Dec 2, 2022
PROTESTS: 'It's The First Time I've Seen This in China.' Sliding through the tight crowd at the vigil on Urumqi Road, I discovered a small memorial: candles lit on the ground and wreaths of flowers laid in tribute to the victims of the fire. Some messages were also written on signs: "We don't forget: Guiyang, Urumqi, Henan, Xi'an." These were the places where people had died during confinement. They hadn't been able to get medical care; in one case, there had been a bus accident on the way to a quarantine center. Their deaths, their suffering, was now melding into everyone's anger. It was becoming a cause. The people at the vigil were mostly in their twenties or thirties. They felt walled off from the rest of the world, literally and otherwise. They chanted: "Health code, fuck you!" They sang the Chinese national anthem, and a revolutionary song that begins "Arise! Ye who refuse to be slaves!" In April, during the Shanghai l