In my previous post, I related my experiences of returning to China in these “special times.” Now that we have gone through our two-week quarantine period, we are reintegrating ourselves back into our normal lives here in Shanghai. In this post, I will write about the experience of reintegrating into a city and country that has fought the pandemic successfully and yet continues to remain vigilant, nonetheless.
First, let me share some of the experiences of our quarantine period. Once we landed in Shanghai on the early morning of September 9, we were taken to a hotel in the Jing’an District (where we live) and spent two days there before being bussed to our own apartment for the remainder of our 14-day quarantine period. (I already related some of this experience in the previous post.) We were certainly relieved to be back in our own home, even if it meant that we couldn’t step out the door—literally--for the next 12 days.
Being confined to one’s own apartment certainly beats being stuck in a hotel room for two weeks. Nevertheless, it is still confining. I found myself counting the days and pacing back and forth across the longest space in our apartment, from the living room to our balcony and back. At least the girls had their own rooms to retreat into and we all had more peace and quiet and space than we had in the hotel room. Better yet, we could order whatever we wanted to eat and have it delivered to the door. This meant that we could take advantage of all the eateries nearby, and there are plenty of them in our ‘hood. We could also order groceries and I was able to cook meals in our kitchen. So compared to those poor souls who have to have 14 days’ worth of hotel meals—aka hefan 盒饭 (boxed set meals)—while living inside a box-like room, we lived quite well indeed.
One of the toughest things for me during this period was the lack of mobility. While in the USA, I’d gotten quite used to the freedom of being able to roam wherever and whenever I wanted to (as long as it was in the great outdoors) and as I wrote in previous posts, I took great advantage of this freedom during our long summer in Acton, Mass., indulging in bike rides and forest walks, or visits to nearby towns and scenic spots. So it was hard to spend two weeks without walking or smelling the scents of the forest. I suppose I could have tried one of the home-exercise programs that you find on Youtube, but I’m not one for jumping jacks and the likes. Instead, I ended up buying a Domyo rowing machine from Decathlon, the big sports store in Shanghai and environs (there’s also one in Kunshan, where I bought an elliptical machine for my Kunshan apartment two winters ago). It felt great to be rowing again and to be working out and this made a huge difference to the rest of the quarantine experience for me.
Working out on my new rowing machine in our Shanghai apartment
Meanwhile, we continued with our online teaching and learning from our apartment in Shanghai. The girls took their lessons and communicated with their teachers and classmates remotely, while I continued to teach my course on “Sounds and the Chinese City: Live Music Scenes” for the 30 DKU students enrolled in the course. I assured them that soon I would be teaching them—well, most of them—in person once released from quarantine.
The final step before our release on Sept 23 was to take another nucleic acid test for COVID on the 21st, aka two long swabs up each nostril. The nurse came to our door and administered the test in full hazmat gear. Then we waited. On the morning of the 23rd, the health officers came to our door with our release papers. We were free! And finally, after seven-and-a-half months, my wife could rejoin us, and we could be a family again.
Unfortunately, on that same morning, I also received news from our campus that according to a new policy, the Jiangsu government forbade us to return to the DKU campus for another two weeks. This was mere coincidence, but it felt like a purposeful act of cruelty, having waited for so long just to be told on the morning of my release that I had to wait two more weeks to rejoin my school in Kunshan. It was certainly a blow for the students, who had been expecting me to show up and begin teaching class in person on that day.
Nevertheless, I had to abide by the new rule. The apparent reason for this change in policy is that somebody who had flown back to China and was based in Nanjing had gone through the two-week quarantine period and later tested positive for COVID. Perhaps this was a singular anomaly, yet the government decided to take extra precautions and extend everyone’s home quarantine period for another two weeks. This meant that everyone flying back to Kunshan from abroad to rejoin DKU now had to undergo a full month of quarantine before getting back on campus. The first two weeks was the “hard” quarantine where you couldn’t leave your apartment. The second two weeks was the “softer” version, where you could leave home but were encouraged not to do so unless necessary, and you weren’t supposed to gather in groups or go to any crowded places.
Since this new rule didn’t apply outside of Jiangsu Province, I was able to enjoy my hard-won freedoms as long as I was in Shanghai. Meanwhile, my daughters are reintegrating back into their schools. They were able to go to school for a few days before the holiday began, and they will return to school this week. For both of them, it’s been quite a relief to be able to spend time with their own peers after so many months of deprivation (really, it was they who suffered the most during that six-month period). I don’t think there’s been a day during the holiday when my daughter Sarah hasn’t spent time hanging out with her own friends, and who can blame her for doing so after being stuck in a house with her little sister, her dad and her grandparents for half a year.
First, I visited Kunshan for a couple days just to check in on my apartment there. The internet connection in my Kunshan apartment had gone cold since nobody paid the bills for the past six months, so I had to spend some time setting that back up again. I also had to find a new parking space for my car, since the old one had expired and been taken over by someone else. I had to throw away a bunch of food items that had expired months ago. And there were a few other things to do there to get the place ship-shape.
