Ever since we returned from our family holiday in Singapore last weekend, I’ve been posting messages daily onto my Facebook feed about the situation here in Shanghai. This is completely from my own personal perspective as a longtime resident of this city. I make no effort to give a broader view, and I’m not posing as a journalist or health expert in any way, shape or form. These are just my own observations and experiences. I’ve collected the posts I wrote last week and pasted them into this entry, which covers the past seven days. Mostly it’s been a matter of coping with isolation and anxiety. Otherwise, Shanghai feels fairly safe and secure, there is plenty of food, and things are low-key but orderly, at least from my own vantage point. We are far away from the epicenter in Wuhan, and I can only imagine what our friends and colleagues and millions of others are going through in that city and in others that are in the center of the storm. As I wrote earlier, I’m confident that Wuhan, and China, will bounce back, and will learn a great deal from this event. I hope the rest of the world does too.
A sign on our local Family Mart asking people to wear masks—these are everywhere now.
CVS in Shanghai Day 1 (Feb 2). From now on I’m going to give daily reports of what’s going on in Shanghai, at least what I observe, and since this is the first day since we returned from Singapore, I’m calling it day one. This morning I took a walk around my neighborhood in midtown Shanghai, normally a very bustling area full of shops, restaurants, bars, and malls. The streets are very quiet. There are a few people walking around on the streets, and every one is wearing masks with a few exceptions. The Starbucks, which has been on that corner of Weihai Road and Shimen Road ever since I can remember, is now closed, and has left a notice to its customers. All the restaurants and most stores are shuttered. I went food shopping in the Taigu Hui shopping mall, where the City Super is open for business. It is well stocked as usual and there seems to be an abundance of produce. A man at the entrance to the mall checked my forehead for temperature and let me in. A few other shops in the mall are open, but most are shuttered. Everyone on the streets seems to be calmly going about their business, and the convenience stores are all open, as is the local supermarket on Dagu Road (Hualian), which is also well stocked. I did see some men in plastic suits and masks having some sort of altercation with some neighbors near the compound gate on Dagu Road, perhaps having to do with a request for quarantining a family nearby, but otherwise nothing out of the ordinary, except for what I described above. People seem to be in waiting mode. Wonder how long this will continue?
Strolling with my family in a local park in our neighborhood. Almost everyone wears masks, regardless of the circumstances.
CVS in Shanghai Day 2 (Feb 3): The government highly recommends three things, all of them reasonable responses to the crisis: 1) wear a face mask; 2) wash hands frequently; 3) only go out when necessary. As for number 3, it is up to interpretation. When is necessary? Being cooped up in one’s apartment all day is a challenge, and it is a good idea to get outside for a bit of exercise and variety. We spent most of the day inside, which can be challenging when four people (two being teenagers) share a small three-bedroom apartment. This afternoon, we decided to go walking around our area in the middle of Shanghai. As usual, the streets were fairly quiet, though there were people out and about. I’d say around 80-90 percent of the people were wearing masks. I see the mask as a social compact: You don’t spread your germs on me, and I’ll give you the same courtesy. I didn’t see anybody react in any special way to people who weren’t wearing masks. The feeling I got from walking around today is one of cautious optimism. Most stores are closed this week. I noticed that stores selling food are all open—maybe that’s a government dictate. There were even some lines at the more popular shops. There are also some open retail stores, including big ones on Huaihai Road (one of Shanghai’s big shopping streets). Nike and Under Armour are open. Still, most shops have a sign saying that they are closed until the 10th, the official end of the CNY holiday. A few had signs that said they will close til the end of February, but that was rare. It’ll be interesting to see what happens when stores open up and the work week commences next week. As for food, I did notice some of the usual items in our local grocery store seem undersupplied, but that could be a product of the time of day (late afternoon). Will have to check again tomorrow morning. In terms of anxiety, I’d say it’s not that high. Shanghai only has a few hundred documented cases. Even if there are ten times that number, the chances of running into an individual carrying on the street are probably much less than 1/10,000. We shall see how the numbers go up over the next few days. We are definitely expecting a rise, but given all the precautions everyone is taking, Shanghai is not likely to see epidemic proportions of the virus. Still, let’s all keep our fingers crossed, and give our thoughts and our prayers (or the equivalent depending on your religious inclinations) to the good folks in Wuhan who are in the center of the storm. And people, as the sign on our local Family Mart suggests, let’s keep those masks on shall we?
