This post will be both happy and sad. Happy because it will show you a few pictures of how the temperature is turning around and give you some insight as to the goings on here in Beijing, China. It will be sad because it will note that the virus pandemic caused by the Coronavirus may not end simply with the rise in temperatures brought on by Spring.
It seems normal for me to write a post like this every year around this time. The temperatures are rising and it’s becoming sweater season very quickly, something that only lasts about a month anyway in Beijing. After this, it’s +25C and rising humidity until September. It goes from “nice and pleasant, I can live here and endure this” to “This is sweltering! WTF happened?”
And with the warming of temperatures come the flowers. Last year me and a friend went to Zhongshan Park to see the different flowers blossoming at that time, more notably the sakuras or cherry blossoms. They are starting to show through again with more buds popping up each and every morning. (I also made a short video of the trip to the flower park which you can view on YouTube.)
So, as you can see, there is some new life taking hold.
Further, as I wrote last week upon my search for coffee, I noted that there was a trickle of people going through the Starbucks store I was in. Not just customers but delivery folks picking up orders. And that’s been pretty consistent since they reopened at the beginning of March.
In general, deliveries are being made, mostly of food products, but also some other things as well. I even bought a standing desk that was delivered within a few days. I also ordered a potato masher for a colleague (yes, just one item) and it was delivered within three days from Shanghai. (Sometimes it’s easier, cheaper and faster to simply order something online than to go look for it in a local store.)
One thing I noticed a few weeks ago, about mid-February, was that there seemed to be more sales happening on platforms such as JD.com and Taobao, two of the most popular online shopping platforms here in China. Every day there seems to be some sort of countdown to a new sale for select items. Be it cell phones, computers, food, clothing, there’s always some sort of sale going on. Have I spent any more money than usual? No, but I am taking the chance of being in Beijing to order some things before work re-starts again, hopefully in May.
So, in that sense, China has adapted if not normalized the whole ordering online aspect of quarantine. The one quarrel they might have had is that it is no longer delivered right to the door. Instead, packages have to be picked up outside the main gate.
This seemingly peaceful scene is, of course, restricted to what I see around Beijing and mostly in my area. I cannot say the same thing for other cities or towns, and certainly not for places that have been completely shut off, such as Wuhan. So this peaceful bubble that we live in is just that, a restricted view of what’s going on in the country as a whole.
But that brings me to the next point of what will change going forward. As the season changes and the economy has basically ground to halt, people will be eager to return to work. But I wonder, of all of the warnings about germ transmission, will the lessons they’ve learned continue into the future? Or will they revert to how things were back “in the good ol’ days”?
Hand washing? Elevator button wiping, door handles, bus and subway handles, will these things continue to be cleaned on a regular basis with new water and enough chlorine that it can effective? The masks are hit or miss because people in Asia have always worn them for a variety of reasons, most notably to filter out pollution.
What about the other habits, such as keeping one’s distance? What will happen to Beijing’s subway cars once people return to work? You know how transportation can get packed to and from major sporting events? Well that’s an every day occurrence on the way to work here in Beijing. (In my opinion, this is also why countries such as Canada have a little bit less to worry about if such sporting events are cancelled or played in isolation. There’s not much of a population density to really affect too many people.)
But what will happen to the virus in the coming months?
I, too, originally thought that the virus would dissipate as the temperatures got warmer. The problem with that thinking, however, is that it ignores the fact that this current virus is similar to SARS and MERS, both of which lasted through hot weather. SARS took until August of 2003 to be brought under control while MERS flourished in the Middles East in their much hotter climates. So, even if it does get hotter, it doesn’t mean that the virus will disappear from the radar.
All that being said and done, I do see some more workers around now, and by workers I mean the migrants from other parts of China who work and live in Beijing for much of the year but whose actual homes are away from the city. Further, as I’ve chatted to the few Chinese people I know, some of them are already back at work, either in their offices or at home.
The expat-type pubs and bars still have some crowds, but, on the other hand, malls are mostly closed. Some of the hair salons and similar type shops have re-opened, but there doesn’t seem to be much clientele these days. In general, it seems that food, hygiene and other products from the pharmacies are the things that are being moved around by the couriers.
And despite what some media outlets seem to be portraying, there doesn’t seem to be any malice towards anyone or anything, rather, people do seem to be bothered by the lack of money they are able to make. Oh, and I should point out here that most people say that they don’t like their job and that they’re just doing it for the money. See? We’re all kind of the same, aren’t we? haha
Now, I know that Canada and the West are just going into quarantine now but, I can say, being off for two months already, I’m going to need a vacation from this time off pretty soon. And I don’t necessarily mean returning to work!