Spending Autumn Moon Festival Day with the grandparents in Shanghai
After taking care of these matters, I returned to Shanghai to enjoy the combination of Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day Holiday week with my family. We had a whole week to spend together, which was a nice treat after our 7+ month separation. On October 1st, we visited the home of my parents-in-law and had a wonderful Shanghai-style meal to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival Day and our return to China. We then spent a few days relaxing in our own apartment and dining in our favorite local eateries, such as the Japanese restaurant Kamon (Huawen) on Dagu Road, and the hotpot restaurant Haidilao on Beijing Road.
Since we were free to do whatever we wanted to in Shanghai, we went to see a couple of movies, including the new action/sci-fi thriller Tenet, and a new Chinese animated film Jiangziya. The attendants at the cinemas checked our QR health codes, and we had to download them for the girls. The QR Health Code is issued to each person who successfully goes through the quarantine period. It shows a green QR code which means “healthy.” This is used by some establishments to check on people’s health when they enter. Others just make use of temperature checks. Some establishments, such as the Apple Stores, require people to wear masks. Others don’t. Once inside the cinema, while watching the film, most people kept their masks on, as did I. Even so, it is reassuring to know that there is no indication that the virus is spreading in Shanghai or anywhere else in China at this time.
Masks are mandatory in the Shanghai subways
Another place that is very strict with masks is the subway system. You are required to wear a mask at all times when entering the subway and riding in the cars. This is another reassuring thing, especially given the huge number of travelers from all over China who were in Shanghai for the October holiday.
On one morning, I led a private tour for a new colleague at the Shanghai American School, where my daughter Sarah goes now, and where I used to be a member of the Board. We visited the Bund and the former French Concession, including my favorite spots the old French Club of the Garden Hotel and Joffre Terrace, the old lane-house neighborhood on the corner of Maoming and Nanchang Roads. Following our morning tour of the city, I had my own walkabout through the FFC, ambling around 8 miles in total through old neighborhoods that I have spent quite a lot of time in over the years. I plan to write a separate post about this experience, since it is connected to my ongoing research on the city’s nightlife and its changes and vicissitudes over the decades.
Walking along the roads of the FFC, thronged with tourists from all over China
Two nights ago, we had a big dinner party with a group of old friends. It was so nice to be able to hang out with my peers so freely and easily after seven months of being limited mainly to my daughters and parents (much as I love them) in our sheltering “bubble”. Everyone talked about their experiences with the pandemic over the past few months. Most of my friends in Shanghai stayed here through the pandemic, so they didn’t experience the people deprivation that I have over the past few months. (Still, I was lucky while in the USA to have a few close friends who I saw now and then, and that helped immensely.)
Yesterday, we walked over to the thriving commercial neighborhood known as Xintiandi, and had lunch at one of our favorite restaurants, Element Fresh. On the way there, we passed through the green spaces that the city government constructed in the city center around twenty years ago. After having spent six months in a highly forested land, I appreciate these tranquil, tree-lined urban spaces more than ever. Another thing I felt during the quarantine was tree deprivation, and it was nice to be back amidst the trunks and leaves of a new variety of trees here in Shanghai (more on that in another post I have planned).
Overall, our adjustment back to normal life has gone smoothly. My younger daughter Hannah seems to be taking a bit longer than the rest of us, and she still insists on wearing a mask whenever she goes outdoors and to other places. I think the impact of all this on her will be most profound.
One thing that surprised me was how quickly and easily I was able to slip back into normal patterns of life following our six months of sheltering and two-week quarantine period. Other than the health checks and the masks, Shanghai seems to be little different from the way it has always been, and people are wandering about the city quite freely, doing the things they always do. Stores, restaurants, malls, cinemas, you name it—they are all open and thriving. The only thing I haven’t checked out yet is the live music scenes, but they seem to be popping as well, only without the usual number of foreigners who make up those scenes.
I suppose all of this is a testament to the hardline approach that China took early on (whether you want to blame China for spreading this virus to the world in the first place is another issue, and personally I think it’s a dead-letter issue at this point). By cracking down hard on its spread, the country was able to get back to normal, or close to it, quite quickly, and the people have benefitted from this “no pain no gain” mentality. Certainly not all of them, as my old colleague and friend, journalist and author Dexter “Tiff” Roberts would tell us—many people in China, such as migrant workers, are still suffering greatly from the economic impact of the pandemic. And many foreigners and Chinese are still trying to get back into the country from wherever they were when the pandemic began to rage across the world. But if you compare our life here in Shanghai with what we experienced in the USA over the past six months, it’s night and day. For the time being, we feel safe and content to back home in our lively city after all that time sheltering deep in the woods of Massachusetts.