Tell me why the world is weird: May 2022

Tuesday, May 31, 2022

Lockdown Diaries: Shanghai Lockdown Ends June 1!

Grocery store which has a garage-door-like door, which is half open so customers can't go in, though the store has reopened. Also you can see a location code (QR code) posted on the door. Image source.

Posts about the covid outbreak in Shanghai, China:

Complete list is here: Index of Posts About the March 2022 Shanghai Covid Outbreak

Lockdown Diaries: I Went Out! (May 29)
Lockdown Diaries: We Are Allowed Out! (a little bit) (May 26)
Lockdown Diaries: Slowly Getting Better (maybe) (May 21)
Lockdown Diaries: June 1 Target for "Back to Normal" (yeah not gonna happen) (May 17)
Lockdown Diaries: Restrictions on Chinese Citizens Leaving China (May 13)
Lockdown Diaries: Taking a Whole Building to Quarantine (May 10)
Lockdown Diaries: More and More People Get to Go Out (a little bit) (May 7)
Lockdown Diaries: Some People Can Go to the Grocery Store (May 3)
Lockdown Diaries: Exciting New Definition of "Society" (May 1)
Lockdown Diaries: This is a Human-Made Disaster (April 26)
Lockdown Diaries: More of the Same (April 22)
Lockdown Diaries: 3 Covid Deaths Reported in Shanghai (April 18)
Lockdown Diaries: Dystopian Madness (April 15)
Lockdown Diaries: Part of Shanghai is Out of Lockdown (April 12)
Lockdown Diaries: I am Okay, Shanghai is Not (April 9)
Lockdown Diaries: Dressing Up, Free Medicine, Free Rice (April 6)
Lockdown Diaries: Antigen Self-Tests, and Children with Covid (April 3)
Lockdown Diaries: Covid Case in Our Complex, and Free Veggies from the Government (March 31)
Now All of Pudong (East Shanghai) is in Lockdown (March 28)
I'm in Lockdown Again (March 25)
I'm Still in Lockdown (March 19)
I'm in Lockdown (March 16)
On the Current Covid Outbreak in Shanghai (March 12)

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Here's the updated timeline:

March 16-21: First lockdown. 6 days.

March 23 - May 31: Second lockdown. 69 days and DONE!

Mass testing:

Nucleic acid tests (conducted by baymax, ie, the workers in white hazmat suits): 33 times (March 16, 17, 19, 20, 23, 26, 28, 30, April 4, 6, 9, 14, 17, 19, 20, 21, 24, 26, 27, 29, May 2, 4, 6, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 27)
Antigen self-tests: 34 times (April 2, 3, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13 [twice], 15, 16, 22, 23, 25, 28 [twice], 30, May 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 21, 23, 25, 28, 29, 30, 31)

(The above info is specific to our apartment complex. Other apartment complexes in Shanghai will have a similar situation but not exactly the same.)

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We are free!

Well our apartment complex said our lockdown would end on June 1, but then today (May 31) they said whatever, we can go out anyway, our lockdown is done now. (No passes needed, no questions asked, no restrictions on time.)

YESSSS!

And the city of Shanghai announced that lockdown for all of Shanghai ends on June 1. (With the exception of "medium risk" and "high risk" areas- this means apartment complexes that have had covid cases within the past 14 days, or something along those lines, I am not sure of the exact definition. So lockdown is over for something like 96% of the residents of Shanghai.)

HOORAY!

The mood here is very happy. We heard music outside this afternoon, some patriotic songs, someone is having an outdoor party. In our apartment building group chat, the volunteers were posting "Shanghai has successfully controlled the pandemic! Thank you everyone for your support!" and then everyone is replying to thank the volunteers for their hard work. I saw videos on WeChat of people out and about on the streets, and videos of fireworks.

All subways will be running again starting June 1. Businesses are supposed to all be reopening- we'll see.

HR from my job posted a message that said we are allowed to go back to our office building, but they don't really recommend that we go there yet. Also, for now the number of people in the office building is limited to 20% capacity, so if we need to go we have to sign up first.

Schools are not reopening yet. The city of Shanghai posted a plan about high schools and middle schools opening first, then elementary schools, then kindergartens way at the end of June (kindergarten in China is 3 years long, starting at age 3- so it's a separate thing from elementary school). Our son is too young for kindergarten; he goes to a private daycare. No word yet on when daycare will be reopening.

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Nucleic acid test stations

City sets up 15,000 test sites to prevent COVID resurgence (May 30)

So, now that everyone is required to have a negative nucleic acid test within the past 72 hours in order to enter public places, the city of Shanghai has set up all these new testing booths. There is one in our apartment complex. So this morning (May 31) even though it wasn't required, we went and got tested, so that if/when we go out tomorrow, we'll have the negative test result we need.

According to the SHINE article at that link, "All PCR tests in Shanghai are free through June 30. The cost of a single tube PCR test will be cut to 16 yuan (US$2.40) per person and a mixed test to 5 yuan." (PCR = polymerase chain reaction, this is another name for the nucleic acid testing) So, it's free!

These new testing booths, they're kind of hilarious- they have 2 holes that the tester is supposed to stick their arms out of, in order to poke the swab into your throat. (Today at the one in our complex, the tester wasn't actually inside the booth, though- they set up a separate table next to it.)

A person gets tested at a nucleic acid testing booth in Shanghai. Image source.

And some of the booths actually have gloves built into the booth itself, as if it's for astronauts studying moon rocks and they can't come in contact with anything in the moon rock containment area at all. And I have seen some videos at night, when no one is there, it's dark, and there's just these spooky gloves just hanging there, blowing slightly in the wind. Hilarious.

Image source.

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Moving on from lockdown?

Well, now that lockdown is over, how do we summarize it? What are the long-term effects? What have we learned?

It's definitely too early to say, but here are some ideas:

I've been thinking about how easy it is, in non-lockdown times, to just buy whatever I want. Just buy something online, and we get it delivered in a matter of days. Buy food from a restaurant, and it comes in less than an hour. But our ancestors 200 years ago couldn't do anything like that.

And during lockdown, when we didn't have many choices for food, when the vegetables were all in giant mystery bags which contained way too many leafy ones... like, we can't choose what we want, these are the vegetables that we have, so this is what we're eating. But for most of human history, that's how it was.

We ran out of Cheerios pretty early in the lockdown. But... at the same time, isn't it amazing that in China, I was able to reliably get Cheerios at all, before? Even when I first moved to China in 2013, I rarely found Cheerios for sale anywhere. But now with online shopping apps like Taobao and Jingdong, you can get whatever you want. Whatever imported food you want. It might be kind of expensive, but you can get it.

And I think for me, the biggest long-term effect is that now we will keep more non-perishable food in our home.

