Spring has come. It came promptly in the first week of March and it came with force. The temperatures rose like at home in early summer and the plants and trees exploded. Amazing that cherry trees go from their wintry, leafless state into full bloom within a week. Just as quickly as the splendor comes, it goes again. No sooner had the magnolias blossomed than their petals fell to the ground.
Blue skies every day, it's beautiful and reminds me of southern regions like Italy or Southern California, where good weather is taken for granted and not even a thought that it could be otherwise, let alone sympathize with those who starve and freeze under gray clouds in the north. The weather was one of the reasons why I wanted to leave Germany. I love all seasons, but the Central European winter lasts what feels like six months plus. Especially from March you long for warmer temperatures and brightness, but they just don't want to come and every year you come to the conviction that winter is deep in the country's bones and only really gives way when it's already is early summer. There are sometimes frosty days well into May and old farmer's rules say that frost-sensitive plants may only be sown or put out after the ice saints. That's why I'm happy every morning when I pull the curtains aside, I'm happy about the sun, the brightness and the blue sky.
You hang out in riverside cafes and you soon realize that you should complement your attire with some shorts. After all, you will wear shorts for a long time.
But summer doesn't come that easily. Here, too, the temperatures go up and down. As soon as clouds cover the sun and there is still air coming from the north, temperatures fall back into the single digits. Corona numbers are increasing Parallel to spring, Shanghai is currently recording the strongest increase in corona infections since the beginning of the pandemic. What is seen here as an increase would lead to a total all-clear in Germany. 300 infections in one month per 26 million inhabitants. But China's zero-Covid policy views this development with concern. This whole pandemic is beginning to bring onerous restrictions. For one thing, I haven't even been allowed to leave Shanghai so far, so I haven't been able to travel to the country during the four-week spring break. It would have been good to fly to a southern province, e.g. to Guangxi, which has fantastically beautiful landscapes. After all, I called the blog "My China". In the meantime I would have to rename it "My Shanghai". The second, even more glaring limitation is that you cannot fly home. You can, but you can hardly go back. As with my entry last September, there are almost no flights and if there are, then these completely overpriced charter flights from the Foreign Trade Chamber for 3000 euros. After that you sit in a quarantine hotel for at least two weeks, costing 1000 euros per week. Add to that the many tests in Frankfurt and you lose around 6,000 euros. My institution, which belongs to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, says strictly that they only pay the flat rate for the flights, i.e. less than 2000 euros. You don't necessarily have to fly back and forth for ecological reasons. When you go abroad, it's also part of keeping your distance, but sometimes personal or health reasons force you to travel home, and it's reassuring to know that you could come home at any time, even if you don't use it at all. When I went to China, it looked like the pandemic would end within the next half year. That was a mistake. Almost everything is closed in my neighborhood.
Empty cities are a common sight in Germany, especially at weekends, medium-sized cities are often deserted. But it is very unusual for Shanghai when all the subways are suddenly so empty as in the following photos.
Usually the subway stations look like this.
Online teaching I've been teaching online since Monday. There are the same difficulties here as in Germany. Some students may benefit from it, others find it difficult. In any case, everyone says that there is less pressure because subjects like art and sports cannot be taught and the breaks are at least real breaks because there is no gymnastics to be done. I made hamster purchases because I was warned that all residential areas will be gradually shut down in the next few days, but somehow everything is going very moderately here in Shanghai. Maybe my purchases weren't even necessary. In any case, you won't starve. There are also delivery services. However, you have to be able to use Chinese apps. When the weather is good, it's actually nice. Summer temperatures, shorts and peace. The birds wake me up in the morning, after school the children play in the yard of the neighboring house and bright laughter sounds, in the evening I go to the school sports field, jog my laps and see the lighted up rooms of the houses, with voices and music coming out of the wide open windows in the evenings. On a roof terrace someone is standing in the dark in the balmy evening air, silently watching me on my laps. It's a strangely ideal world and I feel a longing that I find difficult to grasp - perhaps after childhood days, when people in Germany lived in a similar way. It almost feels like a village, as if time had stood still in the 26-million-strong metropolis. People in my neighborhood know me, I'm the European. If I just walk into a store, they already know what I want to buy and they're happy when I formulate my wish in Chinese. China triggers a longing for the forgotten. I expected a lot, but not this. I didn't even know that such longings even existed. Now, late in the evening, while I'm typing these lines at my desk with the window wide open, I can hear Chinese music drifting across and feel a sense of security in the strangeness. If I were to name one of the biggest differences between China and Germany, it might be that in China the community is the most important thing, while in Germany the focus is on the individual - with all the advantages and disadvantages, with all the consequences - in both cultures .
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