Ten Days in Xi’an: Episode Three
Episode 3: The Xi’an lockdown takes a turn. Access to food becomes evermore scarce. Young workers used to eating on the job are particularly stuck. People start trading: cigarettes for noodles ...
Acclaimed, independent journalist Jiang Xue documents the spiral of her city, Xi’an (with a population of more than 13 million residents), into complete lockdown.
3. Lockdown tightened
On December 27, I suddenly hear that stricter control and prevention measures have been introduced for all of Xi’an. The community security office said that the originally implemented order permitting people “to go out to buy food once every two days” was now invalid. Starting today, no one can enter or leave their community.
On the 28th, the whole Internet was shouting, “it’s difficult to buy food!” The gate of the community where I live was locked, and the property management people no longer let everyone stop at the gate and register to buy things from the convenience store inside the fence. I scanned the QR code to join the convenience store group, and then I found out that this may be the only supply channel I can rely on the following day.
After thinking about it later, I believe that the reason is actually very simple. Because of the tighter control, people have no freedom to go shopping, so no matter how plentiful the food is, no matter how upset the people are, it doesn’t matter, the officials are slavishly following orders and people have no way to get what they need.
People are forbidden to leave their homes except to test for COVID-19 infection.
A road in lockdown prevents movement in and out.
On WeChat, the convenience store group was in chaos. There are more than 400 people in the group, and everyone wants to buy food. Everyone is worried that if they don’t register soon, the store will run out of food. The proprietress stipulated that the “queue” would be limited to one hour in the morning, but many people don’t obey the rules. If anyone tried to jump the “queue,” the proprietress would reprimand them or kick them out of the group.
Looking through the information in the community group online, I saw that there were young people in the community asking for help: “Who can sell me a set of tableware? I can’t find a set to buy anywhere.” I left a message and said he could pick it up downstairs in ten minutes. Then I packed up a set of tableware including a bowl, plate, chopsticks, etc., and set out to find the person who asked for help and give him the package.
Across the green area in the yard, I asked about the young man’s situation. The guy said that his home is nearby, but his company is here, so he couldn’t go home after lockdown, but they never cooked at the office, so there was nothing there. He managed to get a saucepan, but he had no cutlery and nowhere to buy it. To express his thanks, he brought me some snacks, including a bag of chicken sausages, a small packet of Snickers, and a box of Telunsu milk.
The next day, it was even worse. I saw two young people in a group saying that they had only eaten instant noodles for a week and they were developing mouth ulcers. One said that she now has only two packs of instant noodles left in stock. Another said he was already in desperate straits with nothing left at all.
I left a message for the two young people, saying that at noon the next day, I would send them a boxed meal. One declined, the other agreed. Before going to bed, I took a piece of beef from the refrigerator, thinking I would make tomato braised beef brisket for this girl the next day. Unexpectedly, she left a message the next day, saying that she had something to eat, so I didn’t have to make anything for her. Even after my repeated entreaties, she still said no need, she was good. I guessed that she declined out of self-esteem or a bit of vigilance; so, I didn’t push it anymore, and just told her that she could contact me if there was anything she needed.
I also started counting my inventory to pass the time. I heard a neighbour say that they made youpomian (a Shaanxi noodle dish) every day in order to save vegetables. I gave them four mushrooms, two tomatoes, and one zucchini, plus a bottle of beer I bought before the lockdown and hung them in front of her door. She was very happy and gave me a few sweet and crunchy apples in return, which was exactly what I wanted.
Then, I read on the internet that many neighbourhoods had begun to “barter” among neighbours, exchanging instant noodles for cigarettes, garlic for potatoes, etc., and I laughed out loud, but I believe this of course is true.
Suddenly, in this state of material scarcity, people began to fuss about food. I constantly wanted to go to the kitchen and take stock of what’s in the fridge. The city has been closed for nearly a week, and the food I purchased in advance has decreased by more than half. I thought about replenishing my stores some more, but among the group of convenience stores, there was no way to get in the online queue. Many people already said that they were hungry and waiting for food, begging the store to distribute the goods earlier. I decided not to get in on the action and support myself via a different route.