Ruili City, Dehong Dai Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province, is located in the southwestern border of the motherland, with a border of 169.8 kilometers and bordering North Myanmar on three sides. Border residents live across borders and are under unimaginable import pressure from inland provinces and cities.
With the outbreak of the epidemic in Myanmar, Ruili is at the forefront of the fight against the epidemic. Up to now, Ruili has confirmed hundreds of cases, all of which are caused by imports from outside Myanmar.
It is strictly forbidden to enter and leave the border villages, and many villagers stay at home for more than a year.
The small town has exhausted everything, and so far none of the cases have spread to the provinces.
Overnight become a "no man's land"
Sister, a border trade and economic zone of 1.92 square kilometers 4 kilometers southeast of Ruili City. One end is connected to the urban area by the Jiejie Bridge, and the other end is directly bordered by the Myanmar town of Mujie.
In 1991, the Yunnan Provincial Government approved the construction of a large China-Myanmar Commercial and Trade Street at the boundary monuments No. 81 to 82 in China, from which 50% of the total import and export commodities of Yunnan Border Trade are imported and exported.
It borders Myanmar directly
Image source: Baidu Map
Countless people come here to travel and do jewelry business. Chu Guanlin, a native of Northeast China, graduated in 2013 and traveled to Beijing and Shenzhen before coming to Ruili to reunite with his family who ran a jade business.
Before the epidemic, he worked in a duty-free shop in the border trade zone.
The sister-telling district he depicted to us was bustling and bustling, with ethnic shops lined up on both sides of the street, and Burmese and Ruili people came here to set up stalls, selling fresh vegetables and fruits, daily necessities and ethnic handicrafts.
Sister complaint before the epidemic
"After living here for almost a decade, I have become more and more passionate about this land and the warm and simple people."
But what he did not expect was that on March 30, 2021, everything was as beautiful as a dream bubble, and suddenly disappeared from the life of his sister.
On that day, Chu Guanlin left work as usual, walked a few hundred meters out of the store, and before he reached the Jiejie Bridge, he saw some vendors gathered at the head of the bridge.
There was no notice, no documents were issued, only the epidemic prevention personnel standing at the head of the bridge blocked their way and told them that they needed to wait for the medical staff to come and do nucleic acid. At first, everyone thought it was just a daily nucleic acid task.
The sister's complaint was suddenly blocked
After all, the residents of this small border town have long been accustomed to daily inspections, and everyone has done nucleic acid hundreds of times. After doing the nucleic acid early, you can go home early, and everyone is lined up and squeezed forward, without any safe distance.
After Xiao Chu finished doing the nucleic acid, he waited for dark from the evening, did not wait for the release, but waited for the notice of in situ isolation. "It's so sudden that a lot of people just come to set up a food stall or buy something, and no one goes out with a quilt and toiletries on their backs." Say it's positive, and no one knows how long it will take."
During the quarantine period, the staff is on duty 24 hours a day, and the various areas are guarded by civil servants, and everyone is not allowed to sneak out. Nucleic acids are required every 3 days, but the management is confusing and missed tests occur from time to time.
Three days, seven days, fourteen days, a month, time passed day by day, and the day and night of the sister's confession seemed to be isolated from the world.
Xiao Chu is very lucky, the company has dormitories, stockpiles, and can sleep in bed.
"In the early days, the government's procurement of materials has not kept up, and a box of dishes sent every ten days and half a month is certainly not enough for so many people to eat." We would sneak to a nearby convenience store to buy something while doing nucleic acid, and the roller shutter door of the convenience store would leave a slit, and the civil servant would see it, and sometimes turn a blind eye when saying good things, because he also had to buy things."
The more difficult part is that there is nowhere to place, and many people can only sleep on the street at first.
The truck driver who transported supplies to and from the car slept in the car for more than a month. Every morning in line to do nucleic acid, Xiao Chu saw the change of clothes set up by the roadside truck driver on the tree, the simple tent that was too late to put away, and the pot used for cooking with bricks and wood, and he would walk quickly.
The truck driver placed his groceries under the roller shutter door
On May 4, the sister's complaint was finally unsealed, and the quarantined people rushed to the intersection on electric vehicles and tricycles, their faces were long-lost.
Lying on his bed, Xiao Chu gradually came out of the extreme excitement when he first arrived home, and it was difficult to suppress his sorrow.
In the memorandum, he wrote the following sentence: "After staying with my sister for 36 days, I was finally liberated, and my sister's complaint will become a shadow in my life.
Coincidentally, just two months later, the sister suddenly issued a notice of in-situ isolation again. Lucky Xiao Chu escaped this time. Ending the dozens of days of lockdown again, the sister's complaint has reached the scorching heat of August, and the people of Ruili have also waited for the strictest order.
