My time in China has been interesting, adventurous, strange, weird and wonderful, sometimes on this journey I have had to pinch myself. For example, one moment I am in Lhasa, Tibet watching people slide up on and down on prayer mats and listening to the hum of singing bowls, the next up on a rooftop bar somewhere in Shanghai staring across at the Pearl Tower glistening in the sunshine, my life has been pretty varied here, and never boring to say the least. And while this chapter of my life is coming to end after 6 years, I would not have imagined that I would be spending the end of my time here as a prisoner in my apartment. But one thing is for sure, it has forced me into a position, to be completely alone with my thoughts and to think and reflect on my life, and my time here. I have never had so much time to myself, to cook, to do yoga, to meditate (not successfully), to read, to make art and to write, I have never felt so creative in such a long time. The one thing I have realized from this time, that life can be exhausting and it’s only when you stop and think about what you have done, and you realize how far you have actually come, and what you have achieved.

The lockdown in Shanghai, the worlds largest and longest lockdown. A whole city of something like 24 million people and everyone is the same, locked up in their apartments, it doesn’t matter whether you are starving, whether you are ill, or what your circumstances are, you must stay at home, you must not leave your apartment. Now, the one thing I will say, is that when I returned to Shanghai in March 2020, and while the rest of the world was just starting to go into lockdown, China was fairly safe, mainly because of their draconian measures. So more or less, the outbreak started in Wuhan, China but then it was the first country to control it really well, and back then I have a lot of respect with how they dealt with it, and how it was controlled. I could go out, socialize with my friends and actually in the academic year August 2020 to July 2021, it was one of the most sociable years of my life, which is just ironic. I guess everyone felt like they had to make the most of their freedom here, because everywhere else in the world people were in lockdown, so to pretty much sum it up, I had a good run and managed to avoid both the initial lockdowns in China, then the lockdown in the UK, when I returned to China in March 2020.

But I can tell you that there is one style of lockdown, and then there is a China lockdown. Now while most of my friends would complain to have a lockdown for two weeks in the UK and how difficult it was, it is nothing like that. In other countries people can have a lockdown and still go for a walk outside and go to the shops, but here, that is not the case. You have to stay in your apartment, literally and you cannot go to the shops, you have to wake up at 5am or 6am, hoping that you can order something or wait for the government to bring your vegetables and food, or order what you can from the selection of items that the compound posts every day.

Going back nearly 10 weeks ago, for me it all started on March 3rd. We had been having regular covid tests at our school since going back after Chinese New Year, as one child was a second tier contact of someone who had covid, so that’s right, all of us had to line up and get up our covid test done. This was hugely disruptive to the whole school, and a huge operation to get everyone tested, and prior to the March 3rd everyday we were reminded to bring in a change of clothes and a sleeping bag, in case we got stuck at school. And they were right, because on March 3rd, this is exactly what happened. I remember sleepily walking into school at 7am, and I was immediately told to put my mask on properly, everyone seemed on high alert, I knew there was something wrong. Sure enough, as I got my coffee and headed upstairs, the rumour was that one child had covid in one of the Grade 4 classes. I knew from that point on, that was it, we were all in for one hell of a rocky ride. Throughout the day, I remember everyone waiting to hear what was going to happen, were the CDC coming? Were we staying at school? Sure enough, we were staying at school, and yes everyone had a another COVID test and we all had fun sleepover at school. We spent the time with the kids in the evening, eating dumplings, letting them watch films and then preparing their sleeping bags. Then the next day was even more rough after trying to get a group of Grade 5 girls to sleep and then myself sleeping on a rock hard floor, which I literally couldn’t do so I had to find a bean bag. As morning came, the children rolled out of their sleeping bags at 6am, the whole next day was like an activity camp, and some of the kids did enjoy it. They basically got to play all day and watch films, which is very rare in the life of a Chinese child, but for us teachers it was tough. We were sleepy and wondering when the next covid test would be, if we could leave tonight, or if we had to have a sleepover again. Luckily at about 9.30pm, after unbearably waiting for the doctors to change their mind about testing the kids up the throat, not in the nose (which they were trying to do) we were told we could now go home. So as I walked out of school feeling like a free person past the hoards of cars waiting to pick up their child and feeling mentally exhausted, I thought it was all over, but really that was just the beginning. As I jumped in my taxi heading back to apartment, little did I know that that’s the last I would see of Shanghai for a long while, well apart from the view from my apartment.

