A cold Beijing station on Chinese New Year‘s Eve
Every year on the eve of Chinese New Year, Communist Party leaders go to the people to “inspect public sentiment”, a move officially touted as “pro-people” but criticized as a “show”. This year, Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang also went to the same places as in previous years, but were criticized for being completely “ungrounded”. The reason is that, due to the resurgence of the Epidemic, thousands of foreigners and migrant workers stuck in Beijing can not go Home, many netizens complained why Xi and Li went to Guizhou and Shaanxi, under the eyes of a large number of people who can not return home need to condolences. There are also netizens who lament that their greatest wish in 2020 is to live, but they are not allowed to go home for New Year’s Eve just after the start of 2021.
The Chinese Communist Party is good at “face-saving projects”, and it is not difficult to see in past reports that “the secretary of the municipal party committee wore leather shoes to push a cart in the rain”, “the mayor wore a suit and led the government team to pick up cigarette butts”, etc. The official media at all levels of the Chinese Communist Party is also good at concocting fake news. The official media at all levels of the Communist Party are also good at concocting fake news and setting up typical examples to brainwash the public, such as the female court clerk working on duty for more than 40 hours without rest, the appearance of Maotai in the home of a poor Family in Qingdao, and the frozen top of Oolong, etc., which have been questioned by netizens and have been demolished by the Western mirror, but also let the credibility of the official media fall again. The New Year’s visit, the biggest “face-saving project” of the Communist Party, is the main event reported by the official media every year, but no one asks for it.
In recent years, Xi Jinping has been criticized internationally for his mishandling of the U.S.-China trade war and the epidemic, and the fires in Zhongnanhai’s backyard have been a battle to the death. The clown who wants to be emperor even if he dissuades the book and strips naked …… The second generation and the princeling party have raised the anti-Xi banner, Xi Jinping’s side is in a state of unavailability, Xi and Li have repeatedly expressed their divergent views, highlighting that the conflict is quite intense. The two have not only been rumored to be at odds with each other, but they also have different styles of New Year visits. According to a report by the French broadcaster, Xi Jinping likes to visit poor people’s homes and “lift the lid of the pot”, local cadres have done their best, and the pots of poor families are destined to be full of fragrant fish and meat, because “we can’t let the general secretary down”; Li Keqiang, on the other hand, seems to be more casual in his pro-people activities, looking at the market and asking about prices. He bought two large flower buns, two apples, two “fortune” characters and pastries, and then gave the New Year’s goods he had just bought to the poor households.
Xi and Li went to Guizhou and Shanxi respectively, leaving tens of thousands of people in Beijing who cannot return to their hometowns. Among them are migrant workers, delivery riders living in the urban-rural areas, and migrant workers who work early and late to build Beijing. The two of them were criticized for being too ungrounded, ignoring the hardships of the people stuck in Beijing and going far away for “show”. Some netizens sighed: “Why do we have to run to Guizhou and Shanxi? The condolences to ask how good under our noses”.
In the past few weeks, the New Year’s return to the hometown has been hanging on Weibo hot search several times, which shows the importance that Chinese people attach to this traditional New Year. Every year, even high ticket prices, scalped tickets and crowded sardine cans cannot stop people from returning to their hometowns during the Spring Festival. According to official data from the Chinese Communist Party, the most reported cases of pneumonia in China in the past month were only 100 cases per day, and recently the number has dropped again to a few dozen, mostly so-called “imported cases”. The local authorities are afraid of being held accountable, so they just cut across the board regardless of the people’s lives, and if the epidemic cannot be prevented, there is nothing they can do. The Chinese call it “the strictest homecoming order in history”, this is not to mention the various local layers of additional codes, so that the homecoming holiday is only two or three weeks at most, do not play the idea of homecoming before it is too late.
The people are complaining, suspecting that the officials are hiding the number of infected people and that the testing reagents are so ineffective that Beijing has adopted the “less harmful, more insulting” anal test. Although the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) warned that localities were “lazy in what appears to be rigorous defense,” and China’s health and Construction Commission blamed localities for “adding layers and layers of codes,” the public suspected that these were just bureaucrats passing the buck to each other and firing empty shots. In terms of traffic, it is true that the number of people returning to their hometowns has been greatly reduced this year, but the official media argues that this is a conscious response to the government’s call to “spend New Year’s Eve locally.
AFP reports that Beijing has asked residents to avoid all “non-essential travel” during New Year’s Eve, and to deter those who dare to return to their hometowns for the holidays, authorities have used a carrot-and-stick approach, offering bonuses for those who stay and increased testing and quarantine Time for those who want to leave. A Gansu native Hou Shibai, who works as a courier in Beijing, said, “To go home, I have to do a nucleic acid test and get a certificate. Very troublesome. He finally decided to stay in Beijing with his wife and daughter for the holidays.
In fact, many people will lose their jobs if they “don’t listen” and have to go back to their hometowns. Xiao Chen, whose hometown is in the countryside of Sichuan, is a janitor at a public prosecution and law enforcement agency in Beijing. Chen’s biggest wish every year is to take the 10-hour green sleeper train, slowly swing from Beijing to Chengdu, and then take the long-distance passenger transport back home for the New Year. But this year, she can’t go back.
According to the Central News Agency, at the end of December 2020, Xiao Chen’s unit issued a notice in black and white, ordering everyone, including the cleaning staff, not to return to their hometowns for the New Year this year. Immediately afterwards, the unit’s supervisor verbally informed her that if she was caught returning to her hometown for the New Year privately, she would be dismissed directly; if she was a member of the Communist Party, she would also have to undergo party disciplinary action. Xiao Chen could not lose her job, so she could only accept it in silence.
Mike, who works as an engineer in a private technology company in Shangdi, Beijing, has been unable to go home for the New Year for 2 consecutive years. This year, the company sent a letter telling employees that although they are a private company, as a listed company, they should “respond to the national policy”. Therefore, employees above a certain level “should stay in Beijing for the New Year” and those below a certain level “are not encouraged to go to Beijing for the New Year”. He had to give up his 12-day leave and stay in Beijing for the New Year.
He said reluctantly that he was disappointed that he could not go back home for the second consecutive year, so he could only change his mood. After all, the New Year back home and other days back home, the feeling is very different. Otherwise, the calendar New Year, why people crowded to buy tickets to go home for the New Year?
Compared with Xiao Chen and Mike, Huang, who runs a cafe in Beijing, is much luckier. He handed over the store to his partner and returned home to a coastal city in Shandong Province in mid-January with his wife and children, and accidentally dodged an official Chinese Communist Party order requiring those returning home to be tested for nucleic acid first, in preparation for spending New Year’s Eve in his hometown.
Huang, who is very sensitive to current affairs, said he saw the official order and reports in the official media and smelled a tendency to restrict people from returning to their hometowns for New Year’s Eve, so he decided to change his plan and buy high-speed train tickets to return to his hometown in advance, “so as not to be able to return.
This year, the Chinese Communist Party authorities across the country have cut off the people’s road to their hometowns, and also cut off the sentiment of “young people leaving home for the oldest” and “feeling more timid near the hometown”. In the social media, a comment that has been hotly circulated and topped reads: when I was a child, nostalgia is a small stamp, when I grew up, nostalgia is a nucleic acid test report, when I was a child I was here, my hometown was there, now I am here, my hometown said you are there, do not go back to this end ……
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