YAN CONG: My name’s Yan Cong. I was born and raised in Beijing. I’m right now walking down the street in my neighborhood in Chaoyang District, Beijing.
ZOMORODI: Yan is a photographer. And in her hometown of Beijing, the greater good means following strict pandemic protocols.
CONG: Entering a lot of places still requires different kinds of proof that we’re in good health or we haven’t been to any high-risk areas.
ZOMORODI: So, for example, before she can order a drink at her local bar, Yan has her temperature checked and scans a QR code on her phone.
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ZOMORODI: The QR code tells the government where she’s been for the past 14 days. Her phone lights up green, so she can enter. But if her phone had flashed red, indicating that she’d been traveling overseas, Yan would need to report to a state-run quarantine location. If it flashed yellow, meaning she’d been in an infected area, well, that would require her to quarantine at home for two weeks with an electronic sensor installed on the door or paper tape sealing the door shut. Break the tape or activate the sensor and a neighborhood committee alerts the government that she broke the rules.
HUANG HUNG: I told that to my American friends. They’re like, oh, my God. How can you live with that? That so infringes on everything that we believe in, in individual rights and so on and so forth.
ZOMORODI: This is Huang Hung. She’s been called the Oprah Winfrey of China.
HUNG: I’m a writer. I’m a columnist in China. I - most of my writing are in Chinese. However, I am actually a U.S. citizen. And I’ve been living in China since 1991, so for quite some time. So, you know, I walk into a shopping mall and I have to say I’m glad. I feel safer that there is a scanning system. It is for the greater good. The Chinese kind of realize in time of crisis, it is necessary to bound together. And whatever inconvenience happens, you need to be able to tolerate it. You need to work with other people. You need to support the collective rather than just think for yourself.