Back at my apartment I was relieved, I wasn’t at school and I didn’t have to sleep on the floor. Our work had told us that we must stay in our apartments and not leave and that the CDC were coming to see us very soon. So a week passed by and I waited for the CDC, but heard nothing, for everyone else life was sort of normal at that point. I worried about leaving my apartment though because my work had told me not to, but no one came, so I walked around outside in the compound, and the deliveries were still coming to my door, it seemed fine, so why did I have to stay in? Other people though, particularly in Pudong had the CDC come to see them, and they had sealed their doors, so they were prisoners and other people had got sent to a quarantine hotel for 2 weeks without a window. The reason why some had been sent to a hotel though was because they were 1st tier contacts with the child who had covid, so congratulations to them- they had won and all expenses paid trip to the quarantine hotel. In-fact, one of the poor music teachers who got sent to the hotel even made a song every day and then the 14 days turned into a whole abulm! I think, now, he definitely needs to get himself a music label and signed up soon!

During the first two weeks of lockdown, we got emails from work telling us we must report to them if the CDC had not come to see us, but they never contacted me. I felt kind of annoyed at this time, thinking if they don’t want to contact me then leave me be, why does work need to make a big fuss about it? Why do I need to stay at home? But no, somebody must come to see, the situation was pressing and serious, as we all needed to have 3 covid tests over those 2 weeks to be able to be released after. But no one cared on my compound, even when I rang up my estate agent who then contacted the manager on my compound, he just replied with ‘each building will be tested one by one.’ So needless to say, at that time, the CDC never came and the only thing I was worried about was being able to get a test so I could be a free person again. But freedom was going to be a long way away I feared.

Around 2 weeks passed, and then the covid tests started in my compound, a knock would be at my door and then everyone would line up outside in the beautiful ancient gardens that had turned into a test sight. There was kind of a podium in the middle of the garden with Chinese lanterns dangling, the calm space had been taken over by the hazmats and I realized that this was the antithesis of modern China- hazmats and Chinese lanterns. At the time I was thinking, ‘okay great, I just need to get 3 covid tests and then I’m free again.’ But then another day I was told there was a covid case in one of the building so I needed to stay in the compound. So my work quarantine had passed but now another 14 days had begun with my compound. Things were beginning to get painful, it felt like I was stuck in ‘Groundhog Day’ movie or the modern ‘Russian Doll’ tv show.

We began continuing have regular covid tests in the compound in the garden. Then one day, one of the community members knocked on the door, holding some forms. I got my agent to speak to him and he told me that I had to go out to a hospital today, and have a covid test and handed me my release papers to go to the hospital, and that I had to get the test done by 12pm today, at that time, it was 10am, so I was wondering why on earth they had given me such short notice? I looked outside, it was the worst day ever since my quarantine had started, and it was pissing down with rain really hard, why did I need to go the hospital to get a test? Surely that is more dangerous with being exposed to all the people there? I went out of the compound and showed security my release papers, they seemed pretty puzzled by it, which was bizarre, but they let me out anyway. Once I got to the hospital down South Shaanxi Road, it was the longest line ever, was the whole of Shanghai here? Everyone was so close together in the lines, that if there was covid there we would have all surely got it. I waited in line, with my umbrella and soaking feet, being poked by other peoples umbrellas several times, and luckily I got the test pretty fast, in maybe 40 minutes. Once I left the hospital, I decided to walk for a little bit, even though it was raining but I was free to be with my beloved Shanghai and I though what was to become of my Shanghai? I then popped into some of the shops, planning to buy a few items, only to be greeted by empty shelves.

