WHEN Angela Sy flew into Shanghai at the end of the usual Chinese New Year holiday, China was beginning to gird itself for a long, grueling lockdown.
Just a few days before, on January 23, the government had effectively closed off Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province and considered the epicenter of the disease that would become a worldwide pandemic.
By the first week of February in Shanghai, most shops were closed and streets were empty.
At the design agency where she worked, Sy got on a conference call with their management. “We didn’t know how the virus was going to behave — will it get worse or get better?” she recalled of that meeting. “But we got news that China announced an extension of the Chinese New Year holiday, effectively giving us an extra week of no work.”
The agency decided that they would work from home starting that week and the week after. And then, of course, Sy has barely left home since.
Living on her own with just cats for company, Sy has been in lockdown for six weeks and counting.
Currently, “life is slowly going back to normal [in Shanghai], but my office is still requiring us to work from home,” she said. Her apartment complex is still off-limits to outsiders, and whenever she needs to go out for groceries and supplies, she needs to have her temperature checked when she returns.
She shares to SPIN Life what life is like during long-term quarantine. While how the government and other services work are vastly different in the Philippines and China, Sy’s experience could very well be a glimpse of our foreseeable future.
(Editor’s Note: Some of the quotations below are also taken, with permission, from her personal blog.)
SPIN Life: How do you keep yourself entertained and keep in touch with your friends?
Angela Sy: First of all, if you get bored, count yourself lucky. Others do not have the luxury to be bored. Others are fighting this disease, while others are taking care of the sick. Others need to go out to make a living. So do not take the privilege to be safe for granted.
[Lockdown is easier] if you’re an introvert, which I am. All I need is an internet connection and music and I’m all good. Crash Landing On You was an inevitable part of my quarantine because [everyone was] tweeting about it.
I don’t need much social interaction. WeChat and Twitter are enough for me. Although my other clingy quarantined friends do bug me to doing e-numans/ digidrinks/ zoom inom once in a while.
SPIN Life: How does work from home look like for you?
AS: [At the start] there [were] lots of operational growing pains. [Some] had to go to our office to pick up their computers, and bring them home. One designer had to carry her Mac up five flights of stairs.
I work for a creative agency, so talking and briefing and discussing is a big part of our process. Clients also always want to meet face to face, but because my clients were also undergoing quarantine all meetings easily transitioned to Zoom or Skype.
The strange thing about working from home is, once you get into it, you will find that there is no concept of end of day anymore, so you end up working longer hours. I wake up at 730 and am basically at my desk already, because it’s literally five steps from my bedroom. My clients and colleagues are all at home, so they don’t need to ‘leave the office’, so everyone is plugged in all the time. I get more emails at night now, more calls, and I find myself still answering them all throughout the night.
WFH has blurred the lines of when I should stop or start working, because my office is right here wherever I am.
SPIN Life: How do you get your food and groceries?
AS: Even before this virus, online sites, food apps, and delivery (we call kuaidi) is the norm. In China we have food apps called Ele.me and Baidu Waimai, and I can confidently say 99% of all restaurants/ establishments are on there. You can think “What food do I want right now?” and you can find it and you get it at your door within an hour.
For groceries, it’s the same. Hema is the most popular one, but even they suffered stock shortages for a bit. Basically you had to reserve food a day before and stocks were “booked” by 9 a.m. every day. But Hema is back to normal now and they can deliver in as fast as 20 minutes. Back during the [heavy lockdown] I [also] went to other grocery services like Epermarket and Kateandkimi.
SPIN Life: So they deliver straight to your door?
AS: When the food arrives, the deliveries aren’t allowed into my compound. They need to call me that they’ve arrived and either I go down to pick them up, or they leave it at a designated area on my compound gate.
One time I went to get my groceries about forty minutes after the delivery guy called. When I arrived the table didn’t have my package. I assumed another tenant had taken my orders by mistake! I had to send a message in our compound chat asking for the guy who took my one kilo kimchi and six pack of beer and a week’s worth of food to kindly bring my stuff back, please. I went back again after a few hours and they did bring it back, thankfully.
Whenever I need to go out, I tie my hair up and put on a mask. I use my elbows or my keys or a lighter to press anything, like elevator buttons. Never my hands. If there's a crowd, I steer clear. If I see someone walking towards me I make sure we are on opposite sides of the lane, trying to keep a meter apart at least.
Any packages I have that I've brought from outside I leave near my door, because I will disinfect them all in a bit. I unpack what I have brought, and sanitize any glass (like bottles) or smooth, metallic surfaces (like a laptop). I go to my bathroom and wash my hands. I take off my mask, careful to only touch the ear straps and not the front, and leave it by the door for reuse.
SPIN Life: What was the lowest point in your six weeks of solitary lockdown?
AS: There was a lot of misinformation during the height of the virus, spurred on by lots of social media theorists and alarmists — some of my friends included.
I broke down one time when I saw the news of certain compounds confiscating/ killing pets, because the neighborhood ‘association’ thought they could carry or spread the virus. China is not the best place for animal welfare, and because of the panic and uncertainty I didn’t know how my neighborhood would react — all it takes is for one crazy misinformed person to declare a vendetta against all pets.
I cried an entire night when I read the news, that was the one time I really felt powerless and broke down. As in hagulgol.
SPIN Life: What’s the best thing you’ve learned during this time?
AS: Sing “Happy Birthday” while washing your hands. It’s a 15 seconder. [Sing] “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” if you want to hit 20 seconds.
And ventilate your house.
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