[Beijing Diary] Life in China is 'No Standard'

[Asia Economy Beijing=Special Correspondent Kim Hyunjung] During my quarantine after arriving in Beijing, China on August 20, there were more difficulties than expected. My family, who entered the country with me, was separated and quarantined apart, and the facilities and meals were very poor. I had to submit self-diagnosis surveys twice daily and undergo nucleic acid tests about every other day. Various notices and document submission requests in Chinese came incessantly, which made me very nervous. This was because I was anxious that if I missed something, my family and I would not be able to leave on time. At that time, when everyone in the quarantine facility’s WeChat group (a Chinese messenger similar to KakaoTalk) was confused, A, who was also in quarantine, voluntarily offered to help with Korean-Chinese interpretation. I also received help from A, and we introduced ourselves separately and promised to meet again.

One of the hardest things during the quarantine was the authoritarian attitude of the manager B. B treated my family and me as if we were prisoners in a detention center and even badmouthed us right in front of us. I was very upset and protested on the spot, but did not receive an apology. Later, the quarantine facility caused trouble by not issuing receipts for the quarantine fees on time.

After completing the ten-day quarantine and preparing to settle down, I lost my brand-new phone that was less than a week old. Losing a phone in China means losing a device worth millions of won and more than just internal information. The biggest loss is ‘freedom of movement.’ Even small restaurants require proof of a nucleic acid test result within 72 hours on a mobile phone to enter. This was a tough setback for me, who had to hurry with foreign press card applications and registrations. In despair, I called my number, and to my surprise, C answered. C, who lives an hour away from my home, drove a shiny foreign car, brought my phone that he had found on the street, and politely refused the envelope of reward I had prepared in advance before leaving calmly.

The bustling Wangjing Soho area in Beijing. (Photo by Kim Hyunjung)

China is a paradise for delivery apps. For a delivery fee of around 1,000 won, they do grocery shopping, bring coffee, and even lamb skewers and Tsingtao beer. But the more I use them, the more problems arise. One day, I received a text saying ‘delivered’ with a photo of a bag hanging on the door, but it was a front door I had never seen before. I sent texts to delivery driver D, explained over the phone, and complained, but the answer was, ‘I don’t remember either, please look around once.’ Similar incidents happened several more times.

"How is life in China?" I wrote about these trivial daily matters to answer this question that acquaintances often ask me after more than 50 days since entering the country. Life here is like this. I experience good people and not-so-good people every other day. As you might expect, A, B, C, and D are all Chinese. The unprecedented rapid lifestyle changes and growing wealth gap have made it impossible to explain the 22 million Beijing residents collectively. There is no standard to broadly say how people here are or what to expect. Sometimes life in Beijing feels quite good, but on some days, I am exhausted by harsh unfairness and inconvenience. This is also the reason why I have repeatedly experienced expectations and disappointments about China for quite a long time.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is about to begin his third term inauguration, often talks about ‘Gongtong Fuyu (共同富裕),’ which literally means ‘common prosperity’?everyone living well and prosperously together. I plan to observe here whether common prosperity will raise the ‘standard’ of Chinese people or become a justification for intensified socialism and control.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.