At this point, it was nearly 3 weeks since I had been sent home after the fun sleepover at school, and it seemed from going outside my compound for a few hours that the whole city was preparing to go into survival mode. The shops were completely stripped bare, and social media was fueled with this, and the people who were already in lockdown were struggling to get food orders and waking up in the early hours of the morning to order in the 20 minute time slot or less than that, it was pure madness. And everyone knew it was coming, yes that it’s- the full city lockdown. Now for me at the time, I wasn’t so fussed because I felt like I had already been in lockdown forever anyway, another week wouldn’t hurt… these people really needed to calm down. And officially I am a hoarder with food, whenever I buy food, I always buy too much, so my cupboards were stocked, my freezer was full to the brim and my fridge was more or less exploding. Before people had even started to stock up, I had already been at home making epermarket deliveries (foreign online supermarket) and ordering way too much, so initially I was okay. But fresh things always run out so that was my main concern, and I probably had way too many vegetables for a person living on their own.

I remember a few days before the full city lockdown, nearly 4 weeks after it all started, I was told that I could leave the compound with a pass for a few days. So I made the most of those days, I walked in the sunshine all the way to my favourite spot where I usually go to see art exhibitions- the West Bund, the next day I took a 14km bike ride to see some tulips and cherry blossoms where there was the usual crowd taking selfies, and on the third day I walked around the French concession, along the silent leafy streets and in and out of a few shops that were open and discovered that there was some food on the shelves! It was the big shops that had nothing, but the tiny side streets shops, the little foreign ones and the small bakeries had food. I got cheese, crisps, yoghurts and sweets from a tiny foreign supermarket, croissants from ‘Baker and Spice,’ and I found a cute little bakery shop that sold all kinds of fresh bread. I remember walking in there and the guy was so busy with orders, he had a crowd of delivery drivers waiting for him and costumers lined up. Anyway I walked home satisfied with all the food I had found, but as I entered my compound I sort of waved goodbye to Shanghai, as I knew this would be the last I would see of it for a while.

Once the main lockdown started, the one thing I realized is that although it would have been nice to have some company, I was glad I was doing it on my own. I could do whatever I wanted, and be in whatever mood I wanted to be. I could dance around my apartment like a crazy person and no one would care, and there was no one to argue with over what to watch on the tv, the only thing that drived me insane was cooking and washing up everyday. So, I may have been a prisoner in my apartment, but if I could be free in my mind, I knew I could use this time to take a different journey where I stayed still, and this journey would be hard, but maybe it could be an interesting one in a meditative sort of way.

As most people know all over the world now, in lockdown you need to keep your mind and body healthy and not let yourself go- as that is so easy to do. If I had a moment where all of a sudden felt I didn’t feel great, I just repeated to myself… ‘what can I do to make myself feel better?’ And the answer would would come to me, even if I did not feel like doing that thing, I knew in this situation I had no choice to do it so I could feel better. For example, if I let myself lay in bed after 8am, looking at videos or instagram on my phone then I knew that I was going to start my day in a bad or depressed mood. The best thing I’ve realised to do when I wake up, is get out of bed and do 15 minutes of yoga or Thai chi on my balcony straight away, then if I did that, my day would start well. The rest of the morning was usually followed by coffee, breakfast and reading my book on the balcony, this I found was my favourite part of the day, then I would go to my study room to work. If I had lots of teaching work, I would do that, or I would do some of my own artwork or writing, this is something I would never have time for before and always regretted not dong! Late in the morning, if I could for a walk around the compound, I would, and further on into lockdown we were able to do this for 1 hour, then I would walk 15 flights up my stairs to my apartment, to give myself some exercise. If I was stuck in my apartment, I usually ran back and forth across my living room to exercise because I missed running so much, then would put some exercise videos on YouTube for some cardio burn. Then a shower, lunch, followed by working in the afternoon, or a lie down to read again. Then the hardest part of the day for me was cooking, I do enjoy cooking, but in small doses. I love to cook for other people, but cooking for myself everyday is tiring. But if I wanted good food I had to cook, if I wanted it to taste good, I had to work hard. Then when I was proud of myself, I would share my photographs with my friends.

