After almost two months of total lockdown, Shanghai is gradually reopening. On this page, Sixth Tone will bring you regular updates on the city as we're seeing it.People chatting across a fence on a sunny day. A line at the grocery store. A strawberry ice cream handed to you at a convenience store door. It may sound normal elsewhere, but this last weekend in Shanghai, they felt like little miracles.After a few false starts, the reopening of Shanghai has begun, one downtown district at a time. Many residents of Changning, a district just northwest of the city center, spent the weekend outside for the first time in just over 50 days.This wasn’t the first time people have been allowed out, but it’s the largest scale move toward opening since the start of the lockdown. Across the district, communities allowed designated stores to open to locals, and issued exit passes allowing residents to go out. A few subway lines are even running, taking a few passengers to airports and train stations.
Packaging boxes are piled up next to a compound gate in Changning District, Shanghai, May 23, 2022. Dave Cohen/Sixth Tone
It came as a surprise to us. Shanghai has laid out a rough reopening timeline for the end of June, but details are scarce, and the great majority of the city is still locked down.I got my pass Friday, and at first I wasn’t sure what I could do with it: it says on the back that each household is to send only one person to the shops every other day, for no more than three hours, and asks you to write what time you leave so they can check.The truth was a lot more accomodating. The next day, our “building monitor” handed us another pass and encouraged us to use them to take a walk — and we quickly found that we weren’t alone.There are checkpoints — I think they’re at the boundaries of the district — at which police ask to see the passes. And stores seem to take the restrictions seriously, turning away people without a local pass. And at least one subdistrict in Changning changed its mind Monday, telling residents their passes had been suspended.On our first walk, people seemed dazed. Last time we were out, the trees were bare; now it’s the humid start of summer.
Left: Residents enjoy sunshine by the roadside in Changning District, May 21; right: A man gets his hair cut at the entrance of a compound in Changning District, Shanghai, May 22, 2022. Bibek Bhandari/Sixth Tone
Many wandered in the middle of the streets, or stood taking pictures of once-ordinary scenes. Two women sat in a bus shelter, chatting as though it were a cafe table. Some streets were covered in the remains of months of delivery, with mountains of cardboard and styrofoam boxes cascading out of doorways. But by Sunday, the Shanghai spring felt a little more real, and we passed more people out for a promenade or a bike ride.We seem to have the run of the district for exercise, but we’re only allowed to shop in our own subdistrict, an area of about a square mile. It’s got a few convenience stores and a small grocery store with a prohibitively long line. The official list for my subdistrict includes a supermarket, but it’s not actually letting people in. Several nearby subdistricts even got to visit a Carrefour supermarket chain.A few restaurants and delis were open for delivery, but wouldn’t serve takeout to customers. You can go on an app and order a delivery driver to pick up some takeout and hand it to you.So mostly what there is to do is to walk. And people are walking. For now, that’s enough.— Dave Cohen; editor: Bibek Bhandari.(Header image: Residents walk along a street in Shanghai, May 18, 2022. VCG)