😭😭😭My favorite neighborhood watering hole is closed for the time being. Don’t know when I’ll have my next good craft beer. I know, First-world problems.
CVS in Shanghai Day 3 (Feb 4): Today I went back to our local neighborhood supermarket (联华) and noticed they are still undersupplied in some of the shelves and seem to be running out of some things, including yogurt, meats, nuts, and green veggies. Don’t know if this is a trend or if things will change after the holiday ends. In any case, we decided to play it safe and headed to Costco this afternoon to load up on food. We weren’t the only ones with this idea, though the place is probably more crowded in normal times (don’t know since I’d never been before). Since we are eating at home now, it makes sense anyhow to stock our larders. We ended up spending around 5000 RMB on groceries! Maybe Americans are used to this, but this was certainly a record for me! So hopefully we’ll be able to outlast a temporary shortage of stuff and continue to eat well at home.
CVS in Shanghai Day 4 (Feb 5): Today I got a different perspective on the current crisis. I decided to drive out to Kunshan to pick up some things from DKU and from my apartment, including my laptop computer. Getting to Kunshan wasn’t so difficult. The roads were nearly empty and it would have been smooth sailing, except that they set up a temperature check at the border of Jiangsu Province, and another temp check at the toll booth of the highway exit into Kunshan. These checks only took a few minutes. Then I waited outside the gate at DKU for a colleague to hand me some stuff from my office (nobody is allowed in or out of the campus right now). After that, I drove to my apartment complex, where I had another temp check at the entrance gate. I watered my plants (which were quite dry after two weeks) and gave my key to a colleague who lives upstairs, who kindly agreed to help water the plants from now on. After gathering some things from my apartment in Kunshan, I drove back to Shanghai. On the way back, I had to wait at the border of Huaqiao into Shanghai metropolitan area for another temp check. This time, it took me nearly four hours of stop-and-go traffic to get through the check. Thousands of cars inched along as we patiently moved towards the checkpoint. Finally, we were asked by a police officer to scan a QR code and fill in an online form with all our details, and this had to be checked along with the temp check before they let us through. So that explains why it took so long. Of course one of the questions was have we been to Hubei Province. I’m sure police were also checking to make sure that no Hubei license plates were getting through. I didn’t see any, but I certainly saw plenty of plates from numerous other provinces in China. So on one hand, we can be assured that there is some close oversight of people moving in and out of cities and neighborhood to prevent the spread of the virus. On the other hand, people are being asked to self-report, so who knows, but at least they are checking our temperature at every border and gate. Needless to say, I will not be making the journey back to Kunshan any time soon (at least not by car—I don’t know what it’s like to travel by high speed rail). When the government tells us to stay in one place, they really mean it. But it’s hard to limit mobility in China, and this will have unfathomable effects on the country for some time to come.
CVS in Shanghai Day 5 (Feb 6): Here’s a pano shot of the City Super in Taigui Hui shopping mall. Normally this would be a very crowded place. Wonder how long this shop will stay open? We went here today to do some more shopping for food and other things. While we’re not too worried about running out of food, I am concerned with the “luxury” items that us foreigners in China have come to prize, such as cheese, butter, bread, wine and other items that Chinese people don’t normally consume in their daily lives. So we’ve been trying to stock up on these sorts of items. If we have go onto a “Chinese” diet of rice and veggies, it won’t be the end of the world, and I may lose those 20 pounds I’ve been meaning to lose all these years. But when you’re a foreigner in China, even one as “integrated” as I am, you still crave your comfort foods! Wearing a mask outdoors has become our daily reality in China. It’s like having somebody cupping your mouth and nose with a warm and comforting hand, while slowly but surely suffocating you. But it’s the unwritten rule and the government highly recommends it. Sometimes, I take walks in our xiaoqu (apartment complex) without the mask, but I always put it on when I walk out the gate. As for the gates of our complex, most of them are now closed, and we can only enter and exit through two of them now. When we enter the shopping mall across the road, we need to get our temps checked with a forehead or wrist check. Most of the shops are closed. I think this crisis will be a real shakeout for small businesses in China. Who knows how long this all will last?
