In previous years, the crowds receded during the Chinese New Year, and metropolises like Beijing came to a near halt and became empty cities.
In the context of Epidemic prevention, it has become a trend to spend New Year’s Eve locally. On snapchats, old timers made “not going Home for New Year’s Eve” a popular topic, and loved ones from two different places passed their thoughts to each other through the internet.
The demand for Food, housing and transportation has increased dramatically over previous years, and it’s a good thing that people in all walks of Life are staying behind to plan for the Chinese New Year. These ordinary workers, who are usually inconspicuous, will keep the most delicate parts of the city running during the Spring Festival.
- can’t go back
“Sister, you can tell my mother that I won’t go back this Spring Festival. “Yin Xiaowei edited the text and clicked send, then she closed her phone and sighed.
Yin Xiaowei, 51, is a domestic worker who came to Beijing alone in 2006 and has been working here as a domestic worker to earn money ever since.
This Spring Festival, Yin had the opportunity to return to her hometown. Her hometown is in Qiqihar, Heilongjiang Province, where there were several scattered cases after New Year’s Day. Her Family reminded her to make plans to return home early, thinking that even if the family was isolated at home, it was still a reunion. Even her 85-year-old mother muttered on the other end of the phone, “Come back and have dumplings together. “
Yin Xiaowei was not in a hurry to plan, she often took short term jobs during that period, and employers changed one after another, so she had to meet new employers just after she became familiar with them. She thought of more work to earn some money, the end of the year always want to celebrate some.
A few days later, the number of local cases in Heilongjiang Province suddenly rose, showing a small-scale outbreak of the situation. My sister sent several messages in a row informing me that the community where she lived was starting to be semi-closed.
Not long after, there were new requirements for return – “proof of negative nucleic acid within 7 days is required” “14 days of home health monitoring after returning home”.
Seeing the strict policy step by step, Yin Xiaowei gave up the idea of returning home.
After years of running around outside, Yin Xiaowei has no warm imagination for New Year’s Eve, “I just feel older and older every year,” she wrote in her diary. As a helper watching other families reunite, Yin Xiaowei can only make a phone call to her mother when she goes out to take out the garbage. My mother has deaf ears, so she needs to speak very loudly on the phone with her. “Yin Xiaowei said.
Every New Year’s Eve, she grins at her mother across the screen, and when she finishes the phone call, the year is over.
Many of Yin’s peers also choose to stay at their employers’ homes for New Year’s Eve. There are some domestic enterprises specifically aimed at the local New Year’s Eve market, launched: “Spring Festival nanny” service, let stay in the big city domestic aunts home cooking, cleaning, cleaning. The service Time starts from the 28th of the lunar month to the 15th of the first month.
The service will be available from the 28th day of the lunar New Year to the 15th day of the first month. Not long ago, she updated a video in Express, showing the process of helping her employer organize the food in the refrigerator. “Staying at a client’s home for New Year’s Eve this year, these are all the New Year’s groceries I bought,” Juxin said. At the end, she asked across the room, “Are there any sisters who also stay behind? “
A number of people replied to her in the comments section, “Spring Festival salary increase can double how good, I will not go home. “There are also already home to send greetings to the sister-in-law:” has arrived home, fellow sisters hard work. “
Many of the Spring Festival can not return home, the hidden thoughts sent to the network. A subway track maintenance worker in sent a video to the camera to say a message to his mother: “In order to make the subway run normally, the Spring Festival does not rest, mom you have to take care of your health. “After finishing the tears are about to fall down. “You work well there, do not worry, I am at home to watch your children. “The mother said so after learning that her son would not go home. As the year draws to a close, such videos are frequently posted on the Internet. In the short video platform such as fast hand, “New Year’s Eve not to go home” once became a popular topic.
- ordinary and indispensable people
Night falls, 27-year-old fruit vendor Cui Hao is moving boxes of fruit into the truck, the night loading temperature is lower, so that the next day the quality of damaged fruit will be less.
