Now, onto the more serious aspects of this situation.

Over the last three weeks, the situation here has made international headlines for the serious mismanagement, mistreatment of people and animals, and irresponsible restrictions on distributing necessary food, supplies, and medical care.

The distribution of food has been really uneven. Some places, like my lane house community, received rather substantial care packages. I have been quite fortunate to receive several bags of rice, many vegetables, ginger and garlic, cooking oil, and soy sauce. There was also a government package of toiletries (toilet paper, tissues, laundry detergent, shampoo, toothpaste, body wash, and bar soap). My school has also sent out two care packages so far, which included meats, eggs, water, milk, canned tuna, fruits and vegetables, some pasta, and more recently, instant noodles, croissants, chips (“crisps” for you non-Americans), and a bottle of hand soap. On top of that, there are (some) group buying options with local retailers (if the orders aren’t cancelled) and an online grocery platform called “Epermarket,” which has stopped its regular deliveries and created themed care packages while operating at 1/3 of their normal staff level.

However, not everyone is receiving substantial amounts of food. Food distribution has been extremely uneven, and some families have only received minimal supplies. One of my coworkers (who is Chinese) received this package. She lives with her family and has been frustrated at how they are supposed to manage with only minuscule supplies like this.

While the foreign staff were delighted that our school was supplying us with great packages, I was appalled when I heard that the Chinese staff were not being given these packages. I am already aware of how badly the Chinese treat each other, but not offering their Chinese staff care packages was a whole other level of low for me. I voiced my concerns at one of our weekly online staff meetings. In fact, at that meeting, many teachers voiced their concerns and irritation at why our school was so disorganized regarding the 48-hour lockdown in March, as well as still not providing answers to people’s questions from weeks ago.

The food supply issue is not due to a lack of available food; it’s a lack of being able to distribute the food. Due to Shanghai’s restricted borders, drivers cannot get into the city with food donated from other regions. Drivers are told that they cannot enter without quarantining first. As a result, donated food supplies have been halted and have gone to waste. Below is a video of workers trying to dispose of food that has gone to waste after not being able to be distributed.

Some drivers also found themselves actually getting locked down in their own trucks and not being allowed to leave for days on end.

Some of the real unsung heroes throughout this lockdown have been the delivery drivers. In addition to being the only ones permitted to move around town, they are also tested several times a day.

Recently, there has been a crackdown on a few delivery drivers who are massively overcharging people for delivery fees on top of the already agreed-upon fees. Below is an article about online fraud as well.

There have also been some delivery fails.

The major issue concerning everyone is the fear of testing positive and being hauled off to a quarantine camp. Many (if not all) residents need to first test themselves each day with a rapid antigen test kit and then have to come outside to get mass tested in public with a PCR test. Each neighborhood has their numbers counted and logged, and later, communities with positive case results are shared. The city government has created a tiered system of release, but like everything else here, things are not enforced evenly or consistently. Some neighborhoods that appeared to have the lowest risk level were still told that they could not leave their compound. More recently, some people were allowed out but were limited to 30 minutes. No shops are open, and people can only really walk around in the street or their compound.

Another issue is parents being separated from their children and initially being told that they cannot stay with them. Images and videos of toddlers packed three-to-four in a crib without much (if any) supervision at times because there aren’t enough staff for it. Eventually, enough people were protesting against this that the government finally changed that policy.

People were (and still are) afraid of what would happen to their pets if they tested positive and were taken away. Videos of people’s cats and dogs being savagely beaten to death by workers in hazmat suits created a major outcry (this also happened during the original COVID outbreak in 2020). People have also shared whatever information they can find regarding social media support groups for people with pets, stating not to sign anything if they get taken to a quarantine camp because the form asks for permission to exterminate the animal.

Some areas that were converted into quarantine centers, like the Shanghai Expo Center, are the bigger areas that can hold thousands of people. However, it has been reported that there are no showers, the toilets are busy and often not cleaned well, and the overhead lights are on 24/7, making it difficult to sleep. Locals and foreigners have been posting videos of their experiences. Other quarantine centers are more like makeshift camping areas, and the conditions there are even worse. The time between when a person first tests positive and receiving a call from the CDC can be days, sometimes even several weeks. People fear the quarantine camps much more than Omicron itself.

The release of this video, showing test kits being packaged, shows workers not wearing masks and touching supplies with their bare hands. One woman can even be seen quickly touching the swab itself with her finger. Some people started to wonder if the random positive cases could possibly be due to spreading from instances like this.

This video was also widely shared on social media. In it, an Italian expat states how he tested positive and was contacted by the CDC to be taken to a quarantine camp. He filmed his long, arduous experience just dealing with the process of going into quarantine. His footage exposes just how ridiculous and disorganized the situation here is.