Nanjing West Road, normally a blaze of lights and a sea of shoppers, now the streets are quiet and the shopping malls are all closed.
CVS in Shanghai Day 6 (Feb 7): We are now dealing with the growing feelings of unease surrounding the condition of being in an environment where the future is uncertain and everything is at a standstill. Well, not everything. Men on motorbikes are zooming about the city with delivery packages and food—what would we do without them? There are some places open. Costa Coffee on Wujiang Road. KFC, and a few other restaurants here and there. Shops selling food are open as usual. Mostly, it’s a condition of waiting. Not many people are venturing out of their homes, at least not more than they need to. Most people are wearing masks. As I wrote yesterday, the masks can feel very claustrophobic. I also find that wearing one obscures my vision since my breath ends up congealing on my glasses. And there’s plenty of discussion online as to whether or not masks really make a difference (I notice much of this comes from abroad). Whether or not it does, the fact is that people are wearing them. Shanghai still feels safe and secure for the moment. There is still plenty of food. I think the hardest thing right now is dealing with the collective anxiety about the future. And with people returning from their holiday. There are apps now showing exactly where cases of the virus have supposedly been found. They are not adding to any sense of security, I will tell you that. Probably one of the best things for us now is to limit our social media intake. The Chinese social media is worse. There’s a lot of fear, anxiety and anger flowing through Chinese social media, especially in the wake of the news of Dr. Li’s demise (RIP). There’s anxiety about catching the virus through contact with elevator buttons, or through air conditioning, or by other means. Probably much of this is completely unwarranted, but it is there nonetheless. So staying calm and sane is the challenge for us now. Taking walks is helpful. This evening I walked over to Nanjing West Road, normally one of the most bustling streets in the city. It was practically empty, with a few people strolling about here and there. None of the shopping malls were open. As I wrote earlier, there were a few restaurants and a coffee shop here and there that are still open. I walked over to the Portman, where I did a bit of food shopping at the City Shop. Stocked up on more good bread for example. 25 years ago when I first lived in this city, you would practically kill for the kind of bread that you can buy easily in these shops today (that is if you were a foreigner craving bread). I remember when China Jim’s submarine sandwich shop opened in 1996, and it was a huge event for the foreign community in Shanghai. Those days are long gone. Now, just about anything can be found in Shanghai. But I still fear that shops selling these things that us foreigners crave will close. Holding on to these comforts is one way for us to keep our sanity. Other than that, just coping with being cooped up in a small apartment with your family day after day. We are trying to get out at least into our complex and get a bit of exercise now and then. I look forward to the day when we can drop our masks and go out into society and trust each other as we did a month ago—that trust we took for granted for all those years.
Trying to keep on a positive mask amidst growing existential despair.
CVS in Shanghai Day 7 (Feb 8): Not much to report today. Stayed at home all day and worked from my desk in our living room. Woke up this morning with a splitting headache, which is a bit scary in this climate, but it was a sinus headache and I managed to suppress it with a Panadol. Not taking too many chances now. With my immune system being what it is, best to stay inside and limit myself to walks in our complex, which fortunately is very walk-friendly. Adding to the stress is the need to rethink our programming at DKU in light of the unfolding events, but that’s another story for another time. Right now we’re working on moving all of our coursework online. My daughter Sarah’s school, Shanghai American School, has done the same and she is now taking her classes online at home. While schools here in Shanghai have publicized an early March reopening, I am very doubtful this will happen given how this situation is unfolding. It’s uncertain how long it will take things to get back to a semblance of normality. It’s quite painful to see our vibrant city paralyzed, with shops and restaurants closed, streets quiet and empty, and everyone staying at home. On the other hand, you have to respect the discipline and drive of the people here in Shanghai and elsewhere in China to stop this virus in its tracks before it spreads further. I don’t know quite what to think about the quarantine policy, but there will be plenty of time in the aftermath of the crisis to debrief and reassess. Everyone in China and the world will learn a great deal from this event, there is no doubt about that. Sending a smile out to the world today because it needs one.