Here in China, the cogs are beginning to turn once more.
The coronavirus is now a part of life, it is one more adaptation that we expats can add to the many other adaptations required to being a Marco Polo in the Middle Kingdom.
Now in China we are at a point where restaurants are open for business, while shops, grocery stores and coffee shops all have frequent footfall again.
The elderly people, who pre-COVID-19 would have been found sitting in Starbucks, have now returned to the streets again.
They are unmissable, some a clear foot shorter in stature than their younger countrymen, rolling zimmerframes in front of them.
The gladness on those smaller merchants’ faces is most telling.
Open for business
China is well and truly open for business again. Apart from the masks and the increasingly available hand sanitiser now found in restaurants, life has returned to normal.
The temperature testing is hit-and-miss, the variance is on account of the guards from building to building.
From shop to shop, pub to pub, the rules are there, just the application is not always so consistently applied. There are very few people I have not shaken hands with nor have they refused mine.
In the last few weeks, the hotels have been glad to see incoming travellers to China. They have been forced into quarantine in a select list of hotels and then given the bill for their stay in these hotels.
Other people coming from lower-risk areas have been allowed to home quarantine and this seems to be have been loosely enforced, leaning more on people’s good consciences than on consistent tracking of their movement.
File photo: A member of staff fills online orders at a Hema Fresh supermarket in Shanghai, China, in 2018. \ Thomas Hubert
With regard to grocery shopping in China, this is largely an online business, especially for the younger Chinese consumer, so the trust in the warehouse employees and delivery men to be healthy and sanitary was already there from the lockdown period we went through.
The local walk-in grocery stores are busy again too. The increase in footfall in all businesses in China has been a real surprise - I did not think the bounce-back would be so quick.
I work in finance here in China and during my time in isolation, I had plenty of time to reflect on the hammering financial markets have taken and how apt the observations of Wall Street terminology have been of late.
I had enough time to pull together a Wall Street definition of the coronavirus survivors.
The Bull
This animal is the optimist of Wall Street. The term 'bull market' is used to describe rising financial markets due to the nature in which a bull attacks, with an upward movement of the head in an attempt to gore its victims with its horns.
The bulls of coronavirus resoundingly refused to call the virus anything but the flu and constantly pointed to the numbers and seemingly low mortality rate when compared with other pandemics throughout history.
These were guys who barely let the outbreak impact their life or indeed drinking schedule; they remained constantly chipper in the work from home environment, perhaps even opportunistically managing to watch an extra couple of series on Netflix while they were 'working'.
The Bear
If the Bull is your stock market optimist, the bear is your stock market pessimist. The downward swipes of the bear’s claws are supposed to reflect the downward movement of financial markets.
The bears of COVID-19 were not afraid to stand out.
Frightened Chinese people could be seen on the metro in full hazmat suits and cumbersome gas masks like they were going over the top in World War 1.
When full gas masks were unavailable, 10 surgical masks would be worn in place, as people took draconian measures to avoid the virus and keep it out by all means.
These people were not only prepared for an Armageddon situation, but also found definition in the circumstances. After all, bear markets suit bearish investors.
The Pig
As you might guess, these were the greedy during the outbreak. The ones who contributed to the vegetable and fruit shortage in online grocery stores in China, followed by the shortage of meat associated with other stores such as Aldi – bacon and eggs is not the same as just eggs.
As the effects of the outbreak worsened and I thought I might become a scurvy victim due to lack of fruit, panic purchasing and private stockpiling of food continued unabated.
However, the gorging did not stop there as masks and hand sanitiser became almost impossible to source.
But the pendulum swung quickly. When the supply of masks on mainland China was exhausted, conversations moved to how we might make money off brokering a deal to bring masks into China from neighbouring countries such as Kazakhstan and Russia for a handsome commission and, more lately, whether we could broker a deal to send masks from China to Ireland as the virus moved around the world.
The factories cranked back to life in China like a vintage tractor starting up with several deep chugs and finally a roar of the engine.
Pigmeat was in short supply at one stage.
The Sheep
The disciples devoid of strategy or at least a strategy of their own.
The sheep of the coronavirus were most signified by the numbers swelling the international airports and air travellers fleeing China, following orders from family back home or simply following the jet streams of friends or colleagues.
Others followed information or, in many instances, misinformation.
They packed themselves into airports and public transports as they followed friends and family who had already left China, unknowingly exacerbating the crisis and unwittingly putting themselves at risk.
Packed into air-conditioned environments, they were lambs to the slaughter.
File photo: a meat counter in a Shanghai store.
The Chicken
In stock market parlance, the chicken is the player who lacks valour.
The coronavirus exposed a whole new category of expatriate in China. Their mettle was tested, and their mettle broke.
The number of expats returning to China will be far lower now than before. There exists a whole new category of people who will simply not come back to China. They are gone, their China dream is over and they will ultimately cite the coronavirus as the cause.
The ravages of the coronavirus, like the stock market, bring with it a sleepless night or two. However, the battle is in the mind and perspective is everything.
There is light at the end of the tunnel that is state-imposed quarantine. Weeks of being stuck inside makes you more appreciative of all that we do have in life.
Arguably, the coronavirus, just like the stock market, provides us with the most opportunity at the moment of most fear.
The word courage is derived from a French word coeur, meaning of the heart.
Thus, just as one's heart by pumping blood to one's arms, legs, and brain enables all the other physical organs to function, so courage enables all the psychological virtues.
