News from China
There’s been some interesting news coming from China in the past couple of weeks and I wanted to note down some of them.
– Covid outbreak
In October, a new covid outbreak spread in China and it has been the largest so far since the initial epidemic in Wuhan was contained. This new outbreak affects mostly the northern part of the country and even though its numbers are very low compared to other countries (around 100 new cases per day at the peak in a country of 1.4 billion), hysteria came back in full force.
A couple of weeks ago, a teacher in Beijing tested positive and all the children in their class (aged 8) had to spend the night in the school while they were waiting for their tests to be performed. The next morning at 5 am or so they were taken out in hazmat suits, got into a bus and driven to a centralized quarantine location for two weeks. For each child, one of the parents could go and quarantine with them if they wanted. I’m not sure if any parent chose to leave their 8 year old alone in “quarantine camp” for a fortnight.
Related to this, on Halloween there was a positive case in Shanghai Disneyland and the park was closed with 34,000 people inside while tests were done for everybody. I bet the people who went to spend Halloween there didn’t expect the night to be so terrifying!
– Stock up on food
Another piece of news related to China that has been very prominent lately is the government’s recommendation to stock up on food. It was supposed to be just in case prices went up due to energy constraints and the like, but many people started spreading the rumour that the war against Taiwan was inminent. In one of my husband’s family groups, an uncle shared an article which showed a train transporting missiles (no date or any context whatsoever) and under it there were a lot of comments along the lines of “It’s time to liberate Taiwan” (what kind of retard would wish for a war to break out at their doorstep, I have no idea). I’ve been sent pictures of supermarkets with empty shelves, something that didn’t even happen at the beginning of the pandemic in most parts of China.
– COP26
Xi Jinping didn’t attend the climate change conference and he has been criticised for it. But what I find strange is that anyone thought he was going to go! As far as I know, since the pandemic started he hasn’t left China. How is he going to go abroad if when returning he would have to quarantine for three weeks, as a model for the people? Would he give his daily speeches from a hotel room and attend meetings through Zoom?
On this front, at least there was one good news: China and the US reached an agreement to boost cooperation on climate change! Given that the two countries have been lately on each other’s neck, I think the mere fact that they got to sit together and talk things through is very positive.
– Peng Shuai and the Korean drama
Peng Shuai is a tennis star that announced on her Weibo that an exmember of the government (the ex vicepremier Zhang Gaoli) sexually abused her a few years ago. In her message she stated that she knew speaking about the case wouldn’t serve any purpose but that she wanted to do it anyway, and of course after a few minutes her post and her whole Weibo account were deleted. However, some users were faster than the censors and took screenshots of her message which were later shared. C. talked about it with some of his colleagues, who didn’t know, but in another one of his groups everybody was talking about it using emojis to avoid censorship (it seems even the word “tennis” was banned at some point). The funniest part of this whole thing (which in itself is not funny at all) is that a Korean drama called “Prime Minister and I” misterously disappeared from all the Chinese streaming services.
And that’s it for the latest Chinese news!
Yeah, there’s been a lot of saber-rattling about Taiwan in the news for sure. Like you, I find it bizarre that folks root for war.
Maybe they’ve watched too many movies? And for sure they must think it wouldn’t reach the place where they live…
Your update is much more interesting than watching the news reports – and they are honest!
Well, there might be a bit of subjective opinion mixed in too, haha. Thanks!
Thank you for sharing all this. I doubt that I’d ever hear about it otherwise. I loved the funny part at the end about the Korean drama disappearing.
I heard lots of criticism here in the US about Xi Jinping not attending the climate summit, and I was surprised that no one even mentioned that he hadn’t left China since the pandemic broke out. What did they expect?
Not sure what they expected. Maybe, as the presidents from other countries are travelling as normal, they thought XJP would too… but the thing is, China is still doing that zero covid strategy… so getting out of the country and returning later is a major pain in the butt.
Thank you for the updates.