But really, we're lucky. My husband and son and I have been in a much better situation than other people during this lockdown. We continue getting paid like normal. We never ran out of food. We have a good apartment management committee, who didn't force any senseless rules on us. (I have heard many stories of people not being allowed to get food delivered, because their apartment management said so. Ridiculous.) We haven't been working all day in anti-pandemic roles like community volunteers and testers and nurses and ambulance drivers. We never got covid. We haven't had any medical emergencies. I've heard about delivery drivers who had to sleep on the streets, grocery store workers who had to sleep at their stores, nurses wearing the whole baymax outfit, not allowed to eat or drink at all for most of the day, truck drivers from out of town who got stuck in Shanghai and had to live in their trucks for weeks. I've heard of people whose pets ran away, and there's nothing you can do, you aren't allowed to go out and look for them.

And this has definitely affected people's trust in the government. We've seen lots of bad things, like covid-positive people being sent to makeshift hospitals with horrible conditions. And we've seen how it gets censored from social media.

I guess we can trust that they can get us back to zero-covid, but for other things, like caring about people's needs, treating people humanely, no. (I saw someone on WeChat posted "They don't care what you die of, as long as it's not covid.")

And everyone knows that the city of Shanghai did a bad job of this. It's not just like "this is how it is in China"- it's more complicated than that.

And now we can say we've gotten through it, more or less, but wow it was really bleak for a while there. It was bad.

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I'll post more updates as things continue to happen, but I won't have to call them "Lockdown Diaries" any more. ^_^

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Links

Sixth Tone

Shanghai Reopening Diary (May 31, continues to be updated)

Some Shanghai Residents Worry About ‘Post-Lockdown Social Anxiety’ (May 31)

Snapshots of Shanghai, In Between Lockdown and Reopening (May 30) Very good photos here.

SHINE

When the Shanghai COVID-19 resurgence started (May 31) This timeline gives a good overall sense of what happened, and the article also includes useful graphs. But it's from SHINE, a propaganda rag, so they failed to mention all the ****ed up things that happened.

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Next post: Lockdown is Over + Happy Dragonboat Festival!

Sunday, May 29, 2022

Lockdown Diaries: I Went Out!

Shoppers at a recently-reopened mall in Shanghai. Image source.

Posts about the covid outbreak in Shanghai, China:

Complete list is here: Index of Posts About the March 2022 Shanghai Covid Outbreak

One of the responses to the my 2022 Reader Survey included a suggestion that the most recent lockdown post should be at the top of the list. Lololol, I guess when I started this series I didn't realize there would be so many posts. Anyway, thanks for the suggestion, and the 2022 Reader Survey is still open (until June 30, 2022) so please go ahead and take it if you haven't already.

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Here's the updated timeline:

March 16-21: First lockdown. 6 days.

March 23-now: Second lockdown. 68 days and counting.

On May 26, our apartment complex allowed us to go out, with A LOT of restrictions. (So I'm still counting it as being in lockdown.) So, total time we weren't allowed out AT ALL was 65 days (March 23 - May 26). I first went out on May 28.

Mass testing:

Nucleic acid tests (conducted by baymax, ie, the workers in white hazmat suits): 33 times (March 16, 17, 19, 20, 23, 26, 28, 30, April 4, 6, 9, 14, 17, 19, 20, 21, 24, 26, 27, 29, May 2, 4, 6, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 27)
Antigen self-tests: 32 times (April 2, 3, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13 [twice], 15, 16, 22, 23, 25, 28 [twice], 30, May 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 21, 23, 25, 28, 29)

(The above info is specific to our apartment complex. Other apartment complexes in Shanghai will have a similar situation but not exactly the same.)

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I went out!

Exciting news! On Saturday, May 28, I went out and saw the world! We had received passes on May 26 that allow 1 person per household to go out, for 2 hours, twice during the period May 26-31. And on May 28, I used the pass. Yay!

SO EXCITING!

Part 1: The area around my apartment

I went to the main gate of our apartment complex, they told me to scan the location code for our complex (this registers my information to show where I have been- I talked about the location codes in my May 21 post), and they wrote on my pass the time that I was going out (because I have to be back within 2 hours).

Wow, walking through that gate, out into the world. It was so strange! It was like, when you're in a movie theater, and the movie ends, and you get up and walk out the door, outside into the sunlight and into the regular world, coming out of the darkness of the movie theater and the fictional world you've been experiencing for the past few hours. Like suddenly, there it is, there's the real world.

Walking down the street, singing Rihanna's song "Only Girl in the World" in my head.

My main objective was to walk around and see what society is like now. I wasn't planning to go to any grocery stores for supplies. Just gather intel.

There were a few people on the streets, also a few cars, and people riding their electric bikes, and normal bikes.

The first big thing I noticed was that now, every single store has a location code (场所码) posted on the door. This is a QR code that you have to scan with the Alipay app on your phone, which will link it to your health code. Every single store, every single apartment complex gate, they all have one now. Even stores that are not open yet. Every single one.

Most things were closed, but there was a convenience store open, and I went in to look for some things we needed. I scanned the location code on the door first. Some shelves were well-stocked, and some shelves were totally empty. They didn't have any yogurt at all, for example. Seems like even though stores and restaurants are reopening, their supply chains aren't all in place yet, so some products are missing.

When I went to the counter to buy things at the convenience store, I panicked for a second because I had forgotten how to use the Alipay (支付宝) app to pay for things! It's been 2 months! But then I remembered and it was all good.

For some restaurants in the area, the front door was open, and you could see employees inside, but clearly it wasn't open for customers yet. (The lights were off, the tables were all stacked to the side, that kind of thing.) I think these restaurants are probably open for pickup/delivery, but not for indoor dining.

I also walked to a grocery store, and there was a VERY LONG line. So I didn't bother trying to go in.

Part 2: The subway

Then I realized, the subway is running! Wow! Actually, 4 subway lines have resumed running: lines 3, 6, 10, and 16. The others are not running. This is super interesting to me, because, fun fact: Lines 3 and 10 are entirely in Puxi, and lines 6 and 16 are entirely in Pudong. (Puxi is the half of Shanghai west of the Huangpu River, Pudong is the half of Shanghai east of the Huangpu River.) Most other subway lines cross the river; they can take you from Puxi to Pudong. I guess they don't really want people crossing the river yet, so they are only opening the ones that are contained entirely in one side or the other.

So, lucky for me, the subway station near my apartment is open! Wow! I was a bit nervous- is the security guard going to ask me where I'm going and why? Is everyone allowed to take the subway, or do you need a "good reason"? I watched a few other people go in- the security guard told them they had to scan the location code for the subway station, and that was it- the security guard didn't ask any other questions or anything.

So I scanned the location code, the security guard let me through, then I panicked for a moment because I had totally forgotten how to scan my subway card (it's been 2 months...), then remembered I have an app on my phone for the subway card, and scanned that, and went right in.

