Or Should That be Mouse?
Chinese can be an annoyingly vague language at times and, at least in common parlance, both rodents share an identical name (老鼠).
It's been a very subdued Spring Festival so far this year. With China in the grip on an outbreak of a previously unknown coronavirus that has the attention of the whole country, people are staying indoors and avoiding contact with others as much as possible. Not that that's significantly different from business as usual for this time of year, as the Lunar New Year is traditionally a time for returning to hometowns and spending quality time with family. Epidemic or no, most people would still probably be staying indoors, wearing three layers of clothing, and watching TV or playing dou dizhu (other card games and pastimes are available).
Chinese New Year is very much a family affair and lacks the overt, often extravagant, community-wide decorations and festive atmosphere that mark Christmas in the West. As China's relative stagnation under the Qing dynasty, followed by the impactful restrictions of a planned economy during the earlier decades of communist rule, gave way to rapid economic development and the gradual, if partial, relaxation of migratory controls related to the household registration system post Reform and Opening Up, China's cities experienced massive levels of urbanisation, including an influx of many migrant workers, "temporary" residents, and even permanent urban residents with family and ancestral homes in the countryside.
One result of this, is that as workers and students return "home" for the festival, for which the government mandates a 7 day holiday (working days), many cities undergo a net population loss, leaving them much quieter than normal. Many larger cities, as major commercial and industrial hubs, end up taking on an eerie, desolate atmosphere, reminiscent of abandoned ghost towns. Shanghai is one such city.
As a result, it's hard to know if the lack of fireworks, and firecrackers in particular, last night was a result of the rain, dearth of permanent residents in my neighbourhood, restrictions on fireworks being more tightly enforced in central Shanghai (a tier one city after all), or fear of catching the virus keeping people indoors. Whatever the underlying cause, this was my first Lunar New Year in China without hearing a single firecracker going off, and considering this is my tenth New Year here that seems significant.
Although Western outlets such as the BBC had been reporting on the virus for weeks (I'm not saying Chinese media hadn't, I don't really follow it much for a variety of reasons), there was very little mention of it on social media here until 21st January. On the 22nd, however, it fully blew up, and over the last few days it is almost all that anyone seems to be talking about, myself included. Memories of the SARS outbreak in 2003 have understandably got people worried.
*(As an aside, if you can find a copy of Insight by Chai Jing I fully recommend giving it a read. The first chapter relates her experiences reporting on the SARS outbreak before going on to recount a number of other news stories less well-known outside of China which offer interesting insights into the country and some of the issues it faces)
On the 22nd face masks were already hard to come by in Shanghai, but by the 23rd that had changed to impossible; even major online retail platforms were sold out. Whether you could call it panic yet is highly debatable (outside Wuhan, and possibly Guangdong, that is), but it's clear that people around the country are genuinely concerned; when I arrived here on the 16th very few people were wearing face masks, now I'd say it's about 90% of people on the street and even higher on the subway.
My wife arrived here on the 23rd, right as news outlets and the WeChat rumour mill were going into overdrive, and I could feel a palpable unease as I was taking the subway to pick her up from the station, even though, at the time, I think both confirmed and suspected cases in the municipality were still in single digits. Since getting back to our apartment we've pretty much stayed here, going out only to dispose of rubbish in the nearby communal bins. This isn't solely a health precaution, we're both anti-social hermits by nature, but fear over getting sick has caused us to shelve plans to visit Hangzhou this week.
We may still take a trip along Nanjing Road to the Bund, if it's not too crowded (it hasn't stopped drizzling for three days now and what with everything else going on I wouldn't be surprised if people aren't going there in numbers right now), as it's within walking distance from our apartment, but we'll probably leave off long subway trips to Zhujiajiao Water Town until after the Spring Festival is over and my wife moves here for good.
For now, we're having a very quiet first Spring Festival as a married couple and are just hoping to stay well. With any luck this epidemic will turn out to be less serious than it appears right now and everything will blow over before long. Then I can get onto writing about more positive things and we can both start exploring this vast new city we'll be calling home.
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