Lunar New Year of the Rat

It's been a bit of a strange start to the Lunar New Year of the Rat.  The streets of Shanghai are very quiet indeed.  It would have been quiet anyway due to lots of shops and restaurants being shut for new year, but this year it's too quiet considering this is the biggest yearly migration of people in the world.  Everyone in China and it's neighboring countries gets time off for new year, and everyone travels to be with their families.  It's the biggest event on the Chinese calendar.  We went out today for lunch, to a nearly empty restaurant.  Everyone we passed in the streets and in the shops and restaurants and serving us food was wearing a mask.  The coronavirus has really got people spooked.  China is probably over-reacting slightly due to what happened when it under-reacted to the SARS virus back in the early 2000s.  We're not quite at the stock-piling food stage just yet, but there is a shortage of face masks.

Wee're just wearing our face masks and using lots of hand gel and not going to places where we might spread anything, like buffets with the serving spoon handles.  We're just staying in and staying quiet really.  It was always going to be quiet holiday anyway.  We had decided to stay in China, rather than spend lots of money on a holiday somewhere hot.  We wanted a cat-cuddle holiday, and were due to go to Taipei in Taiwan today for a few days.  We decided to cancel it, not wanting to be at the airport or on the airplanes with all the recycled air.  Never mind.

School has announced that they are extending our holiday by two weeks, with e-learning taking place instead.  This is for all schools in Shanghai and is a government order.  Matt has exam classes, so it makes things tricky for him.  For me, i'm not really sure what I can set my students to do, since so much of what we teach is through speaking and giving on-the-spot feedback.  I guess i'll have to pop into school one day next week to pick up my laptop and scan a few worksheets!  All teachers have to be back in China a week earlier than the students, to have a 7 day incubation period.  Who knows what will happen.  The situation may have changed dramatically in the next 3 weeks.  I have a feeling things are going to get worse before they get better, but we will see.

In the meantime, here are some photos of us enjoying lunches out, with our new glasses on that we got from the fake market this week, and the chinese new year lion that was made out of fererro roche chocolates!