Ahh, yes. The gleaming utopian city of Shanghai. A city of no crime, massive wealth and prosperity for all.
Just... one thing. We can only guarantee this for the slight cost of your freedoms. trust me, it's worth it. Pay attention, stupid 'free' Americans with your guns and drugs.
Oh, errr... ahem... let's just keep this one hush hush, shall we? Nobody wants to see such realities.
The point I'm making here is that China is a country with vast and immeasurable inequalities which the party in control has no interest in fixing beyond what it takes to look good on the global stage.
Well, that has always been the plan. It's always been a somewhat failing plan as 'The West' (Everyone else) isn't as stupid as they had hoped.
But they still do a fantastic job of painting themselves in a positive light enough so that article after article gets published praising the CCP for their accomplishments; ending poverty, efficient defeat of COVID-19, strong leadership.
Above all, Shanghai was their shining star. A poster child that represents all that is good about China. As a result, Shanghai always had a kind of special status. It was somewhat exceptional with its comparatively more relaxed enforcement of dictatorial powers, a financial paradise, a perfect home for foreigners like me. Shanghai, I have always said, isn't really 'China'. It's a mix of its previous international inhabitants: British, French, even Jewish culture lives here.
The problem is, with such a vibrant, comparatively free, highly educated and middle-class population of 25,000,000 people, you get the nasty side effect of people both willing and capable of voicing their frustration, fear and anger when shit hits the fan. So it was always in the CCP's best interest to make sure nothing of the sort ever happened here.
Unfortunately, the shit has indeed hit the fan, and all those little secrets of incompetence, corruption, inequality, brutality and oppression are suddenly highlighted in the blood of its victims.
So today I begin a multi-part report into what life has been and continues to be like in this eternal city of concrete and dust,
How it all began
As a very short history, we were one of the first places after Wuhan to get struck back in 2019. Everybody took it very seriously without any conspiracies and fights against freedom. With more freedoms revoked, we looked out at the rest of the world and seeing how horrible the rules were in comparison, and it was the first and only time I thought to myself that I was more free than the free world right now.
And for years.
Even as other parts of China went into various forms of brutal, dystopian lockdowns, Shanghai had enough management skills to keep it at bay and retain our basic freedoms as a population. We held onto this luxury for years.
That was until Mr Omicron came along recently. I forget when exactly as time has stopped in the last few weeks/decades.
Now, the vast, vast majority of cases are asymptomatic. Of the symptomatic, almost all of them were basically mild colds in a population where supposedly almost everyone was fully vaccinated.
Today for example, there are 253,000 positive cases. Of those, 244,000 were totally asymptomatic.
Well, that escalated quickly
When we started seeing numbers like '30 confirmed cases', targeted lockdowns were already taking place. Any building with a positive case got locked up with the people inside. This included homes, schools, malls, even Karaoke rooms. For anywhere up to 14 days.
This was the traditional approach Shanghai managed to keep things under control with.
Well, then we started seeing numbers like '105' and '158'confirmed cases. Well now we're in big trouble. Residential compounds were starting to get locked up.
We were soon told to start working from home by the government, and I started to notice that numerous colleagues, despite living all across the city, were all being locked in their compounds.
We started seeing data from each district; Xuhui -> 320 cases, Minhang --> 483 cases. My district, right in the heart of the city, was doing comparatively well, but my girlfriend and I were starting to get nervous. We had not yet chosen a place to move in together, so we were still living 15 minutes walk apart.
Should we get locked down without warning, we might not see each other for 7 or even 14 days.
Spoiler alert: that exact situation happened, as her building was caught with a positive case downstairs.
Well. I haven't seen my girlfriend @porkjelly ever since. During her time in a compound lockdown, the government decided to also do its 2-part city-wide lockdown, with the East side and then the West side 5 days later.
After they realised that 4-5 days wasn't enough for a virus to magically disappear, they just kept us in lockdown indefinitely, and that's how it's been ever since. I've been trapped in my home, she has been trapped in hers, and 25 million other people are, too.
As a couple, we're doing fine. We have calls often, play games or watch shows through the phone, synced to each other so we can do commentary. It's kinda nice in its own hellish way.
