this is truly the darkest of ages
There is no point ever really celebrating a loosening of government restrictions in China, because it's always, always a lie.
While this week i was able to get in and out of my village three times with just a quick temperature check, this morning when i went to the market i was made to show my travel permit to the checkpoint guards, as were the people in front of me. When i left with my bags of goodies, another local who had been banned from entering was having a shouting match with the guard. There is no indication that the threat level went up. On the contrary, China has had next to no new infections for a couple of months now. Doesn't matter. The Party is Lucy and freedom is the ball. We are all Charlie Brown.
It's so exhausting to live here.
Getting my money out of the country is one of my prerequisites for bugging out. I have another bank account where my previous jobs' earnings are still funding food and rent here, but getting one year's worth of cash out to a banking system in the free world means i can survive for at least a year wherever i end up.
The second prerequisite is for a destination country to open its borders to international travelers.
I would love to go to Taiwan, but so far their borders are still closed. Aside from Taiwan, i would prefer to go somewhere that isn't one of my passport countries, since both of them have done a poor job containing the virus. I'm worried that when the borders reopen, they will only reopen to people coming from countries that have their shit under control. Leaving the relatively corona-free bubble of Asia/Australia could end me up on a block list for further travel.
It'd be the perfect time to visit my dad in New Zealand, to be honest. Unfortunately their borders are closed too. My step brother has been in Thailand for the past few months, but their airports are closed so you can't easily get in. Japan is closed to tourists from many countries, including China. Malaysia, Philippines and Vietnam are closed to tourists, period. I think South Korea might be open, but i'm not sure i want to quarantine there for 14 days, given i can't speak the language and it is relatively expensive.
I have a few friends in Germany who would like to see me back. This weekend some Berlin nightclubs reopened their beer gardens, so it seems there might still be a bit of a summer rave season even if it is all thinned out like a hazy morning crowd. That's the best crowd anyway. They're talking about June 15 for reopening the land borders, although i'm not sure my British passport will hold much clout after Brexit.
Basically, i am the fuck stuck here for at least another month. My reduced hours continue till July, and it's not clear yet if the company is going to do layoffs, continue the furlough/reduced hours or go back to normal. I really don't want to go back to normal because 4 days is already too many days. I am just wishing at least one country in the region has reopened by then.
We are living the nationalists' wildest fantasy - an entire planet where every country has closed itself off to outsiders.
The day the Schengen countries reopen to one another i think i will cry. They never should have closed, of course, but right now they're looking like the only countries in the world that actually care enough about human society to plot a course back out of this nightmare.
While this week i was able to get in and out of my village three times with just a quick temperature check, this morning when i went to the market i was made to show my travel permit to the checkpoint guards, as were the people in front of me. When i left with my bags of goodies, another local who had been banned from entering was having a shouting match with the guard. There is no indication that the threat level went up. On the contrary, China has had next to no new infections for a couple of months now. Doesn't matter. The Party is Lucy and freedom is the ball. We are all Charlie Brown.
It's so exhausting to live here.
Getting my money out of the country is one of my prerequisites for bugging out. I have another bank account where my previous jobs' earnings are still funding food and rent here, but getting one year's worth of cash out to a banking system in the free world means i can survive for at least a year wherever i end up.
The second prerequisite is for a destination country to open its borders to international travelers.
I would love to go to Taiwan, but so far their borders are still closed. Aside from Taiwan, i would prefer to go somewhere that isn't one of my passport countries, since both of them have done a poor job containing the virus. I'm worried that when the borders reopen, they will only reopen to people coming from countries that have their shit under control. Leaving the relatively corona-free bubble of Asia/Australia could end me up on a block list for further travel.
It'd be the perfect time to visit my dad in New Zealand, to be honest. Unfortunately their borders are closed too. My step brother has been in Thailand for the past few months, but their airports are closed so you can't easily get in. Japan is closed to tourists from many countries, including China. Malaysia, Philippines and Vietnam are closed to tourists, period. I think South Korea might be open, but i'm not sure i want to quarantine there for 14 days, given i can't speak the language and it is relatively expensive.
I have a few friends in Germany who would like to see me back. This weekend some Berlin nightclubs reopened their beer gardens, so it seems there might still be a bit of a summer rave season even if it is all thinned out like a hazy morning crowd. That's the best crowd anyway. They're talking about June 15 for reopening the land borders, although i'm not sure my British passport will hold much clout after Brexit.
Basically, i am the fuck stuck here for at least another month. My reduced hours continue till July, and it's not clear yet if the company is going to do layoffs, continue the furlough/reduced hours or go back to normal. I really don't want to go back to normal because 4 days is already too many days. I am just wishing at least one country in the region has reopened by then.
We are living the nationalists' wildest fantasy - an entire planet where every country has closed itself off to outsiders.
The day the Schengen countries reopen to one another i think i will cry. They never should have closed, of course, but right now they're looking like the only countries in the world that actually care enough about human society to plot a course back out of this nightmare.