First, the government issued a directive that everyone must immediately leave the sister's complaint and go to the city to rely on friends or rent a house to solve the problem of food and accommodation after the government has been quarantined for 14 days. At that time, the epidemic situation in Myanmar was grim, seriously polluting the air and river environment of the sister, and the eradication work was carried out for months.
Overnight, the sister became a "no-man's land", and only a very small number of people, such as security guards and exterminators, had to stay here.
Pour it all out
At first, everyone was still hoping that they could wait for the revitalization of the small town. Over time, the layers of policies have discouraged The Ruili people.
Since January 26, 2020, Ruili has experienced nine lockdowns, the longest of 35 days. The urban area was closed for 160 days, and those villages that arrived at the border were strictly forbidden to enter and exit at each village entrance, and there were many people who did not go out for two or three hundred days.
Records of the lockdown time of residents in Ruili District
Grid member Wu Weiqiu, who had just been admitted to the civil service two years ago, had hardly sat in the office for a day. When the epidemic situation was not too serious, Wu Weiqiu stayed at the card point to supervise the scanning of codes, punching cards to measure body temperature, collecting information from each household and then reporting it to the superiors to check and implement the nucleic acid situation.
During the sealing period, in addition to the above routine tasks, Wu Weiqiu also needs to be responsible for purchasing and distributing materials, and even feeds pigs and chickens and harvests rice to farmers at home.
Most of the villages where Wu Weiqiu is on duty are farmers, mainly growing rice, fruits and tobacco for a living. In September and October last year, during the autumn harvest, Ruili stayed at home throughout the city, and only these young public officials were left to work in the fields.
Although Dao Nanjun, who works as a grid worker in the urban area, does not have to do farm work, he is often on the verge of collapse due to frequent changes in policies and unclear implementation, and conflicts with residents.
According to the latest version of the policy on April 13, residents of the prevention area can stay at home and leave Switzerland without the condition of centralized isolation at their own expense. But there are many problems with implementation.
"There are some questions that we can't answer." At the beginning, it was said that only one person could live in home isolation, and if there were three people in the family, one of them was away from Rui, either he would go to the board room alone to isolate, or the other two people would go outside to live. Now it is said that one person is away from Rui, and the other two must also be isolated at home together to do nucleic acid, not allowed to go out for 7 days, install an alarm at the door, and open the door to ring."
The free board room is not in good isolation condition
For the verbal work brought about by policy uncertainty, Dao Nanjun has become accustomed to it, but some important processes are written vaguely, which will directly lead to confusion in grass-roots implementation.
"On the first and sixth days, residents need antigen self-testing, on the seventh day, they need to contact the agency to take samples, where to buy reagents, and who to contact, there is no clear information."
Dao Nanjun told Lilac Garden that after the expiration of the quarantine period of residents, she still needs to personally pick up and drop them off, and supervise them point-to-point to the highway intersection.
In order to ensure that smugglers are not harbored and no inspections are missed, Dao Nanjun also checks the homes of residents from time to time and opens the doors of each room to confirm the number of people.
"Look through the toilet, the closet, even under the table. I am responsible for what the people of this building do and where they go every day, and they must be clear."
The exhausted grid staff met the residents who stayed at home and did nucleic acid hundreds of times and still could not move, creating too much friction that should not have been.
On the other hand, Ruili's local medical pressure is also long-term. Ruili People's Hospital and Jingcheng Hospital are considered to be the largest secondary hospitals in the local area, and there are several maternal and child health hospitals and rural clinics scattered.
Because the confirmed cases in the surrounding counties will also be sent to Ruili for treatment, many medical staff are infected on the front line, although the population density of Ruili is not large, the hospital still has some pressure.
"Now everyone doesn't dare to go to the hospital, and they can't bear to endure minor illnesses, and they can't stand major illnesses before they go." SuDi's mother works at Longchuan County Hospital, and she said that the problem is actually a more serious disease, and Ruili people can't go to other places for treatment.
"When the front was strictly controlled, ambulances were pulled to the highway intersection and were not given out, and there were also cases of pregnant women having miscarriages and serious delays in treatment."
Students going to school is also a problem that has been troubled for a long time. Chen Yi is a senior high school teacher who has been eating and living with students in the classroom for a whole year.
"Elementary school students have been taking online classes for nearly three years, and all of them have recently moved to a vocational middle school in Linxian County. As for the junior high school and senior year, they were closed on campus for almost a year. There are not enough dormitories, so I will change the classrooms and build some board rooms to make work."