Talking tennis – hopefully I won’t need to turn on my VPN to read the blog in the future(>﹏<)
I didn't know that a Korean drama was a innocent bystander in that drama. That's pretty funny. You're not missing much otherwise. Same old Covid China. Glad to hear the transition home is smooth – I think more and more about heading home myself these days…
Haha, my blog is too small to be deserving of special treatment ;P If I was a superstar, though…
We’ll probably be back next year, but I don’t know for how long. Just thinking about China makes me tired these days…
Just read an article about the women’s tennis stars of the world calling for an open, transparent investigation into the accusations (which are really, really horrible). Glad to see women’s tennis players speaking up (cough, cough NBA). Banning all international tennis news and broadcasts in 3…2…1…
“Latest news: In an unexpected turn of events, playing tennis is now forbidden in China.” xD
Aaaand she wrote an email to the president of the WTA saying that “the news about me that the WTA released are fake”. Sounds totally legit and absolutely written by her of her own free will.
(After seeing it, my husband says he doesn’t want to return to a country where the people in charge are so retarded that they think this will fool anyone).
I call BS on Xi Jinping. If he really wanted to attend the conference, he could have sent someone in his place and/or Zoomed his ass over there and participated virtually. He wanted to avoid the undoubted shit show that would have ensued re: Covid-19 and other related questions. He opted out, and considering how much China contributes to climate change, China needed to be there.
But like the others, I enjoy hearing what you have to say. I think there’s a YT channel by these foreigners who used to live in China (extensively) who “report the real news”. But crazy, the hysteria — your comment about Disneyland and the parents and their kids was golden, too.
It’s a shame how much common folks around the world suffer from the decisions of our governments and sensationalized news. Take care dear!
In fact, shouldn’t it have been a fully virtual conference? What’s the point of discussing about climate change and then have Boris Johnson fly his private plane from London to Glasgow…? And I doubt the rest of the presidents went by ship or train…
There was a China representative though, and I guess with full authority, because they managed to get that agreement with the US.
I don’t watch YT, haha, I just can’t get into it (and I have no time). But I find foreign YouTubers in China can be classified in two groups: the “everything is perfect, we live in paradise” group and the “this is hell on earth” one, haha.
Ahhhh, okay. Well so China did show up then. Honestly, I didn’t look in to it and knew I might be wrong. But good point, it could have been a virtual one — I’m sure a lot of leaders left their country’s for the first time in a year, etc.
And yeah, let’s not get into the carbon footprint of the wealthy elite…
That’s so funny about YT. I love it. It’s definitely the “social” I can’t get enough of. I barely see ads and there’s so much fascinating content. Great observation. xo
I guess the food situation stems from (mainly old people’s) past experience? My grandma was like that too when she was still around. Any hint of war and she would go apeshit. Like, they’ve experienced a few pandemics now, non of which actually caused prolonged food shortages. But talk about war and they remember the terrible times when “the Japanese invaded, it was a terrible decade or two, can’t even find tree barks for food”. So yeah, war ranks much higher up than pandemic in terms of crisis that needs to be extra prepared for.
Yes, when the announcement was made, I guess it was mainly old people flocking to the supermarkets. But it seems the goverment was trying to warn of potential higher prices, and definitely unrelated to a war! Their warning backfired, though…
Man it’s crazy to hear about China now. I feel like it’s so different from when I lived there from 2010 to 2015. Do you think China has changed drastically since 2015 (and since Xi took over?).
That news about stocking up on food because of a war with Taiwan is super wild. I don’t think it’s smart for the government to tell people to stock up on stuff during a pandemic. If the US government did the same, I’m sure our shelves would be empty too and conspiracies would spread like wildfire.
And geez, those poor kids who had to go to quarantine camp…!! How horrible!!
Thanks for the news updates! They’re always so interesting.
How to say? I don’t think it has affected daily lives, but for sure 10 years ago there were no posters on the street with Hu Jintao’s face, he wasn’t so omnipresent in the news, there were no huge signs with his “famous sayings” and he didn’t write any book to be added to the political collection of the country…
The “advantage” of China is that conspiracies cannot run wild there… because of censorship haha. If you publish or forward anything that is seen by I think more than 500 people and it hasn’t been officially published, it’s considered a rumour and you are warned or prosecuted if caught (that was actually what happened to Dr. Li Wenliang, he was accused of spreading rumours because the news about covid had not yet been officially released).