Category Archives: shenzhen elsewhere

‘social reset’

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Question du jour: how do we translate ‘社会面清零’? As conventionally used, my sense is that it means something like ‘zero-Covid in society,’ with the unspoken predicate ‘because all the positives have been locked away.’ It’s the unspoken half of the phrase–the unspoken threat of violence–that has me thinking we should translate directly–社会面 means “social aspect’ and 清零 means ‘clearance’ or ‘reset.’ I’m hearing that the people with the most power in Shanghai today are security guards, representatives from neighborhood offices (居委会), and the ‘big whites (大白)’ whose presence has become equated with arbitrary violence and detention. Apparently, these are the people enforcing zero-Covid, while most low and mid-level cadres are being replaced with people who do not question the policy. This means that when Shanghai re-opens (whenever and however), there will be a new political hierarchy in place, in addition to the completely devastated economic situation. So, why not be translation literalists (in this particular case), and call what’s happening in Shanghai a ‘social reset’?

At this writing, the art channel, 一条 has posted an exhibition of photographs of the abandoned city.

word of the day, “unwilling”

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I first saw the chat record in a chat group,, dated April 16. Two days later, I saw it in my moments in a circulating WeChat post. The group leader said, “I’ve received an urgent notification from the top, everyone in the building is required to go down stairs for a corona test. Please respond with whether or not your willing to go downstairs.” He followed with his response, “unwilling.” It was followed by 50+ “unwillings.” The chat leader then said, “Thank you everyone. There have been enough responses. I’ll go negotiate with them.“ After three thank you emogis, he added. “Some leaders notified the neighborhood office at 5:45 p.m, to have us all go downstairs at 6:00. The teachers in the community office are helpless, so don’t blame them. Many of them only get 6 or 4 hours of sleep a night.” The same day that I saw the circulating WeChat post, I also saw a series of “will not participate in any more corona tests,” circulating on TikTok post, with music.

describing the crazy to u.s. americans

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When I speak with U.S. Americans about China’s commitment to zero-Covid, I find myself comparing it to north American support for second amendment rights. We are no longer talking about a policy that is or is not working, but rather about a belief that the country itself is in danger. In China, the central government is acting as if any form of living with Covid will harm the country more than disrupting daily life for millions of people; and many agree. Similarly, the NRA acts as if the foundations of U.S. American democracy will be permanently damaged by background checks on people who want to purchase guns; and many agree. In both cases, what seems from the outside as an irrational escalation of commitment to an outdated policy, from the inside looks like a fight to maintain an imperiled way of life.

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hallucinating in shanghai

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The stories coming out of Shanghai are increasingly distressing. Thousands of people are being rounded up and forcibly moved to quarantine centers, which are still under construction. Once inside the centers, detainees are told that they are on their own until testing can be arranged because it takes two consecutive negatives to get out. Indeed, the situation is so fraught that it has brought the specters of Xinjiang and the Cultural Revolution into the conversation. Some have started commenting under pictures of the Big Whites (大白 nickname for those in hazmat suits), “the red guards have arrived!” Offline, the outraged assumption that Shanghai (SHANGHAI!) could be treated like Xinjiang is more vocal, and occasionally mentioned online. But I’ll get to that, below. There’s much to unpack in all of this, especially Xi Jinping’s fraught relationship with the CR, Xinjiang and, of course, Covid. After all, the 20th Party Congress will be held (presumably) some time in October, and Xi has hitched his coronation third term to zero-Covid. Today, however, I’m translating and commenting on a copy of a chat record that’s low key circulating on WeChat. I’ll be responding in the next post.

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covid booster shot

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I’m in Dali, enjoying the weather and corona-test-free days. But in preparation for re-entry into Shenzhen, yesterday afternoon several of us went to get our third covid jab. We arrived at the station around 3:15 and were told that the computer was on the blink so we couldn’t get the shot. However, the computer would be up and running the next morning, when we should come back. We asked if they were sure that the computer would be fixed the next day, and they were positive. No question, the computer would be fixed. So we left, but then one of the volunteers came running out after us, saying that the computers were fixed and we could get the shot, which we did.