Everything outside of that, however, is a whole different kettle of fish.
At least it would be if we had access to fish.
You see, this is where I bring back my point about the CCP's desperate need to look good, This lockdown actually has very, very little to do with the virus, nor the safety of the people. It's about maintaining a vision of success on the world stage.
Xi JinPing created the infamous 'zero tolerance' policy, in which every single tiny little virus MUST be eradicated, and he will not settle for anything less.
This was of course before Omicron, and so it seemed, though stupid, at least somehow workable in a country very much designed for this kind of oppression. But Omicron is a different beast, and the concept of zero covid is, at best, totally laughable.
But like all politicians in China, Xi can not, must not EVER be wrong. This is even more important with two kinds of 'elections' coming up for him, in a couple of months and another early 2023 (No, the public don't get a vote). If Xi was to backtrack on Zero-Covid policy, it would be a screaming message that he was wrong.
If he was wrong, then he is weak. And all those in-fighting factions within the party will gain power to overthrow him. Therefore, it's imperative that Zero Covid is a monumental success.
How can one achieve such an impossible goal? Why, take away the people's food and water supplies!
I'm not joking even slightly. Here's how it played out:
At first, shopping was of course halted. One could only order deliveries online.
Then online shopping was rendered impossible as 25 million people were all trying to use the apps simultanously.
Then the government decided this wasn't good enough. Deliveries were still happening, and MAYBE the drivers were spreading the virus. So they shut down delivery men, reducing the workforce to 11,000. Remember, the city has 25 million.
Then, as I abruptly found out when trying to collect food from my landlord, they decided to prohibit people from collecting any deliveries, even if they had one. I watched two foreigners in my community go out to get theirs, only go go home again empty handed.
They had volunteers in vax suits who would personally bring your deliveries to your door, as the delivery men dropped things off 10 minutes down the road. Well, to this day I've never had that.
I started to realise my dangerously low supply of water. I had 6 litres left. You can't use the tap water here. It's just not safe to drink, boiled or not.
I had no means of getting any water delivered to me. Of the few services who hadn't been forcefully shut down by the government, they were out of stock perpetually. And I really mean that.
All-too-common a reply...
Like everyone else, I was waking up at 5am, opening the apps waiting for the 6am opening time, started rapid fire pressing the payment buttons, only to find I had failed and my products had sold out. There was a second window of opportunity at 8:30am, but with the crashing apps slowing me down, more failure. Day, after day, after day, as I started rationing my food and water supplies more and more.
Finally I had a revelation: there was a water machine outside. It cost about 10p for 5 litres. The problem is, it was slightly out of arms reach beyond the gate which I was now banned from passing through.
This one time, I asked the guard and he let me QUICKLY get water and come back. I thought I was set! Unfortunately the lockdown has just continued on, and on, and on. And I am now once again short on water.
I currently have two large metal bowls outside in the first rainstorm in over 2 weeks, collecting water I can at least give to my cats or maybe cook with.
Because the government, of course, decided the current restrictions were not good enough. So they not only restricted me from going out of the community gate, but they prevented me from getting anywhere near it. Hell, I couldn't get beyond taking out my trash anymore and really I'm not even meant to be outside at all
So in summary:
- A very mild cold which 99.9% of people will either not feel it at all or maybe get a runny nose has struck Shanghai.
- In response, the government has essentially banned us all from eating, drinking and going outside
- I am currently rationing my last slivers of bread, rice and pasta, eating with no condiments or sauces or butter, expired soy sauce, rotten potatoes and browning, shriveling vegetables.
Need I remind you that I live in one of the most populous, modern, expensive, technologically advanced mega-wealthy cities on the planet. And I'm collecting water in metal pans to drink.
There is no war. This isn't Ukraine!
'Ukraine is at war with Russia. In which city are residents starting to have a shortage of supplies? Kyiv, Moscow, Shanghai'
When Civilisation falls, Communities come together
I'll leave this for a slightly more positive part 2 or 3. Though it will only highlight more how shocking this situation truly is - we have to literally use a kind of black market system to illegally acquire rations to survive - it genuinely is so, so heartwarming how amazing everybody is in my community, and others, at how people are helping each other out.
