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Because, regardless of foreigners or locals, Shanghai’s severe lockdown and food during the period have raised the topic of how to leave Shanghai or emigrate.
Shanghai, China was closed for more than two months due to the new crown epidemic, but was lifted in early June. Ms. Lian, who has lived there for many years, said her family was about to leave.
Ms. Lian started her own family and business in Shanghai. Because of various considerations such as children’s education, she and her husband were already preparing to leave Shanghai before the epidemic. She said that the closure of Shanghai since March has disrupted the plan, but it has also deepened their determination to leave.
“Having lived in many cities at home and abroad, Shanghai is the place where I can best balance a comfortable life and career prospects. But this lockdown policy and all kinds of chaos have left me disappointed and hopeless…I realize that it is a special place. It is a Chinese city that is still not immune to the incident,” she said.
Ms. Lian is one of many fleeing Shanghai and mainland China. Regardless of foreigners or locals, the severe lockdown measures in Shanghai and the chaos of food shortages during this period have caused many people to start thinking and plan to leave the city or immigrate to foreign countries. The homonym of “run”, which means immigrating overseas).
Some residential areas in Shanghai were blocked again, and residents protested loudly inside the fence
What is “run”?
As an Internet term, “run” has appeared on the Chinese Internet in the past year or two. Before the epidemic, it was more focused on discussing Chinese women and sexual minorities who felt that the social environment had become more unfriendly and wanted to escape. For example, even if women have received higher education, they are still called leftover women, thinking that they have no contribution to society; men cannot be feminized, and so on.
Due to the epidemic in Shanghai and the escape phenomenon after the unblocking, the term became popular and became the latest term widely popular among the younger generation in China after “involution” and “lying”.
According to the China Zhihu website, “Run” refers to the name of immigrating overseas, and “China Resources Vanguard” is a joke name given by netizens to Chinese immigrants to various countries overseas. In fact, after the outbreak of the new crown epidemic, “Run” has appeared on the Chinese Internet from time to time, mostly referring to the phenomenon that young people are subjected to various squeezes in social life, emigration and intending to emigrate.
Since Shanghai was closed in March, online citizens’ discussions and searches on immigration issues have soared. Discussions about “moisturizing” exploded on the Chinese Internet overnight, becoming the most popular word on the Internet today.
Therefore, various discussions and analyses on “run” are dubbed “run school” by Chinese netizens. The “China Resources Vanguard” website dedicated to discussing moisturizing was established, attracting thousands of netizens to participate in the discussion.
Unlike the popular words “lay flat” or “involution” in previous years, which describe how helpless China’s younger generations are under social pressure, and thus give up the career or academic competition, “run” focuses on the practice of escape and immigration. actions and demands.
Xiang Biao, director of the Institute of Social Anthropology of the Max Planck Institute in Germany, told the BBC Chinese analysis that the people who talk about “moistening” and even “lying flat” on the Internet are basically young people. It is very difficult for them to immigrate, and they are people who can neither get out nor lie down.
“Living in Shanghai, how do you lie down? Unless you have three apartments,” he said. Rather than “rolling in” or “laying flat,” he explained, running is a sign of more intense social pressure.
Professor Xiang added: “There is a big change from ‘inner curl’, ‘lying flat’ to ‘moistening’. ‘Lying flat’ and ‘involution’ are about pressure, while ‘moistening’ is plus pressure And repression. The so-called repression includes emotional aspects, that is, people’s lifestyles, or gender is related to this. For example, women with higher education are criticized as leftover women, saying that they have not contributed to society. Boys behave like femininity Being criticized and suppressed, these all cause young people’s desire or discussion to want to ‘moisten’… So ‘moistening’ is not just pressure but repression.”
After the closure of Shanghai at the end of March, among the entries related to Run on the China Zhihu website, the entry “What is Run” has more than 8 million page views. Among them, a netizen who signed HAHA replied: “There are three choices for Chinese youth: roll, lie down, and run.” He added: “Sadly, some people have neither the energy and perseverance to roll, nor the background to allow themselves to lie flat. Or run, work day after day in a strange city and a strange factory, fantasizing about buying a three-bedroom apartment, marrying Bai Fumei, and cutting other people’s leeks.”
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In the Internet industry, which is the most popular among Chinese young people, a group of programmers are dissatisfied with the industry’s common high-intensity overtime “996” work mode (working from 9:00 am to 9:00 pm every day, 6 days a week), they are on the Internet Start a protest movement. They proposed that everyone come home from get off work on time and created a “996” blacklist.
To moisten or not to moisten?