Wow! The subway!

I had to wait for a while- right now the subways are only running every 20 minutes. In normal times, it would be less than 5 minutes between trains.

When I got on the subway, there were some people but not many- everyone had a whole bench to themself. And there were A LOT of people with suitcases. Maybe half the people on the subway had suitcases. A lot of people from other Chinese cities have been stuck in Shanghai for 2 months, and are now going to the train station to get out.

Part 3: Area around the subway station where I got off

I rode the subway for a few stops, and got off at a station where you can transfer to a different line. Except, turns out you can't, because the other subway line at that station wasn't open yet. (That's when I found out that only lines 3, 6, 10, and 16 are running.) So I just exited the subway station there, and walked around a bunch to investigate the area.

There was a grocery store there, with a line all the way down the block. There were a bunch of restaurants open for pickup/delivery only- they had set up tables to block the doors, because they weren't allowing customers to enter. You can stand at the door and tell them what you want. This is different from the convenience store I went to in the area near my apartment- I totally went in that store.

And again, every single store had a location code on the door.

There were a lot of people walking around in that area. I saw children too- for our complex, only 1 person per household is allowed to go out, so seems like children wouldn't be able to go because they can't go alone- but I guess for other complexes, they have different rules.

And then I had to hurry up and go home because I was only allowed to be out for 2 hours.

Part 4: Overall

Well, I was so tired out from walking around. These 2 months being in lockdown, I haven't done much walking or exercise at all. My husband keeps saying that when we're out of lockdown, he wants to go to Disneyland, but gosh, Disneyland requires so much walking, and I can't even walk a normal amount without feeling exhausted.

Yeah definitely have to do some more walking and exercise.

But overall, wow, it was amazing. It was AMAZING. The world! Wow!

Also, I didn't get stopped or questioned by any police or anything. I had heard stories from some of the few lucky people who got let out of lockdown for a few days, several weeks ago, that there had been checkpoints on the roads and police asking where you're going. I didn't see anything like that when I went out- I guess they stopped doing that. Also the barriers on the roads seem to have all been removed. Yay!

Definitely want to go out again! But my most recent nucleic acid test was on the morning of May 27, and to enter a store or subway station you have to have a negative nucleic acid test result from the past 48 hours, so it's "expired" now and I would be very limited in where I could go. Also, it's my husband's turn next- like I said, we are only allowed to send out 1 person at a time, 2 times total. (And then on June 1 they might give us a new set of passes, we don't know.) So it's his turn.

Restaurants reopening

We are starting to see more restaurants available on Meituan (美团), a food delivery app. Last night my husband and I didn't feel like cooking, so we got something delivered. So convenient! The restaurant didn't have all the choices it normally has, probably because they don't have access to all the ingredients they need yet. But wow! It was great! We ordered food!

(These past 2 months in lockdown, we've had to cook all our own food from the raw vegetables we get in our vegetable mystery bags. And I mean raw- they still got dirt on them and everything.)

So things are getting better and better.

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Supposedly June 1 we will be let out with no restrictions

Today on WeChat, there was a rumor that on June 1, everyone in Shanghai will be allowed out of lockdown (unless you are in a "medium risk" or "high risk" area- yeah they are going back to the old system of "low/medium/high risk areas", rather than "locked down/ controlled/ precautionary areas").

It doesn't seem to be from an official source. We'll see. The official Shanghai government account has been posting things about their plan to get businesses open again and people back to work on June 1. But that is not exactly the same thing as saying we'll all be out of lockdown on June 1.

I know that in some places in Shanghai, people already are allowed out with no restrictions. No need for passes, no limits on the number of people per household, no limits on the time. I heard this on May 27 from someone in Fengxian, which is wayyyy out there, way far from the city center. I don't think I've ever been to Fengxian, it's very far. Still a part of Shanghai, though.

Also, and this is from the official Shanghai government WeChat account, so I know it's true: They are changing the nucleic acid test requirement from 48 hours to 72 hours. To enter public places, you will need a negative nucleic acid test from within the past 72 hours.

This makes a lot more sense than 48 hours. Honestly, 48 hours was kind of ridiculous- because it's measured from the time your sample is taken. It takes 6-12 hours to actually get your result. In practical terms, it would mean you'd have to get tested every day, if you wanted to always have a valid result from the past 48 hours.

72 hours is much better. And hopefully they will change it to 7 days eventually- I have heard that other cities have a 7-day rule.

Feels so weird, things getting back to normal. Like I will have to re-learn how to live life out of lockdown.

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Anfu Road party

On May 28, I saw videos shared on WeChat of a big outdoor party on Anfu Road (I guess it happened on the night of May 27). Lots of people standing around in groups without masks. In some of the videos you can see a lot of white people, so apparently some Chinese people on social media are being racist about it and saying "foreigners aren't following the rules."

Uh yeah, having a big gathering without masks, while most of Shanghai is still in lockdown, is NOT COOL. Also there were a lot of Chinese people at the party too; I feel like you can't get a sense of the overall demographics from just a few videos. Not cool to jump to conclusions and "blame it on the foreigners."

But yeah, it's not the time for a maskless party.

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Graph

Oh I'm so happy, I found a graph of the covid cases in Shanghai during this outbreak. See, I feel like I haven't been able to give you readers a good sense of how the number of covid cases went up to scary big numbers but now has been going down for a while.

Click the image to see the full-size version. Image source.

Graph title = 上海市3月以来每日疫情数据 Translation: Daily pandemic data for Shanghai, starting in March

X-axis is the date- from March 16 to May 27.

Yellow = 新增阳性（本士确诊病例+无症状感染者-转归）Translation: New positive cases (local confirmed cases + asymptomatic infected people - converted)

(The "converted" means people that were initially reported as asymptomatic and then later became symptomatic. So they get subtracted so as not to count them twice- otherwise they would be counted once on the date they were reported as asymptomatic, and a second time on the date they were reported as converted to symptomatic. But also, see note below about the definition of "asymptomatic.")

In other words, the yellow line is the number of new covid cases reported each day.

Green = 风险人群排查中发现 Translation: Discovered during screening of at-risk groups

Okay I don't know what that means- I guess it means cases discovered among people who were already in quarantine due to being a close contact of a known covid case? I'm basically just going to ignore the green line, I don't think it's important.

Anyway, look at the yellow line. That shows how the number of cases every day increased for a while, to a peak of 27,605 in mid-April, and now it's been decreasing for a while. At this point, we have somewhere around 200 new cases per day, and decreasing.