That sounds like a complete nightmare. I cannot imagine it.
It's easy to try out if you want. Give your house key to a stranger, then lock yourself inside your home. The stranger may or may not come and unlock your door at some point in the future, but who knows if/when.
Next, make sure you don't have any access to food or water, toiletries, medicine.
And there you go! see how it goes!
(PS. Don't do this)
While the situation sounds terrible, you have a great sense of humour. You literally made me laugh out loud. Sometimes, I notice bad situations either make us more grim or improve our sense of humour (or both!)
I hope things improve for you soon.
This is painful, If everyone got it , then why the hell, they need to lock down people ? Is it causing causalities ? I heard somewhere that the best way to deal with Covid is to get it - so that our body knows how to fight it. Its even better than vaccine, so if people do not get severe, then best would be to leave everyone with freedom.
That's why it's clear that it's a political game, rather than anything to do with the virus and people's health & safety. Their solution is absolutely worse than the disease, no doubt there...
We are heading towards a time where the pharma companies will drive this political game - a dangerous situation for humanity.
Jesus that sounds like an awful way to live, the fact you have the means to survive but you are being denied them is silly.
Hope part 2 and 3 have good news on that front
There is SOME positivity yep, but certainly not from any government program. It's all on the people now
Thank you for his first hand report... but omg.. how terrible!! The whole world has to see what's going on here so we can see that the direction China is on currently is completely in error (not like the "west" is perfect, but clearly this is absolutely wrong)
@tipu curate
That's one of the silver linings really, Shanghai is so full of people with much more access to the wider internet than the usual oppressed places around the country. There's about 150 million people around the country under similarly harsh conditions - likely worse in many - which we simply don't hear about. But it's a lot harder for the CCP to hide Shanghai ;)
great to hear! I find it almost impossible to find out how the population at large thinks about these issues
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Such a terrible experience to have. I hope that things ease off for you guys soon.
As mr Xi is going to die on the hill of Zero Covid, we have a long, long way to go yet!
No one can actually estimate the level an egoistic person will do. Damns it
What the hell?! I knew it was something like that from our discussions on discord, and this is crazy.
How are the ICUs? Are they overwhelmed or in control? Isn't Omicron weak enough so that it is not a big deal to get it. I don't understand the reaction from the government at all... At the end, people will die from COVID... indirectly...
Good luck in any case. If only I could help :/
I'm just getting started...
ICU's, well, I'll get to that too...
I've had a lot of offers for help, even from friends only minutes away from me, and nobody can do anything except those in my immediate compound (even then, it's not easy).
But, we're managing, for now at least...
I will thus have to be patient to read the rest... No problem, I can be patient ;)
organize a violent revolt, its your only chance to survive, yes you may die but youll die anyway.
FIGHT ON YOUR FEET than die on your knees
dont be a slave
[See other comment]
You need guns, weapons, violence or you will die
this is the last lesson from me
you need eos and weapons and guns and revolution or you die
you are being depopulated where only the strong survive
is that not obvious to you?
Violence is your only answer or you will be killed
if chinese dont revolt , china should be invaded, maybe by Russia lol
Holy shit is is terrible, thanks a lot for reporting ! Side question, are you in any risk for posting this ? your girlfriend has her as profile picture and I assume that's you next to her on the chat app screenshot.
this user will be punished now for making this post
China needs a violent revolution or look what happens, starvation depopulation.
They all need to come ot of their homes and revolt, and yes they have to be violent and kill every last "Big White" hazmat police as theyre called, kill all chinese authorities police, bribe the military etc
china is weak and can be bribed into revolution
its either this violent answer or they all die in depopulation
do you have any arguments for that in your comfy western castle with plenty of food? OR do you have any solutions?
Its tiem we start running runs and food na dmoney to China through whatever chinas corrupt weak points are , plenty of places you can get stuff in , look at north korea, look at the border in the south , theres a lot of ways to bribe the chinese PLA to funnel weapons to citizens
theyll do it with EOS
(lol, posted on gf's account by mistake)
Well, there's no need to turn it into a fiction, China can speak for itself without any need for that. So to start; the chances that I'm in trouble, though not zero%, is still very low for three reasons:
1 - I am a foreigner, so I enjoy certain protections simply because they don't want the west paying any attention. We still obviously have to obey the general laws, but we don't get treated like cattle. There are of course extreme, and hugely public rare exceptions for highly political reasons such as the Canadians Vs Meng Wengzhou.
