During the Shanghai lockdown, we took up watching The Wire for the first time. We even joked we were released too soon (after 61 days) because we only finished the final season a few days after our release. We semi-binged it with Chinese Hanzi subtitles, under the guise of making it more educational. It’s interesting […]

Today we had sushi, walked, and cycled. The best part is seeing everyone outside & friends sharing photos on WeChat and knowing that they feel the same relief. It’s only shot with my phone, but I wanted to document the streets, even if only for myself: Being back very quickly feels normal — familiar at […]

And just like that, we’re out after 61 days. The baoans have been letting people slip out — hours before midnight — saying “Don’t go too far”. People are on the street, energized, happy, looking at everything for the first time. Stores are open or stocking up for tomorrow’s opening. It feels monumental, the way […]

There’s a huge overlap between politics, culture, and language. And even though I’d like to focus on the latter, China’s future will also affect many potential Mandarin learners — especially those not in China now, but looking to study or work in China in the future. Regardless of whether you agree with zero covid or […]

Day 50 and I got a rare “临时出门单”, so I walked around the Yangpu district for a few hours, which is the hardest-hit area in Shanghai now.   Main roads have some traffic, but curbs are empty — except for around the area of two hospitals I passed. I saw many seniors who had to […]

Day 46 of the Shanghai lockdown is about to end and yet we wait for our release. We’ve had our freedom severely limited, further still — to the point where we cannot buy food ourselves and have to rely on rations, whatever the powers higher up are deciding to send our way. One of the […]

Many Shanghai-based expats (like me) have seen their Twitter accounts grow — explode — in terms of impressions & followers. There’s a lot more to talk about Shanghai than during normal days. The strict lockdown has given us and everyone we know new challenges, which are not just different for each district, but also change […]

I was curious about the many dabai’s in Shanghai and found one in my compound who was happy to sit down with me to tell me why he signed up & more. I think we were both a bit nervous — he for maybe saying something wrong — me of his leader coming around the […]

Day 24. At night I dream of my brother who treats me to some Dutch food, the familiar place in our hometown. I want to pay him back my part but for some reason cannot. I doze off and I dream that a positive case lives in our bathroom. It has no shape, I just […]

Living abroad puts you in the middle of two countries, a bit of both but neither whole. I’ve been living in China for four years now, and it’s easy to dismiss my opinion or views from all sides. People from the Netherlands will ask me how I can possibly enjoy a country with such a […]

Tuesday the 12th of April, day 12 of our lockdown. We receive self-tests and need to share the photos in the WeChat group of the building. There are 5 floors, about 4 households on each, so about 60 people live here — 39 of which are in the group. We’ve already been photographing our self-test […]

Usually, when you read a genre-setting novel, it’s really cliché — such as Dune for sci-fi — because the books that followed all borrowed inspiration from its pages. And The Lord of the Rings does feel similar to other books (or games) I’ve spent time with, such as The Wheel of Time, or even World […]