Cui Hao’s mobile fruit stall is located in an urban village in Beijing’s Fangshan District, and a tree-lined road at the entrance of the village is where he meets with his old customers.
Cui Hao should not have been here, he previously had a fixed stall in Daxing Tuanhe market, do not have to freeze in the cold wind. But last year, the epidemic, the vegetable market closed, the state opened the mobile stalls, Cui Hao re-drive the distribution van, walking all the way to sell all the way.
At this time in previous years, Cui Hao was already sitting at home on his bed. He used to sip on a bottle of dipotou warmed by firewood with his family, nestled under the blanket, smoked and comfortable, so dizzy for a few days, and then returned to Beijing to work.
But this year is different, the epidemic in his hometown is tight, in the end, do not want to go home, Cui Hao repeatedly weighed several times.
Last year, Cui Hao just spent a long holiday in his hometown in Shandong. He had to stay in his hometown in Shandong to grow land, and stayed until after Labor Day to return to Beijing to start work. And because of the losses, he left the Beijing to fight for four years before renting a fixed front of the farmers market.
“Home is able to return, but I do not know if I can return to Beijing smoothly by then. “Cui Hao voiced his concerns. Last year’s year, Cui Hao over the fear. He was very cautious, three times a day to ask home about the local return home isolation policy, but no one said accurate.
In January, Cui Hao had made a planning case for returning home. Thinking of the risk of infection by train, he planned to drive a truck home by road, but he would pass through several epidemic provinces midway, and he was afraid of being stuck on the highway. After several thought struggle, Cui Hao gritted his teeth and called his mother: “Mom, I’m not going home for New Year’s Eve this year. “
In previous years, the Spring Festival, such as Beijing, a large city, food courts, take-out, restaurants and other places will produce a supply vacuum.
Cui Hao, who stayed behind, planned to start supporting his fruit stall on the third day of the Lunar New Year.
The same in Beijing selling fruits and vegetables, vegetable farmer Lin took the initiative to choose to stay. He calculated that he couldn’t go back anyway, so he might as well make more money.
He has been selling vegetables in Beijing for many years and knows that every New Year the stalls in the Beijing vegetable market will be reduced by at least half, and the prices of vegetables will be more expensive than usual. The young people who stay in Beijing have not developed the habit of hoarding vegetables, and once the stores on the take-away software are closed, eating becomes a problem.
These days, under the control of Beijing, more stringent into Beijing, freight costs followed the rise. Lin was busy mobilizing vehicles to ensure the supply of vegetables for his stall. He updated his status on the snapshot, “This year’s New Year is not a holiday, to protect the freshness of vegetables, the supply is certainly sufficient. “
The 24-year-old take-away deliveryman “six one” this year also can not go back.
For this young girl who came to Beijing alone two years ago to work, this is the first time in life. The “six one” to stop the home, is Beijing and her hometown of Heilongjiang epidemic.
Liuyi” wants to stay in Beijing: “After I go back After the quarantine is over, the year is over. It is better to stay in Beijing instead of being safe. “
Knowing that her daughter had made a decision, “Liuyi’s” mother prepared New Year’s Eve goods and wanted to send them to her. The plan could not catch up with the change, courier points have announced the suspension of receiving and sending express parcels to and from Suihua City, Heilongjiang Province, Qiqihar City, Angangxi District, “Liuyi” finally did not I received my mother’s New Year’s Eve goods.
The “six one” comforted his mother, “New Year’s Eve,” said. The company’s main goal is to provide the best possible service to its customers. She made an appointment with her family to video call and spend New Year’s Eve in the cloud.
The Chinese New Year is not going to stop working. In the morning, she left the urgent delivery of people, riding her battery car to take orders to deliver food. This is a win-win situation for her and the people she serves. June 1 can reap twice the usual pay, and the northerners who are left in the big city because of epidemic prevention don’t have to worry about the dilemma of ordering food and having no one to deliver it.
