I like the way China is organised. And when you think about this, it’s about the only way to bring order to a country of such size and complexity.
China, to many, initially comes across as utter madness, the very epitome of disorganisation. Indeed, there is no shortage of complete randomness taking place on its cities’ streets on a constant basis. Yet, somehow emerging from amid the mayhem, more often that not, comes magnificence.
From a purely physical standpoint, China’s top tier of organisation comes at the national level, followed by its provinces, municipalities, autonomous regions, etc. Beneath them, the cities, each divided into districts or counties. There follow the subdistricts and towns and then our dear residential communities.
But it doesn’t stop there. Alert readers who are supposedly “well to do” and living in our city’s more expensive residential communities will also be aware of their butler.
That’s a literal translation of the Chinese (管家); it might be olde-worldy English but it’s genius.
Sadly though, they don’t bring another glass of wine when summoned with a little bell, but they will unblock your kitchen sink.
They will also likely have a WeChat group for you and your neighbours in which they will post useful announcements informing that your water will be shut off tomorrow afternoon or wishing the kids good luck in the college entrance exam, those sorts of things.
The common denominator here is organisational structure. And nothing proved it better in our very own Nanjing than COVID and, somewhat contradictorily, the 2014 Youth Olympics.
For no one, not one person, died of COVID in Nanjing. Reflecting back, that was an organisational triumph beyond compare.
This is not Shanghai. Or Wuhan. Nanjing did not once issue a city-wide lockdown. The furthest we went was to lock down the town of Lukou following the COVID outbreak (courtesy of a flight from Russia) in the summer of 2021.
More commonplace in the aftermath of that debacle was the locking down of residential communities themselves.
In fact, Nanjing got so darned good at it that individual buildings within residential communities were quarantined, barricaded by those elegant, water-filled yellow hoardings common around construction sites. But these were 2-day lockdowns, that being how long it took to test everyone living therein. Those suffering from a hangover may not have even noticed.
As a side note, the zero-COVID-death count is also down to the City’s traditional, and thus filial, spirit. You’re nothing if not cared for in Nanjing. For all newcomers to our fair City, you’re in safe hands.
And as for the Youth Olympics, we will let International Olympic Committee Chairman Thomas Bach have the final word. Making special mention as to Nanjing’s organisation of the Games during his speech at the closing ceremony, Bach described it as, “flawless”.