Why the need to convince oneself? If you don’t like it, why not just go home? Well, I do like China. A lot. It has so many great qualities. Most of the time, I thoroughly enjoy life in China.
Nowhere’s perfect, not that the obvious needs stating. Before I moved to China, I accepted that there would be certain aspects of the culture and political system that I wouldn’t fully understand or agree with. That’s only natural. I approached China as a visitor, and even thinking about changing anything would be as naive as it would be futile.
Two aspects of life in China, though, work negatively together, compounding each other’s severity, and the worse they get, the more unhappy they make day-to-day life in China:
The First is Zero-COVID
At first, it involved a few rescheduled classes, then showing health codes in more and more places. Its impact on both locals and visitors increased, though. City-wide nucleic acid tests would be ramped up to every three days. Failure to have a green health code (on a mini-program within WeChat) would mean no access to certain shops and restaurants.
Minor outbreaks would mean tests every 48 hours, making life pretty inconvenient. Watching YouTube videos of major lockdowns, protests, and in some cases, deaths as a result of the draconian measures, are stressful to watch. However, when you are personally on the receiving end of such restrictions, are forced to test, and then stay on an island until your negative results come through, China loses some of its shine.
A single day encompassed a positive conversation with a British colleague on how renewing our contracts for another year in Wenzhou is worth suffering regular tests, stifling summer humidity, and travel restrictions. Later that very day, I found myself trapped. As a Chinese colleague brought with him from a trip to Ningbo a yellow health code, every student and staff member had to have a COVID test. Busses leaving the island were delayed until negative results were returned. However, because my class finished at 4:30 pm, by that time, tests had drawn to a close, meaning I had to take a taxi to the nearest test centre, return, and then await the results before I could leave the island.
Consequently, I missed the last bus and could not leave the university compound until my test result came in. I was trapped until the next day. Thoroughly jaded from my experience, the reality of Zero-COVID was brought home.
The Second is Internet Censorship
Although I could use a teacher hotel free of charge, as I stewed in my room in the clothes I’d been working in all day, my VPN failed to connect, further enhancing feelings of isolation, separation from my culture, and disbelief as to why China was now disregarding advice from the WHO and ramping-up its zero-COVID measures. The new strains of COVID have been shown to be less fatal than the flu, and harsh lockdowns create their own casualties. However, making entire communities queue shoulder to shoulder, almost touching and allowing the ‘viral by nature’ bike shares to continue operating is confounding.
The denial of western media, from YouTube to WhatsApp, Google to Ground News, can instil a feeling of isolation. If you’re craving stimulation, entertainment and digital media, Chinese WeChat Channels, DouYin and the like, although they do carry some entertaining and useful content, drive home the level of government-controlled rhetoric, outright censorship and heavily-biased news. Be careful of WeChat’s ‘Hot” channels. Some of the videos are unpleasant, i.e., violent, xenophobic and worse.
At times like this, though, it really is a good idea to practice mindfulness and engage in meditation. Try not to forget why you’re in China, focus on its positives and remember, a good night’s sleep erases a multitude of negative thoughts.