A few years ago, Chery (Xue Rui), a native of Shanghai, was returning to Shanghai with his foreign husband, and now he is thinking about leaving. In her early 30s, she said that her family, like millions of Shanghai residents, had been through a tough time during the lockdown in the past few months.
“Many people say they are envious of me, because my husband is a foreigner, so I want to ‘run’ and have a back up (back up), but I have been away for so many years, and when I return home (Shanghai), now I have to I go? But where can we go,” she said.
Xuerui said that although her husband is a foreigner and could find a way to leave the country during the blockade, she told reporters that she finally returned to her hometown of Shanghai to settle down and start a family. Her husband has just started a business, and every step is trembling. If you want to start thinking now “It’s really not easy to leave.”
Xue Rui said that 90% of her friends around her started to think about “running”, “I have a friend, she used to be really patriotic and never thought about leaving China, but a few days ago I suddenly discussed it with me. ‘Run’ thing, she told me to leave a way back,”.
Eileen, a writer working in Shanghai, told BBC Chinese that during the epidemic, she was locked up for more than three months, which made her wake up and start to reflect. She said that in the past three months, the chaos in Shanghai, from robbing vegetables to the inability of the elderly to see a doctor, even if everyone worked hard to save themselves, there were still too many sad things happening in front of them.
“We were all covered up under a false pretence. Some people jumped off the building before in our community. Later, all these things were blocked on the Internet… But we were really woken up. Shanghai can’t be alone. , it’s not an insulator, it’s as free as I thought it would be,” she said.
Aileen said that in addition to the health code, Shanghai people have to test for nucleic acid every three days. When going to any community or taking the subway, they must have a nucleic acid code. She said that she has a friend who is a famous composer. She was asked if she wanted to go abroad. At that time, he said that Shanghai has its own underground culture, so he has no plans to go abroad. But a few days ago, he suddenly asked me, “So, where are you going? When I asked him what he meant, he smiled and told me, “Where is Run?”
Erin also told the BBC that “moisturizing” is a long process, and what is most needed is courage and determination, but this Shanghai epidemic is like a turning point. She previously thought that Shanghai could be alone. The illusion is shattered.
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In addition to the health code, Shanghai now requires a nucleic acid test every three days. If you go to any community or take the subway, you must also have a nucleic acid code.
“Criticism and Desire”
Mr. Jin, who has been engaged in asset management in Shanghai for many years, explained to reporters that because his business is to help wealthy people in the city manage their assets at home and abroad, he has a docking and cooperative relationship with many immigration consulting companies or law firms. He said that the cooperating immigration consulting company received business in the first four months of this year, which is already the business volume of the past year. In other words, the number of immigration cases this year has so far been three times higher than in previous years, “I estimate there will be more.”
Mr. Jin said that people usually think that immigrants are very rich, but the actual situation is that the middle class, especially the intellectual group, are also beginning to think about ‘money’. He said that those who meet the conditions once, the application goal is to go to the United States or Vancouver, Canada to enjoy their old age; the younger ones want to go to Australia.
“After this incident in Shanghai (the closure of the city), none of my guests are super rich, and they also want to leave. They think that the cultural environment is becoming more and more oppressive, and they hope that the whole family will immigrate and stop greedy for living there. How much money can be made domestically,” he said.
According to a Tencent News report in mid-April, searches related to “immigration” on online platforms such as Baidu surged on March 28, the first week of the lockdown. According to the data, searches related to “conditions to move to Canada” surged nearly 30 times at the time. On April 3, the government announced that it “strictly adhere to the social cleanup and unswervingly”, and the “overall search index” for immigrants on that day rose to 440%.
Xiang Biao analyzed to the BBC that at present, profit is only a cultural phenomenon, and has not yet been transformed into a population phenomenon. Many people who want to “moisturize” will later benefit by studying abroad. In other words, there may be a new wave of studying abroad. But for those who can’t get rid of it, “the social consequences may be more serious. What is expressed is a kind of anxiety and disappointment. It will have a direct impact on these young people who discuss ‘moisturizing’, their future marriage, and their desire to start a family and have children. The direct impact of the outflowing population is much greater. They will be more cautious about having children in the future.”
Therefore, Xiang Biao emphasized that “running” is not only a passive escape, many people know that they can’t walk away, and the discussion itself is a kind of criticism and a desire for an ideal life state, “But what is missing here? What is missing is how to change the status quo. But for young people, in such a particularly depressing situation, they cannot be asked too much. This requires educators and scholars to think together.”
“Therefore, it is still positive to discuss Run, that is, to use this language to open up the channeling of the sense of oppression in reality, at least to express ideas.”