Silent Protest

Our compound has officially been designated as unsealed. But surprise surprise… it’s not. This is the 35th day that Denny and I have spent behind our gate, and no-one can adequately explain why these unsealing ‘rules’ don’t apply to us. Somebody somewhere has decided that it’s just easiest to keep us behind a padlock.

We’re still totally fine. It’s not that we’re getting used to it; we’re just trying to let the nonsense wash over us. The good news is that we’re no longer constantly worrying about food supplies. Government rations and collective purchases arrive in bulk at random intervals, triggering impromptu rounds of Vegetable Tetris and Egg Jenga. Most of our neighbours are Chinese, so these deliveries skew towards the dumpling and the wonton. There’s sadly no chance of organising group purchases of Haribo and Valium.

We’ve both been receiving little burns and cuts to our hands, evidence not only of how much time we’re spending preparing food, but also of our general cognitive decline. In the shower this morning, I forgot whether I had already shampooed or not. So maybe I did it twice today, I honestly don’t know.

I can’t speak for the whole city, each compound has it’s own set of circumstances, and all I can do is describe our own. One unifying factor is that we’ve all been asked to share photos of our negative test results in community WeChat groups, so at least these have become a creative outlet for silent protest. Apart from that, there’s nothing any of us can do but continue playing our parts in this theatre of the absurd.


For the Instagram version, see here.
For the Facebook version, see here.
For the LinkedIn version, see here.