Chun had a very happy New Year in 2023. She managed to spend the holidays with her whole family in the Chinese countryside. For the young woman, who works for a state-owned company in Beijing, the possibility of sharing a table with relatives was the guarantee of life back. “It was very special,” he said.
But she had to hear comments from the elderly, now completely devoid of filters, typical of a conversation in a large family: “I gained weight.”
Who ever?
China reopened. Both internally, after a tense year 2022 full of restrictions, and for an important part of the world. Many tourists and businessmen arriving in Beijing today do not need to be locked in a hotel for weeks.
Airports and train stations are filling up again, and thousands are vying for spaces. In Hong Kong, two 16-year-old boys were preparing to change planes and leave for Zurich, where they attend a private school reserved for the world’s elite.
“This is the first time we’ve traveled without the need for quarantine,” said one, feeling relieved. “The last time we came to see my parents, we were closed for 30 days.”
On the same flight, a family from Shanghai was traveling for the first time since the beginning of the epidemic. In fact, the whole world is waiting for the quota of the 180 million Chinese tourists who, in 2019, ensured the smile of salespeople on the Champs Elysees or on the streets of Rome.
In central Beijing, some popular restaurants have queues of more than three hours and authorities scramble to get visas and passports issued in the same numbers as in 2019.
Shanghai’s multicultural nightlife, where any drink can be found and where new music trends rock the parties, is back in motion. In the quiet city of Yiwu, we hope that foreigners will return to one of the world’s largest business centers.
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