Important notes about this graph:

The definition of "asymptomatic": Asymptomatic does not mean asymptomatic. The way the city of Shanghai is defining it, asymptomatic means you don't have symptoms of pneumonia. You may have other symptoms, like sore throat, cough, fever, etc, but it hasn't gotten serious enough to go down into your lungs. "Wait," you might be saying to yourself, "that doesn't sound asymptomatic at all!" Well, yes, I agree with you! (Apparently other Chinese cities are using more logical definitions of "asymptomatic" than Shanghai. In Shanghai's data- you can't see it from this graph though- about 90% of the covid cases are classified as "asymptomatic." If you see other Chinese cities with a completely different ratio than that, they are probably using a different definition.)
This doesn't matter for this graph though, because they added the symptomatic and asymptomatic cases together anyway.
Delay in reporting. I wouldn't really put much stock in the details of the shape of the graph- the rate at which it rises, the date where it reached the peak- because there is a delay between when a person tests positive, and when they get reported in the official data. The case is counted in the statistics on the day the person was brought to a quarantine center- and it could be a delay of several days or even a week. (When the number of cases was rising fastest, there was the biggest delay.) The slope of the graph really tells us more about Shanghai's ambulance capacity than the actual rate that the disease spreads.

The graph doesn't show the number of deaths: so far during this outbreak, there have been 588 deaths from covid in Shanghai.

If I was more cynical, I would say "you're not going to see this in western media. Zero-covid works." This lockdown has been a disaster, and I hope the Shanghai government will be held accountable for how badly they ****ed it up, but it's looking like we're really going to come out of it into happy and free zero-covid life. Maybe with more rules than we had before the lockdown, though. (Like the requirement to have a 72-hour negative covid test.)

Well, "happy and free" remains to be seen. But yes, before the lockdown, we'd been "happy and free" for 2 years while the rest of the world saw hundreds of thousands of people die, saw politicians say that it's okay if people with "underlying conditions" die, had to live in fear of going out in public, politicized basic health measures like masks and vaccines... None of that happened in China. We had to wear masks in public, and traveling is difficult or impossible, but other than that, we'd been fine.

Also, the Shanghai lockdown is BAD. The Shanghai lockdown is comparable to the Wuhan lockdown in early 2020, that's how bad it is. No other lockdown in China has been as bad as Wuhan and Shanghai. Many Chinese cities really have been "happy and free" this whole time.

So next time you see an article in western news media that makes it sound like ALL OF CHINA is having these problems, you'll know that's bullshit.

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Links:

Sixth Tone

A Community Worker’s Account of Life on the COVID-19 Frontline (May 27)

Staff at Temporary Pet Shelter Bid Farewell To Four-legged Friends (May 27)

SHINE

Angel 'aunties' nurture home-alone boy through 40 days of lockdown (May 27) I guess this is supposed to be a heart-warming story, but really it just makes you realize how ****ed up it was that this 12-year-old boy was left home alone during the lockdown.

Citizens returning from outside city can't be barred from their homes (May 27)

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Next post: Lockdown Diaries: Shanghai Lockdown Ends June 1!

Friday, May 27, 2022

In Some Alternate Universe, I'm Writing a Post About Masks and "Causing to Stumble"

Sign that says "Please wear a face mask or face covering." Image source.

Well this post was in my drafts but I wasn't sure if I should post it because it's about American evangelicals and masks, and I'm in China and the culture around masks is totally different here. But I read the SBC report- the one about how the leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention covered up sexual abuse for years, and it's so much worse than we thought- so yeah, now feels like a good time to say "it was all fake."

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In some alternate universe, where I took a different path away from evangelicalism, some version of me is connecting the dots between not wearing a mask in the US during the pandemic, and the Christian teaching about "don't cause others to stumble."

This earnest, innocent version of me, who believes in loving God and loving your neighbor, who believes that if I take the things that I was taught in church, which I believed with all my heart and built my life on, and bring them and put them in front of Christians' faces, then it will mean something, she is writing things like this:

I was taught that, as a girl, I had to be careful about what I wore, so I didn't "cause a brother to stumble." Meaning, a boy might have a sinful thought about sexiness, and of course since all Christians are supposed to love others and put others before ourselves, I should do what I can to prevent that sinful thought from happening. That's what it means for a Christian girl to show love to Christian boys.

They said the same thing about alcohol. They said it's not a sin to drink a little bit, but it's a sin to get drunk- but regardless, you probably shouldn't let other people see you drinking, because what if it tempts them to drink too much? What if it's someone who gets drunk too much, but then they see you drinking, and they think that means their drunkenness is totally fine and not sinful?

So now here we are, in a pandemic. In the United States, many places are not requiring masks any more. But you should wear a mask in public anyway, because what if someone sees you without a mask and thinks you're doing it because you don't care about vulnerable people- people with health conditions that make covid particularly deadly to them, or children who are too little to be vaccinated? Or what if someone sees you without a mask, and it encourages them in their own sin of not caring for vulnerable people?

Regardless of your actual reasons for not wearing a mask, someone who sees you might "stumble" by thinking you are committing the sin of not loving your neighbor, and it will encourage them to also commit that sin.

The logic is sound. If girls have to "cover up" for boys because that's just basic Christian love that of course all Christians should show to each other, and has nothing to do with misogyny... then yes, in the exact same way, all Christians should wear a mask in public so others don't "stumble" into the sin of thinking it's okay to not care about if people with "underlying health conditions" live or die.

In this universe, the one we actually live in, I am not writing that post. Because, how should I put this... It was all fake.

All that logic they laid out, when they explained the importance of modesty. About how boys have this problem, and of course if someone has a problem, the rest of us should care about them and try to help them. About how girls weren't allowed to just wear what we want; we have to be thinking about men first. Because all Christians should care for others first, and put your own preferences last. This is just what it means for Christians to care about each other, and there is nothing sexist about it. They said.

Yeah that was bullshit, it turns out.

But alternate-universe-Perfect-Number still thinks that's the logic behind Christian modesty teaching. She thinks it's simply about doing something that someone might interpret in a way that encourages them to think sinful thoughts. She thinks that's actually what Christians believe- because that is truly what she believed when she was evangelical. And so she thinks they will be convinced about the "wearing masks" thing when she explains how it follows the same "causing to stumble" logic.

She thinks she's making a really good point.

No, it was all fake. When did I realize it was all fake? I know for a lot of us American ex-evangelicals, it was during the 2016 election. Maybe that's the case for me too, or maybe it was earlier. We saw our Christian friends, our role models, supporting a man who basically matched every description I've seen Christians give of what "the antichrist" will be like. (That's why I call him "the orange antichrist.") We saw them choosing blatant racism over helping immigrants- he is just nakedly racist, more blatant than anything I'd ever seen from a presidential candidate, meanwhile the bible is clear, from beginning to end, over and over and over, it says you need to help immigrants. He has had affairs, he has been married multiple times, he bragged about sexually assaulting women, and many many women came forward and accused him of sexual assault- and yet he has the support of the people who call themselves the "family values" party, who claim they can't let queer people have rights because it's a threat to "the family" and "how will we explain this to the children?" It left us ex-evangelicals asking how we were supposed to explain the orange antichrist to our children. And on top of that, he can't name a single bible verse when asked- it's obvious he's just using evangelicals because it gets him political power, not because he actually believes it.