2 - Generally, they are only concerned with things that start to go viral among their population. They will, for example, come around your community with loudspeakers demanding the leader of a group chat on wechat apologize and remove the things they said or face a criminal penalty. That's not to say you can speak freely as long as it doesn't spread, but this is their main focus. The idea of 'going viral' is their primary enemy. The chances of this going viral in the mainstream, and on totally separate, Chinese media, is extremely slim.
3 - Shanghai again, is full of middle-class, well educated folk, and almost all of them are expressing anger, fear and frustration online in this kind of way. Playing with Shanghai is a dangerous game, as everyone has VPN access and most speak pretty good English. That's publicity they can't afford.
As for revolting, well, people in China do revolt every day. There's an estimated 500 protests daily. China spends more money on its police force than it does its military. Controlling its own people is absolute top priority for them. Of those 500 a day, how many do you actually hear about? Perhaps 1 or two in recent news, zero before that? There's a good reason for that.
The entire country has been completely mastered as a police state and I'm sorry to say there is just no getting around that, EOS, corruption or otherwise. I can convince you in detail if needed, but essentially there are millions of workers and the worlds most robust and comprehensive surveillance system ever known to man, all keeping tabs on every individual, from the facial recognition on traffic lights, to the state-controlled mandate of every 'private' company giving total, uninhibited access to people's phones, photos, messages etc. Every single action we take here is tied to our ID, our face, our phones.
Final point, the hazmat-wearing people, for the most part, they're just volunteers. Regular people who feel they need to help out. One of them is my best friend's wife. She receives a lot of abuse from understandably angry people, but they're mostly just local folk in the community. Even though some do turn violent with abuse of power, killing them off is... not something anybody is going to consider.
That does make them bribable, but the entire country is built on a system of bribes, I don't see how this would be any different or make any difference. I'd be interested to see an actual attempt of an action plan, but I could confidently tear it apart, as sad as that is to admit
There's always a small risk, but as a foreigner, it's unlikely. We're always very careful not to discuss on Chinese run programs and media, and I certainly never discuss these things with Chinese people themselves.
I will be deleting this in about a week or so, though!
I see :) thanks !
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Oh my god that's fucking awful!
Was going to share this on Twitter, but don't want to get you in trouble with the Chinese authorities. Should I do it anyway?
Cg
I'm already being a bit risky putting it here, as it's here forever, but not very prone to going viral. But I think unless you have a ton of Chinese nationalist followers on Twitter, it's probably OK =D
Cool, I don't think I have any :)
Good luck man.
Cg
Great to see some info from the ground!
Much more to come! lots of videos and imagery to share
So what's new in the world?
I like to think this is relatively new =)
Just wow. I am appalled at the way things are right now on your end. Stay strong dude.
Thanks! Don't worry we're coming together and working it out
Thank you @mobbs, for your courage in writing this post. I can only imagine what you face, in the way of consequences, if this post was ever connected with you as a person, rather than you as an account on our Hive blockchain.
It has long been my thought, although I have never been (nor is it likely I ever will) to China, that amongst so many people there must be some good ones. Meaning, IMHO, that they have not "bowed the knee" to the tyrannical evil of the authoritarian form of governance under which they must try to live.
Sadly, here in my beloved America, I see far too many indicators of how effectively China is influencing our politics for the worse, i.e. in the direction of becoming more like them. Rather than the opposite ...
I hope you and your loved ones are able to successfully overcome this current challenge to your survival. Ideally, it will "wake up" sufficient numbers of your people to effect meaningful change at the top!
As a foreigner, the main risk I think is once I leave China, if i tried to enter I might get my visa rejected if anybody picks up on them.
That used to be totally fine with me, as I never planned on coming back! But now I'm committed to a relationship, it's a little harder... Just need to be careful I don't go too viral! But honestly I think they have bigger things to worry about right now than me heh.