Here in China, the cogs are beginning to turn once more.
The coronavirus is now a part of life, it is one more adaptation that we expats can add to the many other adaptations required to being a Marco Polo in the Middle Kingdom.
Now in China we are at a point where restaurants are open for business, while shops, grocery stores and coffee shops all have frequent footfall again.
The elderly people, who pre-COVID-19 would have been found sitting in Starbucks, have now returned to the streets again.
They are unmissable, some a clear foot shorter in stature than their younger countrymen, rolling zimmerframes in front of them.
The gladness on those smaller merchants’ faces is most telling.
Open for business
China is well and truly open for business again. Apart from the masks and the increasingly available hand sanitiser now found in restaurants, life has returned to normal.
The temperature testing is hit-and-miss, the variance is on account of the guards from building to building.
From shop to shop, pub to pub, the rules are there, just the application is not always so consistently applied. There are very few people I have not shaken hands with nor have they refused mine.
In the last few weeks, the hotels have been glad to see incoming travellers to China. They have been forced into quarantine in a select list of hotels and then given the bill for their stay in these hotels.
Other people coming from lower-risk areas have been allowed to home quarantine and this seems to be have been loosely enforced, leaning more on people’s good consciences than on consistent tracking of their movement.
File photo: A member of staff fills online orders at a Hema Fresh supermarket in Shanghai, China, in 2018. \ Thomas Hubert
With regard to grocery shopping in China, this is largely an online business, especially for the younger Chinese consumer, so the trust in the warehouse employees and delivery men to be healthy and sanitary was already there from the lockdown period we went through.
The local walk-in grocery stores are busy again too. The increase in footfall in all businesses in China has been a real surprise - I did not think the bounce-back would be so quick.
I work in finance here in China and during my time in isolation, I had plenty of time to reflect on the hammering financial markets have taken and how apt the observations of Wall Street terminology have been of late.
I had enough time to pull together a Wall Street definition of the coronavirus survivors.
The Bull
This animal is the optimist of Wall Street. The term 'bull market' is used to describe rising financial markets due to the nature in which a bull attacks, with an upward movement of the head in an attempt to gore its victims with its horns.
The bulls of coronavirus resoundingly refused to call the virus anything but the flu and constantly pointed to the numbers and seemingly low mortality rate when compared with other pandemics throughout history.
These were guys who barely let the outbreak impact their life or indeed drinking schedule; they remained constantly chipper in the work from home environment, perhaps even opportunistically managing to watch an extra couple of series on Netflix while they were 'working'.
The Bear
If the Bull is your stock market optimist, the bear is your stock market pessimist. The downward swipes of the bear’s claws are supposed to reflect the downward movement of financial markets.
The bears of COVID-19 were not afraid to stand out.
Frightened Chinese people could be seen on the metro in full hazmat suits and cumbersome gas masks like they were going over the top in World War 1.
When full gas masks were unavailable, 10 surgical masks would be worn in place, as people took draconian measures to avoid the virus and keep it out by all means.
These people were not only prepared for an Armageddon situation, but also found definition in the circumstances. After all, bear markets suit bearish investors.
The Pig
As you might guess, these were the greedy during the outbreak. The ones who contributed to the vegetable and fruit shortage in online grocery stores in China, followed by the shortage of meat associated with other stores such as Aldi – bacon and eggs is not the same as just eggs.
As the effects of the outbreak worsened and I thought I might become a scurvy victim due to lack of fruit, panic purchasing and private stockpiling of food continued unabated.
However, the gorging did not stop there as masks and hand sanitiser became almost impossible to source.
But the pendulum swung quickly. When the supply of masks on mainland China was exhausted, conversations moved to how we might make money off brokering a deal to bring masks into China from neighbouring countries such as Kazakhstan and Russia for a handsome commission and, more lately, whether we could broker a deal to send masks from China to Ireland as the virus moved around the world.
The factories cranked back to life in China like a vintage tractor starting up with several deep chugs and finally a roar of the engine.
Pigmeat was in short supply at one stage.
The Sheep
The disciples devoid of strategy or at least a strategy of their own.
The sheep of the coronavirus were most signified by the numbers swelling the international airports and air travellers fleeing China, following orders from family back home or simply following the jet streams of friends or colleagues.
Others followed information or, in many instances, misinformation.
They packed themselves into airports and public transports as they followed friends and family who had already left China, unknowingly exacerbating the crisis and unwittingly putting themselves at risk.
Packed into air-conditioned environments, they were lambs to the slaughter.
File photo: a meat counter in a Shanghai store.
The Chicken
In stock market parlance, the chicken is the player who lacks valour.
The coronavirus exposed a whole new category of expatriate in China. Their mettle was tested, and their mettle broke.
The number of expats returning to China will be far lower now than before. There exists a whole new category of people who will simply not come back to China. They are gone, their China dream is over and they will ultimately cite the coronavirus as the cause.
The ravages of the coronavirus, like the stock market, bring with it a sleepless night or two. However, the battle is in the mind and perspective is everything.
There is light at the end of the tunnel that is state-imposed quarantine. Weeks of being stuck inside makes you more appreciative of all that we do have in life.
Arguably, the coronavirus, just like the stock market, provides us with the most opportunity at the moment of most fear.
The word courage is derived from a French word coeur, meaning of the heart.
Thus, just as one's heart by pumping blood to one's arms, legs, and brain enables all the other physical organs to function, so courage enables all the psychological virtues.
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