I remember seeing a tweet, some time around December 2016, in response to some conservatives talking about the "war on Christmas"... it went something like this: "Really? We're still doing this 'war on Christmas' stuff? Don't you know that we all see it was fake now?"

It was all fake. All that stuff about loving your neighbor. All that stuff about following what the bible says even if it's hard. All the stuff that I took to heart and I thought my Christian role models did too.

So let me tell you what modesty and "causing to stumble" was actually about. It goes like this: There are 2 types of women in this world. On the one side, you have good, modest Christian women, who follow the rules about not dressing sexy, and therefore these are the women who deserve to be respected. These are the women that men should protect. And on the other side, you have sluts. They are bad and sinful because they dress in a "revealing" or "provocative" way, and therefore we are right to judge them. They don't deserve respect. They put their body out there like that, of course they are giving up the right to consent about what sexual things are done to them.

Christian "modesty" teaching is all about this: You need to be one of the good girls, not a slut.

That's it. Really, if you frame it that way, it makes a lot more sense.

Back when I was in college, I spent so long asking questions, trying to unravel what "modesty" was and what it meant for me as a woman. I truly believed it was about "helping the guys" and that of course all Christians have an equal responsibility to give up what they want in order to help others. I believed it wasn't sexist at all, it was just an unfortunate fact that men were so weak in terms of lust, and they needed women to do so much to help them.

But there was always one part that didn't make sense: If, say, I should wear a long dress because that's "more modest" than a short dress, then wouldn't it be even better if I wore an even longer and baggier dress that covered even more? Sure, the nice ladies at church told me that the long dress is fine, but "The Modesty Survey" (a survey for Christian boys about what does or does not "cause them to stumble") says some small percentage of guys is still going to lust even when I wear the "modest" long dress.

If it's really about "helping the guys" and I need to "put others first", then where does it end? Wouldn't it be even better to wear something big and ugly and completely unattractive? Wouldn't it be even better to wear something not feminine at all? If you take it to its logical conclusion, girls shouldn't go out in public at all, because no matter what you wear, some guy is going to have a sexual thought about you, there's nothing you can do about it.

(Or, actually, if you take it to it's logical conclusion, wouldn't the most "modest" women be the ones who dress in drag...?)

No matter what I wear, no matter what I do, some percentage of guys is going to have sexual thoughts about me. And the nice church ladies taught me that we have to "put others first" which means that preventing boys from having sexual thoughts is more important than ANYTHING I want.

So, I asked them, am I allowed to be beautiful? Why not dress even worse? If outfit A is more "modest" than outfit B, but outfit C is EVEN MORE MODEST, than why is it apparently okay to wear outfit A?

I asked, over and over, because I really believed it. I really believed in "helping the guys" and "putting others first", but something was wrong. Something was wrong, because the logical conclusion was that I shouldn't be beautiful or feminine, and surely that couldn't be right. Surely I was missing some other bit of logic. So I asked over and over to try to figure it out.

Well. Let's look at it a different way. If it's actually about "there are 2 types of women: good girls and sluts, Madonna/whore", then look, it makes so much more sense! All the times that I asked these questions, and the nice church ladies said, "But you don't need to worry about it! The way you dress is fine!" (And I said, "But WHY is it fine???? Wouldn't it be more modest and therefore better if I dressed less feminine?") See, it makes so much more sense if they are thinking of "modesty" in terms of "you need to look like a 'good girl' not like a 'whore'" rather than "you need to be really concerned about the possibility that any boy anywhere might have a sinful thought about your body, those poor boys, they need our help so bad."

It wasn't about "loving your neighbor"; it never was. It was about "it's okay to disrespect women who don't follow our rules- so make sure you're not one of them."

It was all fake.

(Oh, and if you're thinking, "hey, it wasn't all fake- it actually is true that boys have sexual thoughts when they see immodest women" well guess what, the part they taught the boys was all fake too. Yeah, the idea that having sexual thoughts is bad and means you are "sexually broken" and incapable of respecting women- fake fake fake.)

So then alternate-universe-Perfect-Number shows up with her hot take about "not wearing a mask could cause someone to stumble because they will think you don't care if people die of covid", and... I mean, it's incomprehensible, because those nice Christians who taught her about modesty never actually believed that.

She thinks people are going to be moved by a argument about "helping others" and "the bible says 'put others first', so that means you HAVE TO", because she was moved by them, back when she was a teenager. And she thought the adults in her church really believed that. But it was all fake.

It was- and I'm going to be brutally honest here- it was about preserving existing hierarchies. Yeah, sure in church they taught us about loving your neighbor and all those virtuous things. About "the last shall be first, and the first shall be last." But when it came down to the things Christians really cared about, really fought for- the things they start culture wars over- no, it was about preserving the existing hierarchies in society.

So I'm not gonna waste my time writing that post.

---

Related:

Modesty is Causing Women to Stumble (yeah maybe when I wrote this post in 2015, I was alternate-universe-Perfect-Number. It has that exact "they have to listen to me because I am talking about the same biblical principles they said were so important" naive attitude I've described here.)

The Story of Me and Modesty

The Male Equivalent to Modesty

The First Time I Heard About "Locker Room Talk" Was When the Church Taught Me About Modesty

Also this post by Libby Anne: Do Face Masks Violate Evangelical Anti-Modesty Standards for Men?

And the "it was all fake" idea reminds me of this 2012 post by Libby Anne: How I Lost Faith in the “Pro-Life” Movement

Thursday, May 26, 2022

Lockdown Diaries: We Are Allowed Out! (a little bit)

A pass that allows you to go out (with restrictions on when, how long, etc). Source: WeChat.

Posts about the covid outbreak in Shanghai, China:

Complete list is here: Index of Posts About the March 2022 Shanghai Covid Outbreak

---

Here's the updated timeline:

March 16-21: First lockdown. 6 days.

March 23-now: Second lockdown. 65 days and counting.

Nucleic acid tests (conducted by baymax, ie, the workers in white hazmat suits): 32 times (March 16, 17, 19, 20, 23, 26, 28, 30, April 4, 6, 9, 14, 17, 19, 20, 21, 24, 26, 27, 29, May 2, 4, 6, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26)

Antigen self-tests: 30 times (April 2, 3, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13 [twice], 15, 16, 22, 23, 25, 28 [twice], 30, May 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 21, 23, 25)

(The above info is specific to our apartment complex. Other apartment complexes in Shanghai will have a similar situation but not exactly the same.)

