Shanghai is back in business. Not quite though, but that’s what authorities might have us believe. And of course it has come with a tremendous economic loss, not least that of an entire season. Marking the day, 50 photos from 50 days of lockdown.
At 07:57 yesterday, 6 May, Juneyao Airlines flight HO1145 took off from Shanghai Pudong International Airport to Longyan Guanzhishan Airport in Fujian Province. It was the first flight out of Shanghai since the lockdown began and, in another stroke of good luck, its departure was 3 minutes early.
The first flight came soon on the heels of the announcement that Shanghai had “achieved the restoration of the face of society” (实现社会面清零) in 15 out of the city’s 16 districts.
It had coincidentally also been exactly 50 days since the first stage of lockdown was applied to Pudong, Punan and adjacent areas. Puxi followed on 1 April.
While those 50 days might catch the eye of conspiracy theorists, they also provide for a fitting “50 photos from 50 days” portrait of Shanghai’s most challenging days since the Second World War. Except this time around of course, the enemy is invisible.
And that Juneyao airlines flight? It, also fittingly, is the final image in the 50-photo portrait. Among the many others are the poignant; the emergency medical team from Zhejiang Provincial People’s Hospital taking of a huge group photo on The Bund on Nurses Day, 12 May. They stand defiant along one of the world’s most famous and historical waterfronts.
In true Shanghai style, there is also a nice shot of residents in a locked-down community picking up an enormous group buy of hamburgers.
Then of course there are the empty streets, the empty shelves of a Carrefour, citizens peering forlornly from their apartments, the paltry government-supplied pack of food intended to sustain a whole family, and those lines, the never ending lines of people waiting for a nucleic-acid test.
The majority of the “50 photos from 50 days” are credited to Shanghai-based media outlet, The Paper. All can be viewed in chronological order on that publication’s website via this link.
Now back to that bizarre statement about restoring the face of society. What does that mean in reality for the residents of Shanghai? Not a lot, it turns out, as The Nanjinger discovered when it spoke today with its Chinese tea columnist, Matthew Stedman, now based in Shanghai.
Stedman says, “Leaving the compound for an hour is possible, but not with wheels (bikes, electric bikes) and not with children. So we haven’t tried that. Other compounds, I’ve heard, have guards who are more relaxed, even though the rules are essentially the same. Basically, most of us here are living a life that is restricted to the compound only. But that’s much better than being restricted to the apartment only (as we were for much of April)”.
Stedman also points to a “leaking” of students from Shanghai. Many of those far from finishing their semesters are headed home to continue learning online, while enjoying a bit of mum’s cooking.
“Food delivery choices are less raw than they were a fortnight ago. We’re still looking forward to our first KFC. We’ve had two pizzas already. [But] we’re still viewing big delivery markups and price-hikes as a symptom of lockdown.
“Another reason for not choosing to leave the compound is that bugger-all else has been open. But that really is changing. The streets around us are still empty; all the businesses still unlit. But we are aware of real supermarket openings in the past few days.”
Welcome back, Shanghai. Kind of.
