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| A pot for cooking hot pot, with a barrier in the middle to divide the two different kinds of soup. One side is labelled "浦西" (Puxi) and the other is "浦东" (Pudong). Source: WeChat. |
Posts about the covid outbreak in Shanghai, China:
Complete list is here: Index of Posts About the March 2022 Shanghai Covid Outbreak
On the Current Covid Outbreak in Shanghai (March 12)
I'm in Lockdown (March 16)
I'm Still in Lockdown (March 19)
I'm in Lockdown Again (March 25)
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Well I am exhausted from working from home, taking care of a toddler, cooking, and laundry. My husband is doing half the work but wowwww this is just exhausting. Lockdown life.
Anyway, I have to post this update: So last night, the city of Shanghai announced that Pudong will be totally locked down from March 28 to April 1 (lockdown ends at 5 am on April 1), and then Puxi will be in lockdown from April 1 to April 5. Pudong is the half of Shanghai east of the Huangpu River, and Puxi is the half of Shanghai west of the Huangpu River.
I live in Pudong, by the way.
This is a huge big deal. It was announced around 8:30 pm last night (March 27), and suddenly everyone in Pudong (11 million people) realized they only had a few hours to prepare. I saw several videos on WeChat (Chinese social media app) of people crowding into the grocery stores and buying all the food, even fighting over the vegetables. Obviously I was not there, because I am already in lockdown- as I've covered in my previous blog posts, my apartment complex has been in lockdown since March 23, so that's 6 days so far (which is actually the second lockdown- the first we had was March 16-21). The lockdowns I've blogged about these past few weeks have been like, neighborhood-level, but now it's all of Pudong locked down at the same time.
It's... a bit weird that they're doing it one half of the city at a time. Some people are saying "Why don't they just shut down all of Shanghai at the same time? We would be able to get rid of this covid outbreak faster that way." During the past few weeks, though, the government of Shanghai has said several times that they're not shutting down the entire city- so maybe now they feel like they can't, because they said they wouldn't. I don't know. Shanghai has something like 25 million people- doing a lockdown for a city that big is a huge task; maybe it makes sense to do one half at a time.
Lots of memes going around on WeChat last night. People making jokes like "We are not shutting down the whole city! We are only shutting down 2 areas: Pudong and Puxi." (I'll explain the joke: Pudong + Puxi is the whole city of Shanghai.)
Someone else noticed that the Puxi lockdown starts at 3 am on April 1, and the Pudong lockdown ends at 5 am on April 1, so they said here's what you do if you want to avoid lockdown- you start in Puxi, then jump into the Huangpu River at 3 am, then swim around for 2 hours, and get out on the Pudong side at 5 am.
And also memes with a picture of a pot at a hot pot restaurant- the pot has 2 sections, with different soup in each side, and the sides are labelled "Puxi" and "Pudong."
Personally I find all of those jokes hilarious. :D
Anyway let me give you a little background about Pudong and Puxi. I live in Pudong now, but I have lived in Puxi in the past. I work in Puxi- so yeah, 5 days a week, I take the subway and it crosses under the river, from Pudong to Puxi. (Obviously I don't do that now that I've been working from home for 2 weeks.) A lot of people live in one half and work in the other half. It's not unusual at all. It's not hard to go from Pudong to Puxi- seriously, take a look at the Shanghai subway map:
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| Okay this one is not even totally up-to-date because it's missing line 14 and half of line 18, but you get the idea. Image source. |
See the river going through there? That's the line between Puxi (west) and Pudong (east). So most of the main downtown area is in Puxi, but it's not like Pudong is far away in the middle of nowhere or anything. (However, most of my friends live in Puxi, and there are always jokes about how "your friends move to Pudong and then you never see them again because it's SO FAR AWAY" and "I have to leave early because I LIVE IN PUDONG and it takes an hour to get home" etc.)
Actually, let me give you a rundown of the posts I've made with photos I've taken around Shanghai, and which ones are Puxi and which ones are Pudong:
Puxi:
Lego Store at People's Square
Starbucks Reserve Roastery
Hongqiao Train Station
Shanghai Botanical Garden
Yuyuan Garden
Natural History Museum
Sheshan
Pudong:
Line 14 (is in both Puxi and Pudong but my photos are all in the Pudong part)
"Jurassic World" Exhibition
Disney Store at Lujiazui
Line 6 and Line 2 (Line 6 is entirely in Pudong, Line 2 is in both, but my photos are all in the Pudong part)
Disneyland
(Wowwww I told myself "I'll just write a quick blog post and then go to bed" and here I am scrolling back through my "travel" blog posts all the way back to 2016...)
Okay but now you get the idea about Pudong and Puxi. Two halves of the city, kind of each have their own personality, but really not separate at all- people are crossing back and forth on subways, bridges, tunnels, and ferries ALL THE TIME. Except now, because we are in a lockdown that separates the two halves.
