the entire thing, there has been no hording. In the time since I returned from the US right at the end of Chinese new year, I have had no trouble buying any basic groceries, just had to wait in line to get my temp taking and to fill out a form before entering a supermarket. Now, I don't even have to do that.
The USA response, in contrast, has been humiliating.