beijing masquerade

2003-05-20T08:56:00.000-07:00

visited a friend who lives up in haidian, beijing's university district. walking along the street we passed a big building obviously in some sort of quarantine, young lovers talking to eachother through the iron fence that surrounds the garden, very romantic. yesterday all bars in houhai were closed, maybe they'll have to take that cocktail off the menu again.

2003-05-18T18:04:00.000-07:00

it has been in the air for a couple of days, but i guess we can call it official now, as the latest addition to the cocktail menu at the buddha bar in houhai says: sars is over. now wait for the t-shirts.

2003-05-15T10:25:00.000-07:00

the lama temple around the corner has been closed for tourists since a while now, i guess they try to protect the few old monks who live there. i see the odd tourists in front of the gate in disappointment; fortunately they can visit the nearby confucius temple- i do not think they have any monks there.

2003-05-15T10:21:00.000-07:00

my friend insisted on celebrating another friend's goodbye with a decent cigar, and we had to be rather persistent to find one. the sheraton hotel lobby was dark and empty, most entrances to the landmark towers closed; only in kempinski we saw some guests, and one waitress even remembered where they kept the cigars.

2003-05-13T18:31:00.000-07:00

i seem to remember my flamenco teacher told me vitamin C strengthen the finger nails, and i do believe my nails are growing faster than ever. no other side effects though. yesterday had lunch in the embassy area and it seemed busy as usual, lots of kids going in and out the french school, and diplomats having long lunches under the trees. i wonder how long the closed places will continue, because people definitely want to come out again.

2003-05-11T06:02:00.000-07:00

unfortunately the guys who organise the weekly hike on the great wall decided not to go out this weekend, after our unpleasant yet interesting experience last week with roadblocks and villagers determined to keep us out. stuck in beijing; i heard no more buses or trains go out to the countryside.

2003-05-11T03:37:00.000-07:00

yesterday the supermarket was empty, i mean no people, but full shelves of course. quite a strange experience, and in fact it made me a bit nervous. is it really a bad idea to go shopping these days? avoiding crowded places is recommended, but it seems the usual ones such as buses, the subway, and supermarkets are emptier than ever.

2003-05-11T03:33:00.000-07:00

we went shopping at the pearl market today, and as a matter of fact there were quite a few tourists there. not as many as usual of course, and most of them were wearing masks, and even some had gloves too. quite funny to see them gear up in front of the building. my friend said in normal times it is packed on sundays, but today it was not bad, and we like to believe we got some good bargains because of the slow business.

2003-05-10T09:38:00.000-07:00

yesterday saw myself on tv at a friend's house. a journalist friend of ours had been interviewing people to collect material for a belgian tv show, and we were rather disappointed with the result. they even subtitled me! anyway the program was rather one-sided. on the other hand it might have really been like that a week ago, but a lot has changed already and i guess we tend to forget our fears. today the restaurant terrace was actually full, so we had to sit inside, and the bars in houhai were quite busy too. unfortunately the outside lake-side terraces have all gone; it could be because of the rain, but we suspect the authorities are behind this- maybe it has nothing to do with the epidemic though, next time i will try harder to understand the waiter's explanation.

2003-05-07T08:04:00.000-07:00

my friend came back from singapore today, the dentist there would not treat her because she admitted coming from beijing. on the other hand she said life is going back to normal there, and i have the impression that beijing is also relaxing after last week's panic mood; less masks, more people on the streets, this evening the restaurant was quite busy, but we still got a special disinfectant napkin and the radish drink. maybe the city, and the world, will be struck by panic again in a couple of weeks when hundreds of the people infected over the last weeks will die, completely predictable yes.

2003-05-05T09:07:00.000-07:00

almost every day i hear the sirens of an ambulance racing through the streets, sometimes with a police escort. the ambulance guys seem to be wearing a full-body light green protective suit, with hood and mask; they must be very hot. it was slightly raining when we were sitting on a houhai terrace, i hope it was not the disinfectant said to be sprayed by airplanes over the city at night- but nobody seemed to worry about that.

2003-05-04T10:08:00.000-07:00

my friends and i had hoped that the unpleasant chinese habbit of spitting would become less popular during these days of mass mobilisation and face masks, but it is probably not that easy. i did hear that the official fine for spitting has been increased. just back from a goodbye party of another friend that is leaving; the streets are empty- i even had to wait quite a while to catch a taxi.

2003-05-02T19:35:00.000-07:00

i went to the pharmacy around the corner, and it was nothing like last week: no queues and they even had a new stock of super vitamin C (1gr) that had been sold out last week. everything seemed normal and calm, although i did see some people buying very expensive chinese medicine. i had to cycle a bit further than usual to find a working ATM.

2003-05-02T09:40:00.000-07:00

beijing by night- i walk back from houhai to my house and watch the chinese enjoy the cool summer night. they are playing badminton under the street lights, or sit on the pavement playing cards in the dark. the restaurants are closed, the waiters/cooks are watching tv together, or playing pingpong on an improvised table. no masks anywhere. it seems they disappear with the sunset. maybe people who are afraid just stay inside, and i am only seeing the 10% that thinks life must go on, just like me.

2003-05-02T02:16:00.000-07:00

the chinese tv channel BTV-1 is showing a program called something like 'fighting against sars' every night, in english. they interview people at the grassroot level, and it is quite interesting to see how everybody seems to be involved now; the whole city seems to be mobilised. slogans are appearing on giant billboards, in the usual funny english, e.g. 'disarm sars'.

