Recently, I accepted an opportunity to participate in a live pre-show for the world’s largest TV show, the annual CCTV (China Central Television) Lunar New Year Gala. This meant that I needed to get from my home in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province in far southwestern China, up to Beijing, which was just about to shut down for the Winter Olympics. Fortunately, Chengdu was not in a middle or high-level ‘hot zone’ (cities and provinces that have had recent cases of COVID-19) at the time, so I felt confident that I would be able to get onto the plane and into Beijing without any issues. Completing this journey required one very important item: my phone, which had the necessary health tracking apps downloaded onto it.

Although I had already booked the flight, I wouldn’t be let onto the plane without the requisite COVID-19 test taken within 24 hours before departure—a similar policy to many other countries. The journey to take the test involved a pleasant walk through my neighbourhood, past the delicious foreign bakeries and local spicy soup restaurants, to the nearby military hospital. 

To enter the hospital, I scan the QR code at the main gate with my special tracking app, which is different for every province and usually connected via WeChat or Alipay. The tracing app revealed a green code—“lü ma” in Mandarin, which sounds just like the pronunciation for “green horse”—and the guard let me through with a smile.

If I’d gotten a yellow or red code, I would have gone down a different entrance path to be handled with more caution. Codes turn yellow if you've been in the same shopping centre or lived in the same housing complex as someone who was a contact of a COVID-19 case. When travelling between provinces, which is not encouraged at the moment, the various health apps sometimes misalign, and these information errors can cause a yellow code too. Codes turn red if you've walked within a certain number of metres of an infected person (this number varies with each outbreak in each city), if one of your close contacts has been confirmed to have COVID-19, or if you yourself have tested positive.  

Armed with my green code, I walked to the testing area and waited behind a family preparing to go home for the holidays. I paid ¥40 (Chinese renminbi, the equivalent of $6) and entered the testing station, where I was thoroughly swabbed by a military nurse in a full-body hazmat suit. The next morning, I checked my phone to see the negative test result listed under my green code before I set off to the airport. 

As soon as I arrived in Beijing, I had to switch over to the local Beijing contact tracing app as each one is managed by separate provincial governments. Once registered, all my movements, contact tracing, and test results could be collected in this ‘Health Kit’ app. Every time I entered a building, a park, the subway, or a taxi, this code was checked, and when I eventually return home to Chengdu, the contact tracing and test results will switch back to the Sichuan app.

Ultimately, the COVID-19 tracing system can be onerous. However, it is a chore I happily engage with; other than when using the apps, it feels like a relatively COVID-19 free world over here, which is a delight. That being said, it is true that we always have to be prepared for the possibility of a city-wide shutdown or enforced home quarantine. In fact, whole cities can be locked down if there is evidence of local transmission, as in the recent case of BaiSe in Guangxi Province. 

Meanwhile, as Beijing prepares for the Winter Olympic Games, the Chinese government has created two separate bubbles. One is the ‘clean’ bubble, where there’s tight control, frequent testing, and intensive contact tracing. The other is the ‘dirty’ bubble for the people involved with the Olympics, including athletes and staff. The Olympics bubble is jokingly referred to as ‘dirty’ because the strict 21–28 day quarantine required to enter everywhere else in China is not required there. Indeed, there are already several cases of COVID-19 in this ‘dirty’ bubble, and more than 30 athletes have been held in isolation after testing positive. My friends working at the Games will not be able to see their families again until March at the earliest. But because of the celebration and holiday spirit that surrounds the Games themselves, there hasn’t been much complaint from them about missing the Spring Festival time at home.

After I arrived in Beijing, there was an Omicron outbreak in the city. While I am concerned that I will not be able to go straight home to Chengdu, or perhaps might have to quarantine when I get there, I am most concerned about coming into close contact with someone who has had COVID-19. If this happens, my phone’s green code will turn yellow, meaning that I might not be able to get into the TV station for my show. Additionally, any hint of COVID-19 related symptoms will prevent me from making use of this amazing career opportunity: being a part of the Spring Festival programming on CCTV’s live holiday broadcast.  

As a preventive measure, I am relying heavily on a traditional Chinese medical philosophy, known as yang sheng (literally “nourishing life”), to help keep myself in optimal shape. I originally travelled to China more than 20 years ago to study Chinese medicine, with a particular interest in the art of yang sheng. Yang sheng involves a preventative daily practice of doing what needs to be done to keep your health in balance, rather than waiting for symptoms to appear. For example, when I met with a friend for dinner, she knew we were going to enjoy some spicy hot pot, so she also ordered a tea with traditional ‘cooling’ properties. These properties do not refer to the physical temperature of the food or drink, but rather to the energetic effect they have on the body’s systems.  

The hotel I’m staying at provides traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) porridges and soups that are made specifically with ingredients to nourish the body. For instance, a chicken bone broth with ginseng, Chinese dates, ginger, and other herbs, can help rebalance the system, especially for women. When I spoke with the chefs, they said that guests are ordering these items now more than ever. With fears of COVID-19 constant in everyone’s minds, consuming these TCM items has become more commonplace. In fact, many of the holiday gifts I received this year included teas and herbs specifically to help keep COVID-19 at bay. 

Equipped with all of the preventative care possible, as well as my two doses of the Moderna vaccine, I am still going out for dinners with friends. Scanning my phone at every entrance is a continual reminder to practice caution and avoid indoor places with large crowds of people. My biggest concern, beyond having my health code turn red, is that I lose my phone with all of these various tracking apps. It would be incredibly difficult to get all the paperwork together required to get a new phone in China, and then to go through all the processes necessary to get that important green code. Without my phone and its green code, I would not be able to get home. While I’m enjoying my trip to Beijing, I am very much looking forward to riding this green horse back to Chengdu in a few days.