As people’s experiences began to spread more widely, people became more and more upset at the prospect of being forcibly taken away and being made to share cramped living quarters with many other sick people.

Later, news spread about an apartment block where residents were being forcibly removed from their homes so that their homes could be converted into quarantine rooms for sick people. I’m not even sure how or why they came up with this idea, but like everything else, authorities had to force people out. It was reported that these residents didn’t even know where they would be taken.

Scenarios like this only add to people’s stress levels. Someone posted about a well-known school here (Shanghai American School), where they listed the number of teachers and staff who had left because of this situation, including administration officials.

Someone posted about one of their acquaintances testing positive while she was at the airport waiting to leave!

There are certainly other stressful world events going on as well, most notably the war between Russia and Ukraine. Even with that happening, some Ukrainian expats here have expressed that they would still rather go back home than stay here.

There is also the story of a Ukrainian woman, Jane Polubotko, who was interviewed about her 18-day stay at a quarantine camp. She stated that after living in China for eight years, she just wants to go back home to Ukraine rather than be in China any longer.

On April 22, on WeChat, there were many netizens, mostly locals, who were mass sharing a video that contained a compilation of recordings of people asking for assistance and wondering why authorities weren’t taking care of things properly.

Also being shared on social media were people protesting and quoting the first line of the Chinese national anthem, which states, “Arise, ye who refuse to be slaves.” Unsurprisingly, that too got taken down. But the fact that the Chinese government, which actively pushes extreme nationalism amongst its citizens, would censor their own national anthem lyrics just to quash dissent really says something. By morning, people were asking about why their recent WeChat moments had been removed.

Images like this were then being posted.

This past month and a half has really shaken up everyone’s life and forced people to re-think their future plans here. A poll was sent out (by an expat) asking expats what their future plans were regarding staying here or leaving. The results showed, unsurprisingly, that many expats will consider or plan to leave within the next year, if not sooner.

This entire situation has once again made me stop and re-think my own plans and goals. I haven’t been able to leave this country for the last two years (not unless I want to endure several weeks at a time in quarantine), which means I haven’t been able to travel or see my family. I have no idea what will happen this summer regarding travel and restrictions.

The current policy about getting a flight out of Pudong airport involves the usual Chinese bureaucracy. This includes having to figure out how to get a PCR test taken while locked down, finding a private driver that has a permit to drive to the airport, getting permission from your neighborhood committee to leave your compound, finding a limited number of flights that won’t get cancelled (and if it is cancelled, trying to book an airport hotel), and filling out different online forms for airport security and whatever airline you use.

Since spring began, I have been hearing a nearby bird cooing almost every day. The sound of it reminds me of when I would travel to other places in Asia, where I would also hear this in the morning. It makes me ache for more chances to explore this world, as this was (and still is) my biggest motivation for moving to China in the first place. What feels so bizarre is that this entire Shanghai lockdown feels like a bubble, like another world, while much of the rest of the world has opened up and is operating on the mentality of “COVID is here to stay, so let’s try to live with it.”

I know that making rash decisions out of fear is a bad idea, so I’m trying to take it one day at a time and keep listening to what my gut is telling me to do. I have applied for some other jobs outside of China, but so far, no luck. While I have felt anxious and distraught at the thought of suddenly leaving behind my friends, colleagues, and the kind of life I had grown to enjoy here (including my income), and future opportunities to travel (even domestically), it just reiterates how temporary and unpredictable things here truly are.

For the last eight years, life has felt like a rollercoaster. While here, I have managed to pursue goals and dreams that I wasn’t even aware of when I was younger. My life here allowed me to tap into something that gave me newfound joy and aspirations, the chance to experience new cultures, as well as the opportunity to return to my writing and photography roots. I have witnessed things here that I’m not sure I would have witnessed anywhere else. There is a kind of energy and aura about this place that makes you feel like anything is possible (good and bad). Here, there is a special kind of freedom, albeit a very specific kind of freedom, which I call “foreigner freedom” (I am well aware that everyday Chinese citizens do not get to enjoy most of the things that foreigners here do). For anyone who hasn’t spent much time here, that may seem difficult to understand. But for people who have lived here, it is often the case that they miss being here (although they have to remind themselves of why they left China in the first place).

While I have previously expressed my desire to live elsewhere, it feels like the time to get off of this ride may be coming sooner than I realized. My life until this point has allowed me to live in a way that just wasn’t doable back home. The fear of no longer being able to feasibly pursue my passions the way I could here scares me to no end. I only hope that when the time finally comes, I will feel ready to say my final goodbyes, as once I leave China, it’s quite possible that I will never return, and that notion breaks my heart.