In November 2019, a battery car accident left a plate in her ankle bone. The injury has not healed for a long time, she can not stand or sit for a long time, can not adapt to office work, so she thought of running takeout crowdsourcing, time is relatively free, but also can control the amount of orders.
In the summer, she usually runs between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m., and then works from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. after a lunch break. In winter, because the plate on her leg can’t stand the cold, she reduces her order taking time to half a day.
When you search for a delivery rider on a snapshot, “Liuyi” is a very recognizable one. She was born with a baby face, and the videos uploaded on her homepage are not about labor, but often a singing video taken between jobs.
As a result of her work, the background of her videos is always a reflection of the traffic on the streets she serves in Beijing. But in the real world, with her bright yellow overalls and work helmet on, few people think she’s any different from the other riders.
As she travels through the city, she often feels like a wild child. “Doing takeaway crowdsourcing is like a wild child with no one to control it, receiving a single order, no colleagues, all by themselves. “
- city passerby
At the end of the day, “Liuyi” likes to sit on the electric cart, point the camera at herself and sing in the street. She claims that this is her hobby and a way to let off steam.
What are those emotions that need to be vented, “Liuyi” did not explicitly say, only the short video she took revealed some clues.
She had posted some videos on the snapchat. At night by the street, she squatted on the sidewalk and mumbled something like “What’s so great about Beijing, it’s not even mine”.
Sometimes, she would also talk about the aggravation caused by the overtime delivery. Sometimes this is not within her control, but when the restaurant owner is slow in cooking and there are too many traffic lights, overtime always happens. “Today’s food delivery timeout again, this single for nothing,” a video, she pouted at the camera, feeling aggrieved. “I do not want to overtime, you sit in the office, I deliver the wind and sunshine. “
After these videos stay on her homepage for a while, they are eventually deleted by her, leaving only the video of her singing. It seems that those sorrows were also deleted along with the videos, and the next day, it was another day of fighting in a battery car.
Yin often felt like an outsider, and for 15 years, she had no real place to call her own in Beijing. She didn’t rent an apartment, and before the epidemic, she took care of mostly elderly people with mobility problems or families with children, and she couldn’t leave anyone at home at any time, so she moved from one employer to another. Occasionally, when she had a break from work, she stayed in the home health care company’s office for a few days.
Over the years, Yin has rarely had a moment to rest. The most peaceful rest she has had recently was an accident a few days ago. The day she made instant noodles, the water poured hard, a little over the head, hot water spilled on the foot, scalded a blister. The foot can not walk at all, so naturally can not work.
“The work is not finished, only a short time to eat, I can sit down to rest. “Yin Xiaowei said. It is her duty to get up before her employer’s entire family at 6 a.m. every morning. After cleaning the common areas, she has to make breakfast for the whole family. After the employer goes out with breakfast, she buys food and cooks, and takes care of the children and the elderly until the night. Sometimes the clients would ask her to wash the children’s toys once a week or to hand wash the clothes before putting them in the washing machine. She would do the same.
She knows that many employers just see her as a servant, not a family member. She doesn’t have any extravagant expectations, except that she has suffered some aggravation as a result.
In 2017, she was caring for an elderly woman with uremia in Beijing. The elderly woman was semi-self-care and was receiving regular dialysis treatment, and her children hired Yin Xiaowei to care for her. Yin was assigned to sleep on the balcony, which was hot and stuffy in the summer and unheated in the winter, with cold air pouring in through the cracks in the windows. Yin Xiaowei was so cold that she asked the client for an electric blanket, but her employer immediately refused. They said to Yin Xiaowei, “I’d rather be freezing than using an electric blanket, in case of a fire, it would be very dangerous.
Yin Xiaowei was speechless and could only wrap himself up tightly with the blanket every night, shivering and freezing to sleep. Yin Xiaowei said that doing this job is like gambling with the health of the rest of his life. The heavy work makes Yin Xiaowei’s body fall sick, as long as a little cold, her back, waist and legs are cold and painful.