And yes we've noticed how, bizarrely, the US and EU etc keep justifying China's approach to things and even copying them outright, such as the concept of lockdowns which, as we probably know, had been scientifically broken down for years as an ineffective, useless method of control in this exact scenario. But y'all saw China do it and followed suit anyway. Shame...
Okay, not familiar with your account, so I was not aware of that. Do you have an intro post about your country of origin?
While I cannot speak for the EU (although I suspect it is in the "same boat"), ...
... I have read about the extensive amount of corruption linked to the Chinese here in America.
We need a massive "cleansing" to take place. And the political courage and will to do whatever it takes to see it through to completion, i.e. those found guilty need to be in prison ...
As bad as it is to see the mess Ukraine is in, I believe the Chinese are a far more dangerous adversary than Russia ...
That was an entertaining read. Worried for your well-being and social score writing this while living there unless of course this was all fiction then I commend you for the style of writing.
Thankfully I don't have a social score as I am a foreigner in these lands, but indeed none of this is fiction, just personal experience...
Then good luck to you, hope this post doesn't get you in shit there cos you are writing some not so sunny pictures of the CCP.
OMG I had never seen a meme with Chinese characters before!!! Looks super weird to me...now you've got me thinking about memes that use different alphabets...
Hahaha, its funny cause theyre all the SAME memes as the English ones... they spread like Covid
The whole situation with COVID is crazy and I'm sorry to hear what you are going through. But I think it can be any virus which can last one day, one week, or one month, in the end it's all resumed how the leaders deal with it and what they subdue the population to. It was very hard to have everything under control in Romania which has a population of only 19,012,617 people. I can't imagine how it is in China... Just stay strong. Everything has to come to an end sooner or later.
Indeed. I hear China's losing more money per day now than Putin with his war. So that's surely not something they want to sustain... I can but hope!
I've seen the videos of the people in Shanghai screaming for help at night. What an awful scene to watch, surreal. Scary. I hope they understand that starving millions is worse for their image than omikron. I wish you well and I hope it ends soon. So much crap in the world, unreal.
Their image has certainly been destroyed! nothing left but to double down XD
No one saw COVID-19 coming, but I am confident that we will be able to combat this pandemic. Keep going, bro.
Everyone else already did combat it -__-
Far out dude. I'm not sure how to commiserate without sounding trite. Thank you very much for sharing your story, i've shared this far and wide.
Haha that's all I want, to enjoy the read!
Oww, I've been listening to advchina on YouTube lately and the stories of the quarantine centers,daily testing, animal killing :/ lockdowns etc are insane, I hope you get some food, water and freedom soon. 🙏
Oh yeah nice channel. I can attest to their accuracy. They do get a couple of small details wrong but just passing remarks more than anything. The rest pretty spot on from my experience, at least!
So far I'm doing alright all things considered =D
I'm sitting here in South Africa, just scratching my head at the world. I guess this is why half of the people in the USA are so adamant about freedom, and not giving up freedoms. From where I'm looking, the news channels like CNN push fear porn onto the left about what would happen if everything slides too far to the right. Meanwhile, FOX news pushes fear porn onto the right about what would happen if everything slides too far to the left - and I think that picture is a lot like what you've described in Shanghai.
South Africa is its own story - and it will be interesting to see how things turn out here!
Yeah that's the thing. No matter how ridiculous and radical left and right tend to be, that's really a symptom of their comparative luxury and comfort in the middle of those extremes.
They're dissatisfied and bored because they have the luxury of time and freedom to think and speak about them in the first place. Others such as here are not so fortunate, and people should really appreciate that more!
I've heard pretty awful things still going on in SA, though I'm mostly uninformed compared to where I live, obviously. But it does seem like another place one should be raising awareness about.
Your comment reminds me of a comedian, who was on stage in the USA, but visiting from a poor country... And his punchline was "getting offended is something only privileged people do..." which challenged his audience but I think he was right.
There's no time to get offended when you're too busy trying to survive.
You have just done a SPECTACULAR job of reminding me why I was glad to leave China after seven years. I wasn't lucky enough to live in the shining city of Shanghai. I served my China-sentence in third-world Beijing. To see that it has gotten THIS bad in Shanghai is mind-bending.
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