So. Uh. Where was I... So last night, it kind of felt like, suddenly things are getting worse. This is kind of the first time I've felt like a lot of people in Shanghai are mad about the lockdowns. Seeing the videos of people panic-buying all the vegetables... it's not good.
I do feel like the government and the pandemic control people in Shanghai have been doing a good job, given the circumstances, but... this kind of lockdown is just not good. In a city of 25 million people, you suddenly create this much of a disruption to everyone's lives, and inevitably there must be people who aren't able to get food, or medicine, or medical care. (Yes, there are systems set up to help with that, but it's all thrown together so fast, inevitably it won't work 100% of the time.) And a lot of people who aren't getting paid because they're not able to work- yes, to some extent the government requires companies to keep paying their employees anyway, but that doesn't even necessarily apply to all jobs.
At this point, I still believe letting omicron run around everywhere unchecked would be worse than these lockdowns... But a lockdown is still not a good thing. Not anywhere near as bad as everyone getting covid, getting into the kind of situation Hong Kong is having right now... but still bad. And it seems like China is kind of starting to think about "we have to transition into a different strategy than zero-covid, but without having tons of people die..." I don't know what will happen... But yeah, the more "zero-covid" we are here, the more impossible it is for me to see my family...
Anyway... Today on WeChat I see all the restaurants and grocery stores making posts like "We are still able to deliver to Puxi, but if you ordered and you live in Pudong, we will have to cancel your order because the delivery drivers aren't able to cross the river" or "All of our employees are in lockdown, we are in the process of working with the government to find out if we're allowed to open or not."
Oh also, another fun update: Today (March 28) we got covid-tested. Also, March 26 we got covid-tested. So, woo, new record I guess, now the total is 7 times that our entire apartment complex has been tested in these mass testing initiatives. I am really really really sure I don't have covid.
Oh, and on March 26, Shanghai distributed some 14 million antigen home tests (ie, test yourself for covid at home). Our apartment complex didn't get them because we are in lockdown and getting tested by the 大白 (dà bái)- this literally translates to "big white" and it's the slang term for the pandemic control workers in white hazmat suits. (Also, Baymax from the movie "Big Hero 6" is called 大白 (dà bái) in Chinese but I don't think that's related? Gives me a laugh, though, to imagine the quarantine workers are a bunch of Baymaxes.) Anyway, on March 26 I saw lots of people posting on WeChat about their self-tests. Very excited to share a picture of what you shoved up your nose, I guess? Apparently if it's positive, you're legally required to report it.
(If it's negative, you're legally required to share it on social media LOLLLLL just joking, wow I kind of feel like I am way too tired to be blogging because this made me laugh so much.)
To be honest though, I don't really get where self-tests fit into China's anti-covid strategy. Kind of seems like it's signaling a change in the strategy. Because, up till now, if there's actually a possibility you might have covid, you need to be tested by an actual professional and definitely put in a government-designated quarantine facility if you're positive... and if there's not really a possibility you have covid, then the reason you're getting tested must be because an airline requires it or whatever, so still you need a professional to do it and give you the right documentation.
Aiiiiiiiii all right there you have it, Perfect Number is really too tired to be writing a whole long blog post tonight, but here we are. Will post more updates as they come. Pudong's lockdown ends at 5 am on April 1, but that doesn't necessarily mean our specific apartment complex will end lockdown then...
Oh, and I guess I should reassure you all, I'm fine, my husband and son are fine, we are doing okay in lockdown and are lucky that our situation isn't as bad as some of the other things we've heard in Shanghai.
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Shanghai to lock down each half of city for mass Covid-19 testing (March 27) This article from CNN gives a good description of how things are here, but I just found it super super weird that the article never actually uses the words "Pudong" and "Puxi." It says "The eastern half of the city -- comprising around 11 million residents"- umm, this is Pudong. It's... It's not like it's a complicated word that you can only understand if you speak Chinese... It's literally the name of the geographical area that is now in lockdown. Seems like they could have said "The Pudong region, which is the eastern half of the city -- comprising around 11 million residents". Is it normal that news articles about the goings-on in foreign countries don't actually use the words that the people living there would use? Like of course I don't expect you to know what Pudong is if you don't live in Shanghai, but it doesn't really feel like they're reporting the news accurately if they don't say the word "Pudong" when the news is "Pudong is in lockdown." I don't know, maybe just my opinion...
China doesn't have a Covid exit plan. Two years in, people are fed up and angry (March 25) Also from CNN. I mean, yeah, this is all true, but that doesn't mean things are going to change.
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Follow-up post: Lockdown Diaries: Covid Case in Our Complex, and Free Veggies from the Government
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