After being quarantined at home for half a month, like other 14 billion Chinese, I develop a habit of checking vegetables every night. Shanghai Greens, broccoli, carrots, tomatoes, …oh, potatoes are just finished.

 

I’m not surprised about the situation I now face. With the Wuhan Virus outbreak, the whole country’s industries, except for those supply medicines, masks, basic food (like egg and pork), water, and electricity, are all suspended. Under the rigorous implementation of quarantine, workers and farmers can’t go back to work, streets are cut or blocked, vegetables and fruits are rotten in fields, and poultries are starving with limited fodder. Jia Guorong, the owner of the top catering brand Xibei, revealed that his corporation can’t sustain in 3 months if the effect of Wuhan Virus continues. Other business owners, no matter big or small, confront the same tough challenge.

 

It’s not the end of the World, I reassure myself, at least I have uncovered a secluded vegetable market at three blocks away, and there are three fruit stores still opening on a nearby street. I have food, but the question is, how long this optimistic situation will last? Yesterday, at a press conference, the provincial officials said “food supplies are basically adequate,” which means, based on my abundant experiences with Chinese officials’ jargon, “still ok now but maybe inadequate in the future. Don’t blame me.” So I checked my refrigerator again, there were three tomatoes, a handful of lettuce, several carrots, and two dozens eggs. Not enough. I had to go out to shop.

 

Currently, all the residential communities in my city restrict people in and out. According to the regulation, only one member from a household can go outside the community one time in two days. And he/she has to carry the ID card and a pass certificate issued by the corresponding community board. I heard one community board even required residents coming in with a signal, like what communists did in Chinese spy dramas. Well, what about the workers who have permitted to return to their work positions? How can they go to work two days a time? I haven’t found any regulation to untangle it. Many things are muddled and contradictory.

 

(they aren’t my community guards, but they wear similar clothes, except the men in picture don’t wear goggles.)

 

The streets were nearly empty, and all the pedestrians I found wearing masks. To my surprise, a small grocery store nearby was bravely opened, with no customer, so I walked in. Thanks to vegetable peasants and supply chain workers, there were vegetables, although the options were very limited and the prices were higher (not much, 30%; price is the last thing I worry about). “Have food to eat is already great,” I said to myself and bought a lot.

 

As a Chinese young woman who grew up under the Chinese economic boom, I hadn’t worried about a material shortage, and now it’s the first time I taste it. Holding the giant bags, a sense of satisfaction surged through me.

 

Will the market and stores I found close? Or will a serious food shortage happen in the future (next week? next month?)? I don’t know. All I can do is to hoard food and control food intake. Since I have fed myself with rice cakes boiled with cabbage leaves in the first week, I have proved my strength to quarantine.