Day L52: Three Hours of Freedom

May 21, 2022

We have to earn our freedom around here. This time it came unexpectedly during another compound walk. The compound authorities were issuing these passes and they gave two of them out. The leader said "We don't give these out to just anyone. You guys had good covid test results and were well behaved." She was referring to the earlier month-long home confinement with the green fences. Not like we had a choice.

We are now a zero-covid community. Ooohh aaahhh

Here are the conditions:

- One pass per person, maximum two people per floor. In this case I got the first one and another flatmate got the second

- 3 hours of freedom each time with the passes given out every 5 days mainly for shopping

- Can only shop in one designated supermarket for each sub-district

The Danish guy I met yesterday happened to bump into us again and he was quite angry. First words out of his mouth were "What the fuck is this?"

My first thought was he didn't get a pass and was pissed when he found out that others did. The whole compound was abuzz and giddy with excitement about these passes. News spread like wildfire so obviously he found out. But he got the same pass as we did. He was angry simply bcause this pass system was a kind of fake freedom and those giddy with joy were fooling themselves.

After the victory lap, I had to register to get out of the compound. They wanted to know my details and reason for leaving. That was easy: shopping. I bumped into a neighbor who was going for her vaccine at a health clinic some 10km away and riding via shared bike -- the only way really. Speaking of which, I saw several people hauling their luggage on shared bikes, most likely going to the train station to flee the city. A considerable feat as the station is 20km away

One of many checkpoints. This one was for entering our sub-district.

I started off biking to the designated store for shopping but abandoned the operation when I saw how long the queue was. Biking would come first. There were so many police checkpoints along the boundaries of our sub-district that I was beginning to wonder if this was any better than compound biking. For the record, if you stick to the sub-district you have about a 3 square kilometer radius. This wasn't looking very good.

Compound in red, sub-district in black. This reminds me when I was a kid and my mother set limits on my biking areas

So I figured to hell with these limits. I would bike anywhere I could in two hours and then save the final hour for shopping when the queues would die down.

To accomplish this I needed to get around several sub-district and district boundaries. The bridges were the way to go, and it turns out not all checkpoints were uniformly enforced. Sometimes there would be a roadblock, other times not. Some cops would take it ultra seriously, others would just be looking at their phone. Once I got past my own sub-district things started to ease off and I wanted to make tracks for the Bund.

These poor souls still locked in their compound. One of many I saw like this.

For shopping, it had to be at designated sites. The queue was moving very slowly so I abandoned to try again later.

Another checkpoint on the many bridges crossing the Suzhou Creek

These guys are about to ride into a trap. There is a police check on the bottom of the bridge. I got around it by lifting my bike on the stairs, over the police tape, then riding down the sidewalk to repeat on the other side.

Another cyclist commented that this scene was "so sad" as the normally bustling Nanjing Road area was devoid of people. This cyclist had gone clear across the city and told me he was amazed at how few restrictions there were, but he did mention about the certain cops who were taking their jobs too seriously. If the point of these checkpoints was social distancing, I suppose they were working just to disperse traffic as people found creative ways around.

Managed to reach The Bund. That building with the flag is Bar Rouge, once a happening nightclub.

A problem has been detected in this city. Lockdown won't solve it.

I spied quite a few of the mobile covid test booths during my ride and stopped in for one of them just to check it out. It's just like the ones in the compound, you show your test code and then they scan it.

Found a random yet unblocked alley. Rare.

Compounds on both sides of this street all locked down.

Nobody in this one, most likely still home confinement.

More than a few people were camping out here homeless. Honestly it might even be better than the compound prisons. Actually yes. Found out these were bases for the food delivery drivers. It makes perfect sense. They would otherwise be locked in their compounds unable to earn money so this enables them to scoot around the city and deliver food. It also explains why many compounds 'went silent' and blocked delivery since the drivers likely had covid.

With about a half hour left to go on my freedom allowance, I looped back to the original store and tried my luck again. Making my way back through the checkpoints into our super-strict subdistrict wasn't easy but I found a way and parked the bike. As expected, the queue was much shorter by now since most people had done their shopping at the beginning and were afraid of running past the deadline (approaching 4pm)

Getting into the store was an adventure in itself. You needed to queue with social distance and then scan a QR code, namely 'location code'. This verifies your covid test results and registers a location on your phone. You then show this to security and they let a certain number of customers in. The whole social distancing thing is meaningless anyway as once inside the store it's packed and nobody follows it anymore. So it was an easy matter to load up on as much stuff as I could possibly carry on the bicycle and get back in time.

Found this on the street ($8) after doing the shopping. We'll call that a discount.

It was a successful taste of freedom but just that -- a taste. Later we learned that the compound authorities rescinded the passes for tomorrow that other neighbors were about to get. I was lucky to have gotten this when I did. The compound will do another 3 days in row of covid testing and let's just hope we're still allowed to walk in the compound, let alone have this chance to go out again. We'll let the propaganda have the last word here.

Central Jingan district, a key commercial area of the Chinese financial hub, said on Saturday it will require all supermarkets and shops to shut and residents to stay home until at least Tuesday. The district plans to carry out COVID mass testing from Sunday until Tuesday. All residents in Jing'an are requested to participate in the screening and stay indoors except time for sampling. Health codes of those who failed to take tests would turn yellow.

Today's ride: 22 km (14 miles)
Total: 125 km (78 miles)

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