2003-05-02T02:08:00.000-07:00

yesterday spent half the day at houhai, a quiet lake in the centre of beijing. by 4pm all terraces were full, and very few of the people parading along the banks were masked. finally we found a part of town where the fever does not keep people away. my friend and i discussed a project to keep us busy during these forced holidays, we are launching a website called beijingSARSfever.

2003-04-30T20:59:00.000-07:00

every morning i take my temperature. selling thermometers must be a gold mine these days. in my friend's building everybody has to take his temperature before entering the compound. instead of using the old mercury ones the guards keep in a disinfectant, he carries his own digital thermometer.

2003-04-30T20:55:00.000-07:00

the weather is great in beijing, summer has arrived- it could have been so nice.

2003-04-30T20:51:00.000-07:00

my mother told me i was on tv in belgium, after a friend of mine interviewed me last friday. i do not remember what i said, probably something about re-evaluating the situation everyday to decide whether it is time to go, and that leaving is much easier than trying to imagine when to come back, because it will take long before the situation gets better than it is today.

2003-04-29T08:56:00.000-07:00

ended up in the tree lounge with the foreign party crowd and it seemed like any other party. these kids definitely don't care.

2003-04-29T03:29:00.000-07:00

just received sms from my friend in xiamen, she is still stuck in the plane after 3 hours and people are getting a bit nervous.

2003-04-29T02:41:00.000-07:00

my friend who is studying chinese says his complete university is put in quarantine. foreign students have received special passes and can only go out to buy an air ticket or to go to the bank. the message seems clear: the authorities want them to leave. the university say they will not restart courses until the end of june.

2003-04-29T02:37:00.000-07:00

my friend who left this morning for singapore just gave me a very worried call from xiamen, south china where their flight is having a stopover. she said in beijing all passengers passed the temperature control, but when their temperature was again measured in xiamen, two people were taken off the plane to a hospital for further tests. now all 130 remaining passengers are waiting in the plane with their masks on, in fear that the plane will not continue to singapore and that they will all be put into quarantine in xiamen. meanwhile her phone battery is running low.

2003-04-29T02:32:00.000-07:00

just spent three hours discussing the pest on a sunny terrace with two friends, complete with statistics and graphs. knowing the figures and being able to anticipate new numbers might be giving us the false impression that we have things under control.

2003-04-28T21:08:00.000-07:00

my usual sunday outing to go and hike on the great wall with a bunch of foreigners was a difficult one. we met a medical control post on the highway, where masked policemen and medical officers in white were taking temperatures and disinfecting cars. it took some negotiating to get our bus full of unmasked foreigners through, they seem determined to contain the disease in beijing. the authorities gave us an escort; some of my fellow hikers objected strongly against one of those medical officers boarding our bus - they are a risk group - so the guy to a taxi. however, at the next roadblock at the entrance of a small village he was unable to convince the villagers to let us through - they really fear outsiders. u-turn and we started walking somewhere else.

2003-04-24T03:26:00.000-07:00

just read an article in FEER, and indeed the disaster is going to happen on the chinese countryside. here in the city things will get under control, but what about those millions of people without access to decent health care?

2003-04-24T03:19:00.000-07:00

i try to hold my breath in the elevator, but 18 floors is a long way.

2003-04-24T03:18:00.000-07:00

i call my friend who has been keeping statistics, and he tells me beijing is surely overtaking hongkong. the numbers released now are not really representative of the daily growth in new cases, as the reporting system is still expanding. he says next week we should have a clearer idea if the situation is really escalating. but the total number of cases in beijing will definitely go over 5000 next month. his rational approach reassures me, and suddenly i am not so convinced i should be organising my escape.

2003-04-24T03:13:00.000-07:00

my mother calls again to tell me to eat more vitamin C. i have only found pills of 100mg, but she says i should take 2 or 3gr.

2003-04-24T03:12:00.000-07:00

less people on the street today, all schools are closed and people are leaving in masses to their hometowns, exactly the opposite of what the government hoped to achieve by reducing the usual 1 week labour day holidays to only three days.

2003-04-24T03:10:00.000-07:00

this evening's restaurant welcomed us with disinfecting napkins and a cold yellow radish drink. the second floor is not in use by lack of clients.

2003-04-24T03:09:00.000-07:00

last night had a minor panic attack, hot/cold, short of breath, and tea did not help.

2003-04-23T02:27:00.000-07:00

last day at work today. office closed till 8 may! life's cool. it's a holidaaaaaaaaaay!!!!!

2003-04-23T02:09:00.000-07:00

yesterday we were the only people at a tibetan restaurant, the service was great. later we noticed some bars have already closed down, like latinos. on sanlitun the guys are even more desperately trying to get people in.

2003-04-23T02:04:00.000-07:00

over the last few days people with masks have increased dramatically, i guess about 50% is now wearing one, or even two.

2003-04-23T02:02:00.000-07:00

the elevator smelled like a swimming pool this morning.

2003-04-23T02:01:00.000-07:00

my friend flew out this morning, judged non-essential by his company.

2003-04-23T01:52:00.000-07:00

radish is more expensive than ever, the chinese think it helps. the teacher also lit up some incense sticks in class, and students cleaned their desks before sitting down.