The process was incredibly bureaucratic, so bureaucratic that if the computers were down, then the information couldn’t be entered into the national database–and this was the reason that was given for not allowing us to get the jab. Indeed, there were four bureaucratic steps to getting the jab: at station 1, we signed a paper with our thumbprints that said we were getting the jab; at station 2, our identifications were checked against the paper we had just signed and this information was entered into the computer system; at station 3, we handed our papers to a worker who entered this information into a computer with the registration number of the bottle of vaccine that we used (its two dosages per bottle). Also at station 3, our paper was collected and we were given a receipt that confirmed our jab, and; at station 4, we showed our receipts to a representative from the neighborhood office 居委会 where we are living, and they wrote down our information and confirmed that this was jab 3.

Hopefully, this info will appear on our telephones. However, we’ve heard reports that corona tests performed in Dali may not appear in the national register and so it is important to hold tight to the receipt.

how do shenzheners map covid elsewhere?

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A friend from northern China once said (and I’m paraphrasing a long ago memory of Shenzhen, circa 1995), “If you want to see Chinese culture, go to Beijing, Xi’an or Shanghai. Even Tibet has more culture than Shenzhen.”

Her pointed point was: if you’re doing cultural anthropology (and I was!), go to a Chinese city with actual culture. Even the ethnic minorities have culture. Shenzhen, not so much. In fact, she also explained that Taiwan felt more ‘Chinese’ than Shenzhen did. When asked to elaborate, she explained that in Taipei, she had been able to speak Mandarin. In contrast, in Guangdong it was difficult to find people who willingly spoke Mandarin, let alone fluently.

Of course, nearly thirty years (!!!) later, Shenzhen has come to represent China in ways that Beijing, Xi’an and Shanghai do not. Moreover, Shenzhen is often held up as the most open of the first-tier four (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen). Shenzhen isn’t China’s past, my friends assure me, but its future, which is why, Shenzhen’s response to Covid-elsewhere is worth noting. How are Shenzheners positioning themselves and their city vis-a-vis perceived failures of Covid management in Shanghai?

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the shenzhen diaspora in dalifornia

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So, those who can afford to leave Shenzhen and escape the crazy, have. Many are hanging out in second homes in Dali, but others are young parents, who are enrolling their children in kindergartens in Dali.

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signs of conflicted times

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Borders are breached, daily. Breached despite guards, despite fences, despite and through raging anger, which accumulates like garbage, no longer hidden from sight. Stupid plastic bottles, we scream, 打！As if the bottle we threw away yesterday was the cause of our suffering.

Anyway, images from a Shenzhen, where some imagine themselves as under siege, and others find themselves working even harder (yes, the city is involuted) to keep the boat steady.

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cross-border covid

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From February 4 to yesterday, February 23, 2022, 147 cross-border truck drivers have tested positive Covid-19. Cross-border truck drivers are key links both to maintaining Hong Kong’s fresh food supply and to exporting products from the PRD to the rest of the world via the port of Hong Kong. This means that the pandemic has not only made visible just how fragile the membrane between Mainland health (on the one side of the border) and Hong Kong nutrition (on the other side) is, but also how modern systems rely on the human body to function.

The cross-border delivery chain is managed by geographic section, rather than by truck. When a truck hauling a cross-border delivery arrives at a designated transfer site, a cross-border driver takes the wheel and the other driver is deployed to another pick-up. As most deliveries are from the mainland to Hong Kong, many of the drivers are based in Shenzhen. Consequently, Shenzhen has become responsible for maintaining a Covid Zero delivery chain, implementing the “three points one line 三点一线” protocol, which restricts the movement of drivers to three points (designated cross-border checkpoint, transfer station, quarantine hotel and their route). And yes, this is as restrictive as it sounds. And also yes, this protocol has been in place since the pandemic began in early 2020, which means many drivers haven’t been reunited with their families in two years, while others have quit in order to be with them. Not surprisingly, Mainland reports have emphasized the heroism of drivers who “will work as long as they can.”

covid-19 schadenfreude

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The images circulating on Shenzhen-based WeChat groups are uncannily familiar: people being stopped by guards as the try to sneak across the Shenzhen-Hong Kong border. Only this time, the flight is from Hong Kong to Shenzhen (and/or Hong Kong to Zhuhai). A certain schadenfreude infuses these posts, as if Hong Kong’s current problems demonstrate not only the superiority of the Mainland, but also “just desserts” for implied past actions. There are also reports that the governments of coastal cities are offering rewards to anyone who reports illegal immigrants, and claims that these illegal returnees have “evil intentions 恶意” because as Chinese citizens, they can legally enter the Mainland at designated checkpoints.

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