She admits that she also meets good employers. A lady who lives in a big house, her family is very good, people do not have a half-hearted stand. During the Chinese New Year, the hostess gave her a red packet and bought her a new dress. Yin Xiaowei was touched and still remembers the woman’s kindness. It’s not how much she gave, she thought I was here to help her. “Yin Xiaowei cared not about material gifts, but felt that in a big city, these people who respect what they give should be cherished by themselves.
To a city, Yin Xiaowei and “Liuyi” are both unimportant characters, but they truly constitute the details of a city. In the Spring Festival, they are indispensable.
- Drop in
Many families with travel plans stayed in their hometowns to celebrate New Year’s Eve locally.
Xin Hongliang, who runs a youth hostel, has been very busy this year. After the outbreak in Shijiazhuang, some Shijiazhuang people studying or working in Jinan were unable to return home as planned. Xin Hongliang wanted to do his part to take in the foreigners.
On January 17, he sent a message in his circle of friends: those studying in Jinan, Shijiazhuang origin, students who can’t go home, or Shijiazhuang origin people working in Jinan. Jinan a youth hostel, free accommodation, if necessary, you can spend the New Year here.
Xin Hongliang soon found that it was not only Shijiazhuang people who needed help. A young man from Tai’an, Shandong Province, called for help. He came from Hebei to Jinan on a business trip in early January, and after the outbreak, he couldn’t go back to his company in Hebei and had difficulty returning to his home in Tai’an. Xin Hongliang checked him in for free.
A friend sent Xin Hongliang’s offer of free accommodation to the snapshot. Intended to spread the news, as a result, attracted some praise. Some people praised him for his warm-heartedness, and others said that they saw from him that “there is true love everywhere on earth”.
Although it is a righteous act, Xin Hongliang did not let up. He purchased a large number of masks, thermometers, alcohol and other supplies, and asked passengers to provide proof of nucleic acid testing when they check in.
The news spread in the circle, and many people found ways to support Xin Hongliang’s action. He received a number of “unusual” orders, some users in the booking hotel website to find Xin Hongliang’s store, the order to pay, through the order message to show their feelings. “I will pay for the free stay at the hostel”. Xin Hongliang was touched, but returned the money: “I do this, not to make money. “
A few days ago a 25-year-old Jinan girl on a battery-powered bicycle transported 8 boxes of milk, leaving only a note: I also live here in Jinan, I also want to learn from you, to do their own modest efforts to provide some milk, to those stranded in Jinan brothers and sisters to send a little warmth.
Xin Hongliang did not expect that the small things he did would attract the public to form a larger and more heart-warming force.
These days, he and his family plan to have New Year’s Eve dinner with the people staying in the hotel. “Mom wrapped dumplings, dad cooked vegetables, and my daughter is also willing to be my little helper and spend New Year’s Eve with friends who stay at the hostel. “
For the foreigners, it is this group of “people who do not return” silent payment, with warmth to replace the cold they should be alone outside the New Year. And the city’s foreigners, also waiting for the epidemic to pass, the spring blossoms, make up a ticket back home.
After a day of work, Yin Xiaowei spent the night writing on her crib. Near the end of the New Year, she recalled the joy of the New Year when she was a child and created some paragraphs about it: “The most traditional New Year’s goods in Northeast China are: frozen pears, frozen persimmons and sticky bean buns. Spring couplets and lanterns are also essential. My father loved shopping for New Year’s Eve goods and wore his sheepskin jacket to the market every day. Chicken, fish, and frozen goods. Pork was ordered in advance from relatives in the countryside. Every family in the countryside raises pigs and kills them every New Year, which is also a traditional rural custom in the Northeast. “
After work, Yin Xiaowei limited time belonging to their own, most of the pen is used to write, “in loneliness and isolation, I write through their own dialogue with themselves, expressing the unsupported emotions. “
She named herself “Dust”, saying that she is like a piece of dust in the sea of life, but she also hopes to leave her own footprint. All the people who work in the big city, in fact, are the same as her mind.
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