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German expat in Shanghai freaks out: "This system is ridiculous and a disgrace"

2022-04-21T13:03:30.383Z


Millions of people in Shanghai are suffering from the corona lockdown. Food and medicine are scarce, the city administration is overwhelmed. A German expatriate vents his anger on a Chinese translator who wants to send him to a quarantine camp: nine minutes of concentrated anger from someone who can afford to protest loudly.


Enlarge image

Shanghai in lockdown:

The corona measures are hitting millions of people hard, and some are venting their frustration and anger loudly

Photo: Alex Plavevski/EPA

The images from Shanghai are depressing and frightening.

Large parts of the 26 million metropolis have mutated into a ghost town for three weeks, isolating people either in their homes or in the dreaded quarantine camps.

The city administration was ill-prepared for the Corona outbreak: you are not able to provide the trapped people with food, medicine and corona tests on a regular basis.

The result: people suffer from hunger, wait days for medicine and are afraid of being taken to the huge quarantine collection halls.

Anyone who is allowed to stay in their apartment usually has to organize their supply themselves via cell phone.

The filmed scenes, which have been circulating on social media, depict human hardship and the image of a government not in control of the situation.

Hundreds of people screaming from the balconies of their skyscrapers.

Elderly citizens being dragged away by police in hazmat suits.

Starving cats on the street.

Drones circling over apartment blocks.

And little robots on the street who keep shouting "Stay at home. Disinfect your hands".

Against this background, the recording of a telephone conversation that a German citizen is having with a Chinese translator in Shanghai is currently going viral.

The German and his family have apparently been in quarantine at home for 15 days since the man tested positive in early April.

Now the translator wants to send him to one of the big quarantine camps, but the man refuses.

Until the CDC (Center for Disease Control, the health authority in Shanghai) comes by and tests him positive, he won't go anywhere.

He was "definitely not positive".

If the CDC doesn't get it organized to test him, it's simply not his problem: "Get the CDC over here, take a test, and then we can talk."

"A shame. Ridiculous. A joke."

So much for the factual part.

The approximately nine-minute recording of the telephone conversation, which was held in English, is above all a loud outburst of anger and constant insults.

The man vents his frustration and anger at the translator, who definitely tries to appear at the beginning ("if the government says you have to go to the camp, you have to go"), but at the end can hardly get a word in.

Words like "shame on China", the actions of the Chinese government are "a complete joke", the city administration in Shanghai is less organized than a kindergarten and resorts to "ridiculous" measures.

The people in Shanghai are not afraid of a Covid infection, but above all of having to put themselves in the hands of the CDC.

Loudly complaining in China is a privilege for foreigners

The recording shows that there is also great anger among foreign residents in Shanghai about China's corona management.

Above all, however, it shows that foreign professionals have the privilege of expressing this anger loudly.

A Chinese resident of Shanghai should not allow himself such massive criticism of the government, especially not this tone.

He or she would risk being immediately picked up by the police and arrested.

This fact adds another sad dimension to the outburst on the phone.

The conversation is further evidence that the exodus of the still privileged expats from China is likely to accelerate in the coming months.

Many foreign skilled workers are turning their backs on China - they are giving up their once attractive jobs in Shanghai or Beijing and are never coming back.

The withdrawal poses new problems for many German companies with strong China business - even when the corona lockdown in Shanghai is over.

la/mmo

Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2022-04-21

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