New normal life in outbreak
Beijingers adapt to stricter epidemic control measures
Chinese people are wondering how much longer they have to wait before the empty stores and streets in Beijing return fullypacked, as the spread of the novel coronavirus has now made the capital city of more than 20 million population look like a deserted town in Europe.
While more people have returned to work this week, they are getting used to this
“new normal” as life becomes vastly different amid the outbreak and many have no choice but to adapt to it and move on.
After 14-days of quarantine at home, Simon, a 34-year-old white collar worker who came back from his hometown in Central China’s Hubei Province – the epicenter of the COVID-19, said he could not wait any longer to get back to work. “I miss those days when I worked late into the night at the office, ordered coffee with my colleagues and took a walk outside the office building during lunch break,” he told the Global Times on Wednesday. Monday was the first day of work and Simon was finally out of selfquarantine. “When I drove on the fourth-ring road, there were
no traffic jams. Usually it takes more than an hour to drive from home to work, now only 20 minutes,” he said. “Even if it’s cold outside, I’d roll down the window when I drive as it’s the smell of freedom.”
Megacities like Beijing and Shanghai have recently imposed strict measures as people going back to their hometown for Spring Festival holidays are coming back for work and the cities face mounting pressures to contain the virus.
For instance, Beijing ordered to close entertainment venues and other public places deemed low necessity on Tuesday, and some residential communities limit access for non-residents and more coronavirus controls have been imposed such as mandatory mask wearing.
Jun Yixiao, a young beipiao, literarily meaning “Beijing drifter”, who comes from East China’s Jiangsu Province, lives in a community in the Chaoyang district. After spending days working from home as part of the self-quarantine measures, she began walking to the office in recent days.
Life appeared to return to normal but it is not completely the same, she said.
Jun said she received an entry-exit permit from the community management committee in her residential area, as the residential area now adopted ‘sealoff’ management measures to limit people going in and out.
“I was told to keep the permit, a small piece of paper, properly as it may be in use for a long time,” she said, noting that couriers are not allowed into the residential area anymore.
Work and health balance
Authorities have been coming up with a series of new measures to ensure the resumption of work following the extended Spring Festival holidays amid the outbreak, striking a balance between maintaining economic growth and containing the viral spread.
Jack, a 24-year-old expat residing in Beijing has decided to stay in China since the outbreak. He said that he didn’t want to return to Australia, his home country, as he feared it would bring unnecessary trouble for his wife, family and workplace.
He described his own method of preventing infection as he often is given the household task of grocery shopping. “I don my face mask, sunglasses and bring used grocery bags and tissues to cover my hands. I make sure that I don’t touch anything directly as I have an 18-monthold baby at home. I want to be extra careful that she doesn’t become sick.”
A possible new outbreak of the highly contagious disease has made people highly alert, even sometimes neurotic.
A young woman who always dresses up in a fashionable way while carrying luxury handbags like Chanel, living in Chaoyang district, said she would never think of being treated in a discriminatory way in the city where she has been living for decades.
“I went to a convenience store one day near my home, and I tried to pick up a bunch of grapes, but suddenly I heard a woman screaming at the retailer,” she said.
As the woman was also about to buy the grapes, she angrily told the retailer “look at this lady who just touched the grapes without wearing gloves, I don’t want it anymore.”
Supplies such as gloves, masks, and disinfectants have become daily necessities these days for ordinary Chinese people.
“If I was treated like this, I wonder how people from Wuhan would be treated?” she said.
New lifestyle
Wearing pajamas with no makeup, having a conference call when trying to take care of a baby who constantly cries, keeping a naughty boy far away from her laptop, cooking dinner while responding to colleagues’ instant messages… working mothers in Beijing are now trying to accommodate to this “new normal” as the outbreak has forced many to work from home, at the same time, take care of their children.
Without the help of the babysitter, who has to stay at her village due to a rural lockdown amid the outbreak, a mom of a 10-month-old baby, who works in the media industry, told the Global Times on Wednesday.
Sometimes she has to use bathroom breaks to caress her child and the busy dual work has worn her out, the mon said.
She told the Global Times that a former babysitter quit after the outbreak started, which forced her to face extra pressure handling work and child care, especially in the days when she had to go to the office and her mother was left alone taking care of her son.
She had already hired a new babysitter after she interviewed a smaller pool of candidates in the industry.
But the new one lives in a village in North China’s Hebei Province and could not come to Beijing due to the lockdown and the suspension of interprovincial buses, she said.