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We are allowed to go out (kinda)

Exciting news- Today we got our passes that allow 1 person per household to go out of the apartment complex, twice between now and May 31, for 2 hours each time.

Hooray!

I mean, what we actually want is for lockdown to end. But okay, sure. I guess 1 time I will go out, and 1 time my husband will go out.

Here's an issue, though: All the stores require proof of a negative nucleic acid test within the past 48 hours. Now, the baymaxes have been doing nucleic acid testing on us every 2 days, so in theory we would always have a valid negative result- but you also have to take into account the time it takes for the actual lab work. Normally the result shows up on the app something like 7-12 hours after you're tested- and the validity is counted from when you're tested, not when the result comes out.

So, for example, right now it's the evening of May 26. We were tested this morning (nucleic acid test) but my result is not available yet. So on the "health code" app, it shows as having a negative result within the past 3 days (so, that would be the one from May 24).

So, in practical terms, it seems like we can't actually go out on a day when we do nucleic acid testing, because it will be over 48 hours since the previous test, and the test result from that day won't be available yet.

This means I can go out tomorrow (May 27) no problem, but not May 28. (Or maybe you can go out on May 28 but you'll run into problems when you try to enter stores?) Hmm, okay.

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Links:

Shanghai Daily

This is a very good video series:

Away From Home: Departure (May 24) About people who are trying to get to the train station and get out of Shanghai.

Away From Home: Sheltered (May 24) About a pet shelter for pets whose owners are in quarantine.

Away From Home: 2901 (May 24) Interviews with a women working as a volunteer in her apartment complex during the lockdown.

Away From Home: Stranded (May 20) Truck drivers from other cities, who came to Shanghai and got stuck, living in their trucks for weeks.

Away From Home: Shanghai's lifeline (May 19) A team of medics in an ambulance, working during lockdown. [content note: one of the patients dies]

Sixth Tone

Shanghai Reopening Diary (May 26, will continue to be updated)

Train to Chengdu: Two Students Reflect on Leaving Shanghai (May 25)

With Bittersweet Memories, Students Leave Shanghai in Droves (May 24)

35 Days and Counting: Living Inside a Shanghai Factory (May 24)

Chinese Cities Raise Testing Frequency to Catch COVID Cases Early (May 23)

SHINE

Mission completed: 691 medics return to east China's Anhui from Shanghai (May 24)

Make your detailed travel arrangements before arrival at train stations (May 21)

This tweet:

On the 1st day of Shanghai resuming some subways, state media reporters interviewed a grandma. When she was saying “since I was born, I have never suffered anything like this, being locked home and couldn’t leave. It’s a big joke,” the reporters pointed mic/cam to somewhere else. pic.twitter.com/6ekWogasOl
— Yong Xiong (@yongxiong2008) May 22, 2022

(I've seen this video shared a lot on WeChat. Everyone is laughing at it.)

Reuters

China's international schools hit by exodus of teachers dejected by COVID curbs (May 20)

The Guardian

Airbnb to close in China amid repeated Covid lockdowns (May 24)

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Next post: Lockdown Diaries: I Went Out!

Wednesday, May 25, 2022

Blogaround

Image text: "For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open. Luke 8:17" Image source.

1. This Is the Southern Baptist Apocalypse (posted May 22) "For years, leaders in the Executive Committee said a database—to prevent sexual predators from quietly moving from one church to another, to a new set of victims—had been thoroughly investigated and found to be legally impossible, given Baptist church autonomy. My mouth fell open when I read documented proof in the report that these very people not only knew how to have a database, they already had one."

This is the kind of thing that makes me want to believe in hell.

Also, when church leaders say that you shouldn't speak up about abuse because the abusers are doing great things for God / spreading the gospel / etc, and you wouldn't want to make them look bad and screw up God's mission, that's called taking the Lord's name in vain.

2. An Anonymous TV Writer Offers An Inside Look At Why Special Effects Seem So Bad Right Now (posted May 18)

3. Is Studying Overseas Losing Its Allure for Chinese Students? (posted May 19) "Some Chinese students have spent years preparing to apply for international universities. Two years into a global pandemic, they’re asking if it’s still worth it."

4. Christianity Today’s Sexual Misconduct Problem and the Complications with Forgiving Institutions (posted May 10)

5. Student Loan Forgiveness vs the Parable of the Vineyard (posted May 12)

6. Phistomefel's Wall (posted January) A 1-hour-and-21-minute sudoku video. I like this one because in the middle, Simon is genuinely scared he's not going to be able to solve it- I hadn't seen that in his videos before. He gets it in the end. (spoilers?)

7. How identical twins can cause serious problems for ensoulment (posted May 18) "Most identical twins come about when the fertilized egg splits at the two-cell stage. Mirror twins (one will be right-handed, the other left, and so on) are formed when the split happens around day 5 or so. If the split happens after day 10, conjoined twins will form. This can even happen at day 13 or 14."

8. This tweet:

Purity culture led me to believe it would be a lot easier to seduce men than it actually is. 😭😂
— Carissa Has Hope? (@exfundiediary) May 19, 2022

Also this reply

Tbh was really offended when I realized Devlin isn’t constantly struggling with how hot I am.
— Kelso Is Existing (@KelseyRyan77) May 19, 2022

And this reply

Its almost like the "seduction" language is being used to excuse predation, but that can't be it. 🤔
— Jordon von helf (@Jordonvonhelf) May 20, 2022

These tweets are prompting me to wonder if the purity teaching about "if you dress immodest, boys will all be breaking their necks looking at you, falling all over themselves trying to have sex with you"... they were teaching that not because it was true (it's NOT true- now that I'm an adult, I know that men are better than that), but because they wanted to provide cover for men who rape and abuse women and girls. They wanted to allow those men to blame it on the girl and get away with it.

Yeah... I can't believe it's taken me this long to think of this, but, here's an idea: What if all those things they warned us about in purity culture had nothing to do with "respecting yourself" and "protecting women" and "loving your husband", and actually were just about controlling women and girls?

I saw the SBC report and I'm mad. All this time that I've blogged about the problems of purity culture, I really thought it was well-intentioned, though it's based on a foundation of beliefs that will ALWAYS be harmful. Many other bloggers have said "it's because they hate women" but I never did.

But what if... what if the mistreatment of women and girls isn't because "well this is the system we were given, and we are trying to work within that system- we haven't considered the possibility of questioning it" (which was where I was, when I followed the purity rules)... but... someone really designed the system that way, on purpose, to benefit men.

Can't believe it's taken me this long to think of this. I've been blogging about the evils of purity culture for 10 years. I guess I always saw it as "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." Never thought to ask questions like, who actually created these rules, and what was their motivation, and what if it actually had nothing to do with helping Christians have good marriages? What actual flesh-and-blood men created these rules, and what does it say about their own personal issues, and sinful refusal to view women as human, and weird sexual hangups?