Anyhow, the full city lockdown was only meant to be 5 days, 5 days in Pudong and then 5 in Puxi, but here I am 43 days later (and that’s not including the 4 weeks before) still locked down at home. Part of me, knew it would be longer than 5, because I know China, but still, I wondered, why did they not tell their people about how long it would go on for? I guess everyone was already stressed enough anyway, and they quite possibly were aware it would be ongoing. Because if they were going to do this, they would do it properly, and no one could leave their home until 0 was achieved. They were going to show the rest of the world what they could do. Every day, I would wonder, how could they could achieve 0 when there was 25,000 confirmed cases? And everyday I watched social media, because I knew the cure would be worst than the disease. People who caught covid had to go sent to covid camp, some awful shithole, that looked like a huge warehouse with however many 1,000’s of beds crammed into one space. The main place people went to was the Expo centre, where you would have a bed and small little basin and would have to try and sleep with a huge light on all night and day, it looked like a prison or maybe worst. I’ve seen the photographs, the toilets were sinking and there was no showers and people were cramming up in crowds to get food everyday. In some of the camps, they didn’t build them properly, so one day when it rained, the water all came through the roof forcing people to put cardboard boxes over their bed. And there was no showers at these places, most people had to stay there for 7 – 14 days, some center’s were still under construction while people were being sent there and the beds were literally sunbeds not beds, some cheap things probably ordered off taobao. I knew I definitely did not want to go on ‘Covid holidays,’ as they called it, so I was terrified of catching covid. Not terrified of the disease but terrified of what would happen to me. Still. I knew some foreigners did not have to go there, I think after a while they got worried with the amount of videos that were being taken in these centers and being shared on social media outside of China!

Social media during this time was interesting, there would always be a video or some audio popping out then it would be immediately censored and then taken off. One time some audio went viral of a German man shouting at chinese woman who wanted to take him to the camp. He had already gone there, waited 10 hours on a bus, then was sent home after paying 5000RMB to put his dog in care while he went there, only to be contacted a week later once his test was negative to go back. The guy was so angry, as anyone would be, the woman on the phone was obviously just translating, but he shouting down the phone to her all kinds of things like, ‘you’re country is a joke, everyone is laughing at you.’ I think this audio lasted 24 hours then was taken down. Or there is the videos of the police breaking down doors of people’s home, when people did not want to be taken to the camp, or the cages built around people’s homes, and doors being bolted up with people shouting, ‘what if there was a fire?’ And the video’s of the children people separated from the parents and taken to the covid camps, and the people coming together and shouting on their compound, ‘we want freedom, we want food.’ Then there was the animals, there was reports of people leaving their animals at home, then these animals getting killed by the CDC as no one was there to look after them. Most of this I do believe was true, but it usually had a life line of about 1 day or even a few hours before it was taken down, however some content did reach the news overseas.

The lovely thing about this lockdown was that the community came together. Before I had never spoken to anyone in my building block, but now we were connected together in this situation. I joined the chat group of my block… building no.9, and every day the chat was going constantly. There was the reports about when the next NAT test or RAT test would be, and they were very often, like every other day. My friends and I joked that the antigen test was like a pregnancy test, I now have a collection of pregnancy tests in a box and I’m wondering whether now I should turn them into some kind of art installation and what I should do with them before I leave China. And the community were kind, several of them checked up on me, well the ones that could speak English anyway, to make sure I had food. One time, one of the community volunteers left several Coca Cola cans outside my apartment, and then after talking to one family downstairs when we were allowed to walk around the compound and telling them that I had run out of potatoes and chocolate, the next moment they came up to my apartment with both items, it was such a kind gesture.

