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 A year after China abruptly scrapped its notoriously stringent zero-COVID controls and amid a recent surge in respiratory illness cases, some Chinese citizens are starting to worry about a potential reintroduction of the controversial regime of mass testing and restrictions that defined the pandemic years in the country and ultimately led to an unprecedented eruption of public unrest.Concerns coincide with new reports of COVID testing being brought back to airports and hospitals, as well as a notice issued by the education ministry on Monday urging schools around the country to step up prevention efforts for influenza viruses and COVID ahead of winter season. Rumors are also swirling on Chinese social media that the nationwide COVID-tracking app is being reactivated in some provinces, with some users claiming that the app had never been taken down, though censorship of a related hashtag has only fueled more speculation. “Scenes like this make me feel really uncomfortable,” one Weibo user commented under a video of people in hazmat suits disinfecting a school in Hebei province.Continued here
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 Last fall, in the stagnation of pandemic life, I became fascinated with videos of influencers standing in their bedrooms and trying on clothes from a company called Shein.
In the TikToks, hashtagged #sheinhaul, a young woman would hold up a big plastic bag and rip into it, releasing a cascade of smaller plastic bags, each containing a neatly folded item of clothing. The shot would then cut to the woman wearing one piece at a time, rapid-fire, interspersed with screenshots from Shein's app showing the prices: an $8 dress, a $12 swimsuit.
Down this rabbit hole were variations on the theme: #sheinkids, #sheincats, #sheincosplay. The videos invited the viewer to marvel at a surreal collision of low cost and abundance. The comments, in keeping with the mood, were performatively supportive ("BOD GOALS"). At some point, someone would question whether such cheap clothing could possibly be ethical, but a chorus of voices would leap in to defend Shein and the influencer with equal zeal ("There so cute tho." "It her money, leave her alone.") and the original commenter would go silent.
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