Instead, I've always engaged with the ideas themselves, and written about "here's why this is incorrect, here is why it's harmful, here is my own personal experience with why this is a bad thing to believe."

But now... I saw the SBC report, and I'm mad.

9. My 2022 Reader Survey is still open (until June 30, 2022). If you haven't taken it yet, go ahead and take it. Thanks!

Monday, May 23, 2022

10 Years

A cat wearing a bow tie and glasses, looking at a computer. Image source.

Heyyyy big announcement: This blog is now 10 years old. Can you believe that- I have been writing about why the world is weird (among other things) for 10 years.

My first post was on April 28, 2012, and reading it now, I'm like "it's so cute." 2012-Perfect-Number just wanted to ask "questions about why culture is the way it is." This blog has developed way farther than I imagined; now it's a platform for my opinions about a huge range of things, feminism, Christianity, China, asexuality, being an immigrant, marriage, all kinds of things. And my writing style has changed and developed a lot.

Back in 2012, did I think I'd be in China 10 years later? Actually yes, I was all into radical Christian missions and thought it was no big deal to give up my whole connection to my own culture, and I wanted to live in China "forever." (Not the case anymore.) Did I think I'd be writing this 10-year anniversary post while stuck in a lockdown due to a global pandemic/ the Chinese government's response to a global pandemic? ... no.

I have many more things planned for this blog ^_^ Won't go into specifics yet, because who knows what my actual posting timeline will be. (Though I can tell you in the near future, we'll have more posts about the Shanghai lockdown... so there's that.)

Anywayyyyy I like doing reader surveys once a year- it's really great to get feedback and comments from readers. Here's the link for the 2022 reader survey:

2022 Reader Survey

(survey will be open until June 30, 2022)

And I have a Patreon! Thank you so much to those of you who support me on Patreon. It really means a lot to me. If you like my blog, consider becoming a patron. ^_^

Perfect Number's Patreon

And again, thank you tell all my readers, especially those of you who leave nice comments or reply to my tweets. I'm really glad that blogging has allowed me to meet people and have these kinds of conversations.

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Follow-up post: 2022 Reader Survey Wrap-Up

Saturday, May 21, 2022

Lockdown Diaries: Slowly Getting Better (maybe)

Quasimodo singing "Out There," from the movie "Hunchback of Notre Dame." Image source.

Posts about the covid outbreak in Shanghai, China:

Complete list is here: Index of Posts About the March 2022 Shanghai Covid Outbreak

---

Here's the updated timeline:

March 16-21: First lockdown. 6 days.

March 23-now: Second lockdown. 60 days and counting.

Nucleic acid tests (conducted by baymax, ie, the workers in white hazmat suits): 29 times (March 16, 17, 19, 20, 23, 26, 28, 30, April 4, 6, 9, 14, 17, 19, 20, 21, 24, 26, 27, 29, May 2, 4, 6, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20)

Antigen self-tests: 28 times (April 2, 3, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13 [twice], 15, 16, 22, 23, 25, 28 [twice], 30, May 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 21)

(The above info is specific to our apartment complex. Other apartment complexes in Shanghai will have a similar situation but not exactly the same.)

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Apparently Shanghai is slowly reopening

So recently I've been seeing news articles about how factories in Shanghai are starting up again, and subways and bus lines are going to be starting up again, and things like that.

That's nice, I guess? I mean, I see these things in the news, but there doesn't seem to be any connection to my actual life- I'm in lockdown. I haven't been allowed to go anywhere at all for 2 months, and there's no signs at all of that changing. (Except for one sign- 2 people from our building were allowed to go shopping- I'll talk about that later in the post.)

So... okay... they're saying we're on track to get "back to normal" in June, but who knows.

An example of a green health code, showing the location where this person has just registered (a park), and the 48-hour negative covid test result. Source: WeChat.

Also, the Shanghai government has rolled out this new "location code" (场所码) system. Do you remember the "health code" app I talked about in my March 25 post? Well this "location code" is a new addition to that app. It will work like this: When you are at some public location, like a mall or subway station, there will be a QR code posted there, and you have to scan it (in the health code app 随申办). In this way, every location will have a record of who was there and when- and will make sure that everyone has a green health code, otherwise they won't be allowed to enter.

After scanning the location code, the name of the location will be displayed under your green QR code. (see image above) I guess this it's easy to check if people scanned it or not.

And another new thing in the health code app: It now also displays info about when your most recent nucleic acid test was. On the same screen as your green QR code, so it's easy to show to the security guard when you enter the mall or whatever. It might say "48小时内核酸检测结果【阴性】" ("Nucleic acid test result within 48 hours [Negative]" - as in the above image), or 24 hours, or some number of days, or whatever the case may be. Apparently public places and public transportation are going to start requiring everyone to show they have a negative nucleic acid test within the past 48 hours. And also, the city of Shanghai says they are setting up enough nucleic acid test stations that, no matter where you are in the city, it will just take 15 minutes for you to go and get tested.

So... yes, my green health code now also displays the information about my most recent nucleic acid test. I haven't tried scanning any of these "location codes" yet, because look at me, I'm in lockdown, of course I am not going anywhere.

And yeah maybe we should have concerns about big data and tracking. I'm too exhausted to be concerned about that right now, though...

---

Hongqiao Train Station

During the lockdown, there have been very very few trains available for people who want to leave Shanghai. But now, since we're on our way to "back to normal" or whatever, they've started adding more trains to the schedule, and I've seen news about what it's like for people trying to make their way to Hongqiao train station.

Like, imagine if you were just like "hey I'll go to Shanghai for a few days" back in March, and then you get stuck here for months. That happened to lots of people, and they've been trying to get out, and it's good that now there are more train tickets available for them.

Also, for people who leave Shanghai and go to other cities in China, they are required to do a 2-week quarantine when they arrive at their destination. And often there is other red tape to deal with, like you need to get your apartment management to agree to let you leave, and you need to get the apartment management at your destination to agree to receive you. (I've heard that when people leave wherever they've been locked down, the apartment management often requires them to sign something saying they won't come back during the lockdown.)

(Okay I've been using the term "apartment management" in all my posts about lockdown- what I mean is 居委会, which is typically translated to English as "neighborhood committee." I have been translating it as "apartment management" because I felt like that was easier to understand- but I do feel that something gets lost in translation because the concept itself is a Chinese thing that other countries don't have. What I'm talking about here, the 居委会, is the smallest unit of local government. It's the little local government in charge of one single apartment complex.)