Food deliveries have been interesting and whenever anyone received them, they captured their food items in flat-lays and post on social media, some people even started to make their food deliveries into the shape of person, which reminded me of my online lessons teaching art. But it was a thing to celebrate when you got a food delivery, because the deliveries have been a big problem, you were simply not able to order your own food without huge difficulty. Even though, I started off with a huge amount of food, it slowly ran down, and I generally wondered how people with families were coping. There was reports on the social media that people were starving because they couldn’t get food, and all they were relying on was the government packages. And the government packages came in and drips and drabs and one food there was certainly enough of- was cabbages, masses and masses of it! And so many eggs, rice and milk… although now I’ve recently run out of milk. In the government packages, some of the vegetables were rotten, and I remember once they brought me some duck, and I could see its head and beak, I do actually like duck, but I would feel grossed out roasting it for sure. And then was the tiniest ever chicken, it must have been a baby, I did eat that, but I said sorry and thanked it before hand! However, I was lucky because my work opened an online store so I was able to get things like cheese and bread, which the government definitely didn’t send! And once I had a delivery from the parents at my school, and it was literally two boxes of frozen pork, I swear it was 2 whole pigs chopped up. Even though the gesture was thoughtful, all the meat made feel sick and I gave it to the neighbours, and they were so happy with me, that I definitely had won brownie points with them. So when there was a delivery it was like the saying ‘go big or go home.’ I also had so many eggs, that I gave some to my neighbours who had theirs damaged in the storm. Generally everything was okay for me, there was also apps posted in our building work group where I could order different items sometime, it might not have been the food I wanted but I had enough to cook myself some good substantial meals.

Now, over the last few weeks, the situation has approved in Shanghai, I have been able to walk outside around the compound and the beautiful park situated in the middle, which I have never had time to fully appreciate before, because I am always so busy gallivanting everywhere. Life has been pretty peaceful and slow on the 15th floor, apart from the shouting filling the air at night that has been sometimes interesting to listen to while I sip my wine on my balcony. The residents spent several evening, screaming ‘come on Shanghai’ or whatever else they were saying, some evenings there was even a disco and music being played in compounds, I guess it was to raise everyone’s spirit. Anyhow, here in my alternative reclusive universe, I have to admit, I have enjoyed it in a way. We did have a ‘silent’ period the other week where we couldn’t walk outside again or supposedly get deliveries, and in those days the sky was never so gloomy, but I have survived and I think it will be okay. It looks like Shanghai will open up over the next few weeks, now they have achieved this societal 0, even though there are still cases in the quarantine centres. As now, it seems like the number of people contacting the virus has dropped significantly, so I guess the governments efforts to contain the virus has worked, or maybe they’re trying to make it seem like that. But the question is though, what is the whole point to this? The rest of the world doesn’t care about covid anymore, borders are opening, masks are not being worn, if China never wants the virus to come in, then are they ever going to open up to the rest of the world? This is why now, so many foreigners are leaving, including myself, this whole situation is a giant headache and leaves one scratching their head and rolling their eyes for way too long. I have been in China since March 2020 and have not been able to leave due to the restrictions which include a super long hotel quarantine, expensive flights and frustrating paperwork if I did choose to enter the country again. I could have gone back to the UK if I wanted, but it would have been incredibly painful to come back.

So what will become of Shanghai in the future, after this? I do not know, but I hope that this city can recover and get back to how it was before, the cosmopolitan buzzing international city of China, full of life. As for me, I know in 2 months time, even though this period of time in lockdown has made it easier to leave, I know my heart will simply break when I leave this place and these people. And as I travel on that plane on the way back, I will more than likely do what I did on the way here 6 years ago- cry. But like Shanghai, I am not the same person anymore, but let’s hope with whatever happens next, we can both find ourselves again.

#covid #covid19 #lockdown #shanghai #china #expatinshanghai