In 2020 I escaped the lockdown but not in 2022. Kunshan, where I live in China, is a city of nearly a million that borders Shanghai to the West. It could be considered a suburb of Shanghai but it is technically an 'administrative' part of Suzhou, a city of 10 million further west of Kunshan. From March until early June, Shanghai was locked down. The Kunshan lockdown started about a month later and lasted until the first week of May. I left China on the 9th of May, just as Kunshan was beginning to open up.
Beginning in April, The Kunshan lockdown consisted of compounds disallowing the folks who live there from leaving, but for once every two days to get groceries. There were also daily testing requirements that were carried out by health professionals who set up testing booths in the compounds.
The Kunshan lockdown was preceded by a lockdown in neighboring Suzhou that started in March, though by April their lockdown had ended. Thus, with Shanghai locking down mid-March and Suzhou locked down, there was a sense of inevitability that eventually Kunshan would be locked down. I don't remember exactly how many cases were found in Kunshan but it was relatively few, something like four or seven. These small numbers, when I would tell folks who didn't live in China, usually provoked a laugh that such a small number would provoke such a strong reaction. Covid zero-tolerance, or, as the Chinese government has labeled it, 'dynamic Covid zero,' required such measures. The alternative would be to let Covid run rampant which would be devastating in terms of the Chinese health care system. Hundred of thousands of people would likely die. One thing that I think is both a cliché and possibly one of the most important truisms when thinking about why the Chinese government implements particular policies is that China has a lot of people who live together in dense urban areas. On a normal day the hospitals are busy and chaotic. The way that Covid has overrun most health care systems by tying up resources would be multiplied tenfold in China. Simply, letting Covid run wild is not an option if safety and security are the most important priorities, which I think, arguably, is what the Chinese government subscribes to. The Omicron variant, however, with its improved ability to spread, has made these lockdowns less effective as a means of controlling the infection rates, putting the legitimacy of the severe lockdown policies into question.
From an experiential standpoint, the lockdown was a bummer but survivable. Five weeks is not a lot when compared to the three months of lockdown in Shanghai (which is still ongoing for folks who live in a compound where they found positive cases), but it was a formative experience. The first two weeks were the most frenzied, where groceries were for the most part out of food. Like everywhere else in the world, people bought large amount of food such that shelves were empty.
But that didn't last long. Kunshan is relatively small by Chinese standards. Though some kinds of food were hard to find, such as Western foods like Cheese and butter, vegetables, fruit, and meat were available in the grocery stores after a couple weeks. In my complex I could still order food out from the small number of restaurants that were still open and making deliveries. Within the complex people exchanged food, set up small buying groups, and otherwise found ways to collaborate on getting what they needed. Since I lived alone my food needs were relatively easy to meet, whereas, I'd imagine that feeding a family of five or more was significantly more harrowing. There was a week when I worried about about eggs but eventually found some and then found more than enough. One day I walked over to the large chain grocery store and was lucky enough to find a single block of cheese which, in addition to what I already had, met my cheese needs for the rest of the lockdown. From what I understand cheese is still hard to find in Kunshan these days.
Asides from grocery stories and a few restaurants, all of Kunshan was shut down. With my friend Jun, I took long bike rides around the city, riding though empty streets to Kunshan's parks. We could leave every two days with a special pass that was signed by the security. For those resourceful enough, some folks would acquire two of these passes and thus be able to leave everyday, the off day of one being an on day of the other. With all the rules and regulations in China, one learns ways to get around them.
Meanwhile, university classes moved entirely online, which was not all that big of a deal since everyone, students, faculty, and admin, have been dealing with variations of Covid shutdowns for the last couple of years. Life, then, in Kunshan during the lockdown was a relatively smooth. Restrictive and oppressive yes, but as far as material needs, all of mine were met. I watched a lot of television. Would go running within the closed loop of my compound. The weather was more or less perfect for most of those five weeks in the Spring, flowers blooming with temperatures in the mid-70's. The problem was not, as usual, the material conditions but the threat of the Chinese government taking one out of one's home for the sake of maintaining those materials conditions for the majority.