There is also a special point in the prevention and control of border counties, which requires people to be on duty 24 hours a day at the border line to strictly prevent smugglers from entering the country. Ruili has a total of more than 500 border control points and 36 ferry crossings, and the public security and villagers have to walk at least a dozen miles a day to patrol and guard.
After the second unsealing of the sister's complaint, tens of thousands of Burmese nationals were persuaded by the government to return one after another. According to the statistics of the Ruili Municipal Government, there are 35,470 Burmese border residents, accounting for one-seventh of the population of Ruili.
The relevant staff published a "list of people who voluntarily returned to Myanmar" on WeChat and sent out a 60-second voice with helplessness and sincerity in their tone:
"Because we can't resume work and production in China this year, the sister-to-tell bridge is closed for management, even if you don't eat or drink and stay in the sister's report, you must have 20,000 yuan." If you don't have that much money, leave China from the big country."
Frequent investigations and punishments have aggravated the serious atmosphere of the small town. On March 30 alone, the town government investigated and exposed 18 villagers who violated the epidemic regulations, most of whom were punished for gathering at the village entrance to chat, play cards, and go out privately.
Residents must wear N95 masks when entering and leaving highly populated places such as supermarkets and government offices. Those who do not wear or do not wear masks when going out will be fined less than 200 yuan, and those who do not cooperate may also be detained.
So far, the small city has exhausted everything, and none of the cases have spread to other provinces.
But for the Ruili people, the previous life is also gone.
"Civil servants work as security guards, feed pigs and collect rice, doctors and residents skillfully cooperate in making nucleic acids at the entrance of the village every day, and teachers and students sleep in classrooms as if we had always lived like this."
Plunge into a life of silence
Ruiliben is the county and city with the best economic development level in Dehong Prefecture, with a GDP of 16.702 billion yuan in 2020, accounting for 29.02% of Dehong Prefecture.
It is not only an important economic town in Dehong, but also the only county and city that is not included in the list of state-level poverty counties in the contiguous contiguous areas of the border areas of western Yunnan, and its per capita GDP is even higher than the average of Yunnan Province.
On March 8 this year, the General Office of the People's Government of Yunnan Province issued a circular requiring port cities like Ruili, which are at high risk of overseas imports, to "exchange the strict control of the buffer zone for a safe environment for the province's economic and social development."
Source: Yunnan Provincial People's Government Website
Ruili, indeed, did. In order to guard the gates of the country, the lives of the people of Ruili are spent in "exchange".
In the 2 and a half years of the epidemic, the permanent population of Ruili has decreased from 500,000 to more than 100,000.
The most obvious feeling of Xuanyi is that the number of people doing nucleic acid in the community has changed from more than 3,000 to only 800, and the original queue from morning to night to do nucleic acid is now finished at most two hours a day.
Population transfer and resettlement is part of it.
Most of Ruili's cases have occurred in villages where the municipal government last year delineated a buffer zone for epidemic prevention and control within a range of 50 to 200 meters from the border line of the village and transferred residents in the buffer zone. Many people originally dragged their families to settle here, and then moved away in a row.
There are also businessmen who left earlier. Affected by the repeated epidemics, Ruili's tourism industry continued to decline sharply, decreasing by nearly 60% year-on-year, and total tourism revenue also fell by two-thirds in 2020.
Relying on the development of tourism, the loss of personnel in the jewelry industry has become more serious, and more than 20 existing jewelry and jadeite professional markets have all been closed, and most of the registered 8,251 jewelry operators and 17,000 employees have fled due to business difficulties.
There are several jade market stalls in the sister warning area, Xuanyi usually comes to the Yucheng market at 8 o'clock every morning to set up stalls, and the monthly flow can be 300,000 or 400,000.
A few years ago, the fire of live streaming goods in the mainland also spread to thousands of kilometers away. Every night at 7 or 8 o'clock in the evening, the anchor hired by Xuanyi came over all night to bring goods, and a passionate night could earn her a profit from the physical store operation for several months.
Nowadays, the sister's complaint has been emptied, can not set up a stall, no anchor to help carry goods, Xuanyi family of four can only rely on the income of physical stores to barely maintain.
The stalls, which were once crowded, are now empty
"Outsiders can't come in, they all come to buy goods, and the price will be lower than usual." The income is almost only 10,000 blocks, and you have to pay the rent of the shop."
The store is deserted, and in order to pass the time, Xuanyi has read 13 books in the store this year.
Xiao Chu's company has gone from more than 30 people to only 2 employees who are still staying at Ruili. Seven or eight people went to the company's new branch in Guangzhou, and most of them chose to leave Ruili and go to the provincial city of Kunming to find new vitality.
The reason why Xiao Chu stayed here was to transport the goods and try his best to recover the losses for the company.