Some links about what it's like getting to the train station and leaving Shanghai:

Leaving Shanghai, At Last (May 19)

Giving Rides to People on Their Way out of Locked-Down Shanghai (May 18)

Police help people without accommodations at railway station (May 20) This is from SHINE, so they spin it to try to convince the reader that everything is fine, but anyway, it does show the reality that people arriving at Hongqiao station are sleeping on the streets.

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Some of our neighbors went shopping

In my May 17 post, I said that it was announced in our apartment group chat that 2 people from our building would be allowed to go out for 3 hours on May 18, and another 2 people would be allowed to go on May 20.

So, some of our neighbors signed up, got the passes from the apartment management to allow them to leave, and did a rapid antigen test the day of. The rest of us in the group chat made a big list of things we were hoping they could buy for us at the grocery store. Also, everyone in the chat was like "Be careful!" and "Spray everything with disinfectant!" and "Wear gloves!"

So, they got to go see the outside world, good for them.

Still no word on when, like, *everyone* will be allowed to leave. We have been a "precautionary area" for a LONG time, but we are still all stuck here.

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Vaccines

Good news, it was announced in our apartment group chat that tomorrow there will be medical staff coming to our apartment complex to vaccinate people. Tomorrow, the vaccines will only be for people over 60, but on some other date, probably soon, they will allow younger people to get them too.

The Shanghai government was publishing news articles about "It's really really important for elderly people to get vaccinated!!!!!!!" like, weeks ago (see my April 22 and May 3 posts), and now this is the first time I'm actually seeing it happen on the ground. I think maybe they started the vaccine push in some of the areas of Shanghai farther away from the city center, which were closer to having 0 covid cases. Now it's finally coming to us.

Also, they're saying that after you get vaccinated, for the next 24 hours you shouldn't do a nucleic acid test. I think this is because the vaccine could cause a false positive. (idk if that's actually true? The Chinese vaccines use the inactivated virus.)

To be clear, this is NOT the first time China is rolling out covid vaccines. Oh goodness, no, nothing like that. I got my first Sinopharm dose a year ago. Most Chinese people got vaccinated last year, and then 6 months later we were all encouraged to get a booster. But the vaccination rate for older people is still too low, and during this outbreak, most of the people who died of covid were older and unvaccinated, so it's now urgent to get vaccinated, in a way that's completely different from the initial vaccine rollout. There was never any real danger before- we had 0 covid cases in Shanghai almost every day. But now it's like, wow, you actually *can* get covid. It's never been like that in Shanghai before.

Hooray, vaccines!

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Ongoing things

I realized that there are a lot of things that have been happening frequently during lockdown, which I've mentioned in my blog posts but I haven't given you a clear picture of which things are still happening and which ones have stopped. So let's give an update on these:

Mass testing. Well yes, in every blog post I have put an update at the beginning, about which days we did nucleic acid tests (performed by a team of doctors who come to our complex) and which days we did self-testing. At this point, we basically do nucleic acid testing every 2 days, and self tests on the other days. (There has not been a positive case in our complex for several weeks now.)
Food deliveries. There are a few restaurants and grocery stores that are open, that you can order things from on the delivery apps. Very very few. So we are still getting almost all our food from group buying. (Most of this group buying is just organized by neighbors who take it upon themselves to start a group buy- but also some is organized by our apartment management.) We can get plenty of food from group buying- but the problem is you never know when exactly it will be delivered, and you don't have many choices. (We're lucky we live in a complex with good group-buying options, and our apartment management is allowing it. We have seen lots of posts on WeChat about people not being allowed to do group buys, because their apartment management is being jerks about it.)
Package deliveries. Yes, people are receiving packages. But still, a lot of shipping companies aren't able to deliver to Shanghai at all. So maybe like, 10% of things you buy online will actually come. (Okay I'm a math person so I have to clarify, obviously if we wanted to be really accurate, we would have to define 10% of *what* and arriving within *what timeframe*. I am not trying to be accurate, I am trying to help you understand what I mean by saying we always see packages being delivered, and yet most things you order online don't come forever and ever. Just imagine it like, you buy something on a shopping app, and there's a 10% chance you get it. The reality is more complicated than that- like, you'll have better luck on Jingdong than Taobao- but more or less that's what's happening.)
Free food from the government. We are still getting free food every few days. Sometimes it's a large bag of rice, sometimes a bottle of cooking oil, sometimes some bread, and a few days ago we got a really really nice box of fresh vegetables. We have SO MANY bags of rice and bottles of oil, you guys. Overall, I'm happy with the free things they've given us. This is organized by the subdistrict-level local government, so different places in Shanghai are getting different things. Some places are getting much better free food than others.
Number of covid cases. It's been going down. Now we have less than a thousand new cases in Shanghai every day. And every day, they also tell us how many cases of "community transmission" there were- sometimes it's 0, sometimes maybe 1-5. I don't really pay much attention to the exact definition of "community transmission" (it's something like, number of new covid cases among the population which is not classified as being in "locked down areas") because I don't believe it has much relation to when we can actually get out of lockdown.
Conditions at makeshift hospitals. Good news: Because the number of covid cases has gone down, a lot of the makeshift hospitals have now closed. I haven't seen any WeChat posts recently about people being sent to really terrible locations. Really, the problem was caused by lack of resources, and now that they've had time to solve the problems, and also fewer covid patients, it's not as bad anymore.
Censoring. Also good news, recently it seems like the censoring has calmed down. A few weeks ago, there were many times I would click on a link or video shared on WeChat, and then just see "This content is not available" because it had been censored. That hasn't happened to me recently, so it seems like there must be fewer terrible things happening, that the government is trying to cover up. (Or, they've gotten better at covering them up? Uh...)
Neighbors helping each other. Yes, we continue to help out our neighbors. If there's something you need, but can't buy it anywhere, you can ask in the group chat to see if anyone has it. Also I have seen posts on WeChat about hair stylists doing haircuts for their neighbors.

Anyway, that's the situation here. I wonder if I'll be allowed to go out any time soon...

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Links

Sixth Tone

COVID Cubism (May 18) Artwork and other things that people in China have made out of the ABSURD number of rapid antigen tests we're required to do.

Leaving Locked-Down Shanghai Is Hard. Returning Is Harder. (May 18)

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Next post: Lockdown Diaries: We Are Allowed Out! (a little bit)

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Tuesday, May 31, 2022

Lockdown Diaries: Shanghai Lockdown Ends June 1!

Sunday, May 29, 2022

Lockdown Diaries: I Went Out!

Friday, May 27, 2022

In Some Alternate Universe, I'm Writing a Post About Masks and "Causing to Stumble"

Thursday, May 26, 2022

Lockdown Diaries: We Are Allowed Out! (a little bit)

Wednesday, May 25, 2022

Blogaround

Monday, May 23, 2022

10 Years

Saturday, May 21, 2022

Lockdown Diaries: Slowly Getting Better (maybe)

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