New Year in Beijing in the (ongoing) Time of Covid

First of all, Happy New Year!

We wish our family and friends a happy, healthy, productive, peaceful, and safe 2023! This secular one is our second New Year of three–after Rosh Hashanah–with Chinese New Year, known in China as Spring Festival, coming up January 22. 

What’s Reported in US Media vs. Life “On the Ground”

While we realize (and read ourselves and see on CNN) that the situation here is portrayed as a sinister pandemic nightmare, right now city life is returning to a pre-pandemic normal: malls and restaurants are increasingly busy, and traffic jams have returned. Yes, lots of people have had, are getting, and will get COVID. Certainly, especially among “seniors” and the immune-compromised, cases are serious and fatal. And underreported. Community testing and state-enforced quarantine are no longer required, so most non-critical new cases rely on home testing. That’s all our whole family did, and we didn’t have to report the results to anyone.

As for the sinister aspect of the Chinese government’s abrupt reversal, Jonathan, our longtime China hand/now journalist without credential, thinks the foreign media–including his longest employer The New York Times–are way overplaying it. After nearly three years of COVID fear mongering and draconian control, the government is trying to strike a balance between prevention, caution, and normal life.  His analysis: “It’s just a mess, because they really don’t know how to handle it.” Restaurant and hotel manager personnel we’ve talked to are happy about the release, saying it’s long overdue. People know people who are suffering and dying; a friend of Amy’s now living in Brazil flew in to be with her father suffering from terminal cancer and COVID. But in the past almost three years, don’t we also have stories about friends or relatives? 

Does it remind us of the United States in 2020? Not really. Maybe because we stayed safe and uninfected for so long, masked early and often (still do in some places at home), and have the benefit of hindsight including vaccinations. Here, people mask everywhere, including outside, and somehow seem happy to just adapt to the new propaganda “reality” of COVID as no big deal, and take their chances. Maybe even the nonpolitical quietly acknowledge and cheer it as a victory against the government.

Certain Preparations Have Come to Naught

After all the pre-testing, quarantine requirements, and uploading of the health code onto our phones, none of it is required now. As previously reported, the regimen when we arrived was to test and get a 48-hour “pass” on our phones to scan into the gym and restaurants. With COVID on the rise and contact tracing ending, batched testing became Catch-22, as almost all batches encompassed someone with COVID. Jonathan had showed us how to implement “stage craft” using a video of a previous green code in the hope that the test date wouldn’t be inspected. Then we got COVID, so we really didn’t have to finesse that. By the time we recovered and started going out again, no need. The gym was the last to fold.

Right now, it looks like the only mandated testing ahead of us is prior to our return to the US, if we come directly from China (still to be determined). The Biden Administration had also enacted that requirement for returning travelers from anywhere outside the US at the time we came back from Israel in December 2021. A Hasidic guy arrived on a motorcycle at our cousins’ home in Jerusalem for an instant test house call. Dubious that will happen here, unless the local Chabad takes on a new business!

The compound’s testing kiosk is still open on a rotating basis with other communities, and they offer individual tests, instead of batched, again. Still an investigative reporter at heart, Jonathan took and passed one the other day and got a new 48-hour code. Now it’s an “ego thing,” he said.

The Holiday Season

Christmas in China is celebrated religiously by only a relative few but it’s been a decorating and shopping opportunity for years.

This year was probably more of the former than the latter, but miraculously Christmas weekend marked the reopening.  Roland, our friend the general manager, told me many employees who got COVID right after restrictions were lifted had recovered and returned to work. That’s been the case with our kids’ restaurants’ employees, too, although several had traveled home for Spring Festival early, due to COVID, and are now just gone for a month. Despite being short-staffed, they’re managing renewed business with some menu consolidation (and lower payroll). 

What Did (These) Jews Eat on Christmas Day in China? Japanese Food

We had a family Christmas lunch in the hotel’s Japanese restaurant, where everyone has a private room. I still had a faint pink line on my Covid test, but Eli had been negative for two days. That night was also the last night of Chanukah; we had six in-person candle-lightings and two remote on video calls, their menorah housed in our apartment. Shabbat dinner is also sacrosanct for Amy and Jonathan and the girls, who know the Hebrew brachot (blessings) over candles, wine, and challah by heart and this year mastered the second Chanukah blessing, as well. To say we’re grateful and pleased Mirah and Rivah are being raised as (Reform) Jewishly as possible in Beijing is an understatement. This is augmented by the PJ Library books that actually come to China.https://pjlibrary.org/home

Out and About in the City

Once my test line had faded into oblivion, we began to get around. Grocery shopping, restaurants, a major park, and malls are all within walking distance. And, of course, the family a half-block away. Eli and I agree that we’ve missed the accessible, walkable urban life we had in Denver’s Cherry Creek area and in San Francisco. (Sorry, Bayside, we never promised you forever.) Jonathan laughed: “Even here in Beijing in the winter with COVID all around?” Yes, we love walking out and “being somewhere.” Eli wanted a new jeans: first he priced out a pair at Stefano Ricci, a fancy Italian boutique in the hotel we’ve seen forever but rarely with customers inside. 14,000 RMB, or $2000+ in the store, $720 on their website. No thank you! The GAP in Parkview Green Mall: $30 on sale! And one night last week we did a date night at a Lyonnaise French restaurant two blocks away.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And “At Home”

Among the protocols that relaxed last week was the restoration of twice-weekly maid service for the apartments. OMG, I could certainly get used to this, especially clean linens and towels showing up and changed without my washing them. Not that we really need service twice a week. That said, I suspect there’s been more home cooking performed here in the past few weeks than at any time in this apartment’s history. No doubt, it’s the first time latkes, cabbage borscht, cabbage rolls, and chicken matzah ball soup have recently been whipped up in this kitchen.  Occasionally, paired with takeout from one of the “family-owned” restaurants (such as matzah balls with chicken pho from Susu), leftovers are a cultural melange. Beyond family meals, there’s regular stuff, like observing Mirah’s online art lesson. And sleepovers.

You think we’re reveling in this family time, or what? Love to all!