In September 2020, Xiao chu Company paid a one-time rent of 300,000 yuan for two years, which was almost a rent payment in vain. But rather than this, the company is more concerned about the goods that remain in the sister's complaint. Most of the products sold in the store are cosmetics, and the total value of all the goods is about five or six million, in addition to various imported liquors.
At the end of October last year, things seemed to take a turn for the better.
The Sister's Investment Promotion Cooperation Office and the Sister's Notice Border Trade Management Committee suggested that the third-country commodities in the Sister's Notice District be transferred to the warehouse for processing.
The government promised to build another duty-free warehouse near the customs in Ruili District, so that Xiao Chu and other shops would first transfer the goods to the Limin Cross-border E-commerce Industrial Park, and then arrange for customs officers to deliver goods as soon as possible.
Sister tells the district goods transfer process
Need to spend their own money to rent a warehouse, Xiao Chu's company does not plan to continue to operate in Ruili, so it only spent 24,000 yuan to rent a small warehouse for turnover. Since the contract was signed in November last year, I thought I could send the goods out immediately, but half a year later, I have been delayed, and the question is "waiting for notice".
Warehouse lease contract
Xiao Chu had not been able to wait for someone to help him deal with it, and he was anxious about this avoidable loss.
"We can't predict the epidemic, but the goods are now stranded in the sister's complaint can be thought of." If it is not disposed of this year, it is estimated that 2/3 of the goods will be lost. It's a shame to see it expire."
Sudi in nearby Longchuan County runs a small restaurant selling a variety of Yunnan specialties. A small shop of more than a dozen square meters, with 8 small tables, is a booming business, and can be filled at noon and night.
When the epidemic broke out, the government notified all shops along the street to suspend business, Su Di's snack bar dine-in and takeaway could not be done, and the family sat on the empty mountain for half a year. After the resumption of takeaway, the inability to purchase independently is another problem, and the turnover is almost 1/3 of the original.
In addition, the cinema where Sudi worked for more than five years has closed down, and many swimming pools, gyms, Internet cafes, and massage parlors have long been empty.
This border town, which made its fortune from the jade industry and tourism, fell silent as businessmen, migrant workers and Burmese people from all over the world came to pan for gold.
Sleepy City Sorrow: I can't stay if I want to stay, I can't go if I want to go
In addition to doing business, there are also people who come here to work. Mr. Zhang is a truck driver, and his wife is a dishwasher at a nearby snack bar, both from Sichuan. A family of five has been living in Hatamachi for more than 200 days without any source of income.
Last year, we received 1,000 yuan of living allowances from the government for poor households, and this year we just issued 150 yuan of material vouchers, but this money is only enough for a month's food for a large family, and some of the savings saved earlier are about to bottom.
Zhang Gensheng has long wanted to go to Kunming to make a living, but he can't afford the high cost of isolation.
Self-funded isolation for 7 days, a person about 1500 yuan, but also need to double harvest and double inspection every day, Zhang Gensheng's family will have to spend tens of thousands of yuan, which is the family's income for a whole year. When he arrived at the destination, Zhang Gensheng, who was given a yellow code, still needed to isolate himself out of his own pocket.
In March, Hatamachi Middle School was thrown by unknown stones, and the town issued a notice saying that recently foreign personnel frequently threw steel balls and thrown objects into the country, which meant that the meaning was unknown. Fearing an increased risk of spreading the epidemic, the heartstrings of the Ruili people once again tightened.
Soon, the Hata town government recruited people with no fixed income stranded in public welfare posts to assist in epidemic prevention work and arrest smugglers. Once hired, you can get a subsidy of 1000 yuan / person / month.
Zhang Gensheng signed up and has not yet received a notice. "There is no way out, and it is best to wait until the policy is loosened." At most, stay up for half a year, it's really not okay, borrow money and go out." Zhang Gensheng planned so.
"Over and over again, everyone who can go is gone." The rest of the people, imaginable and unimaginable bitterness, all of them have eaten, but they are all used to swallowing into their stomachs." Zhang Gensheng mentioned the obedience of Ruili and choked up several times on the other end of the phone.
Many people do not know that in the far southwest border of the motherland, the ordinary life belonging to the people of the small city has gone away.
There are 25 border counties and cities in Yunnan that also adhere to epidemic prevention and security. In the whole country, there are 136 of them.
When compatriots who have been silently insisting on guarding the gates of the country have issued a cry for help, they need more real assistance than flowers and applause.
Note: All character names in this article are pseudonyms, and all photos are provided by the people in this article.
(This article was first published in Lilac Garden)
Written by: Mangkhut
Curated: Beatrice
Executive Producer: Gyouza
First image source: IC photo
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