Shanghai Lockdown: Woman Lives in Phone Booth for a Month

This story is relayed through an observer from one of the apartment buildings nearby, Li Bai, making a diary of events. These are some of the excerpts.

Weixin: 被赶走前，她在红色电话亭住了一个月 | 新世界

On April 1, the first day of the lockdown in Puxi, Shanghai, she led a dog wearing red clothes, carrying a bag and carrying some things, and walked into the red phone booth opposite the community.

For a whole month, she lived in it.

On April 29, two men in hazmat suits kicked her out of the phone booth. She took nothing when she left, hugged her puppy, and walked barefoot to the south.

April 1

Shanghai Puxi was officially closed. There is sunshine, the streets are empty and there are no pedestrians.

In the afternoon, Li Bai stood by the window and saw a woman. The woman was leading a dog in red, carrying a bag and carrying something in her hand. She stopped in front of a phone booth. Then, she walked in.

Around four o'clock, a small ginger quilt appeared on the drying rack outside the phone booth. At night, the shelf is replaced with a blue and white blanket.

Five meters behind the phone booth is the primary school, with signs of socialist values ​​hanging on the wall.

Next to the phone booth is a tree with no leaves on it.

April 2

Since March 27, Li Bai has been shopping for vegetables every day, and then he will divide the vegetables after buying them. After the lockdown in Shanghai, she felt relieved. She was very tired from grabbing food for several days. Now she can't grab food in all of Shanghai, so she can finally rest.

She stood by the window again. The woman still lives in the phone booth. How did she sleep last night? The phone booth is so small that it can't be stretched out, it can only be curled up. Many people in the building noticed the anomaly in the phone booth. They began to guess the identity and age of the woman in the phone booth in the WeChat group. She looks very fashionable and has a ball head. Some people say it should be a young girl. But Shanghai is closed, what is she doing here? People focus on that dog, yes, it must be to be able to walk the dog, she gave up the comfort of the home and came to the phone booth, maybe, just to allow the dog to walk outside?

At 5:30 in the afternoon, a police car appeared next to the phone booth, and two police officers walked down. They were wearing white protective suits and said something to the woman living in the phone booth. It seems that they are emotionally stable, like daily communication. After 10 minutes, the police drove away.

Someone in the group said that the police didn't intend to arrest her, did they?

April 5

At 9:30 a.m., there were two police officers standing outside the phone booth, wearing uniforms and N95 masks. The woman was wearing a purple top, jeans and white shoes, and she was half a metre away from the police. A pink quilt was drying next to it. Soon, within ten minutes, the police were gone.

Li Bai grabbed a few sausages and two boxes of tofu on the grocery shopping app.

April 11

There is an autonomous "elevator mini-market" in the building, where you can pick up your own supplies, including oranges, green grapes, red wine, colostrum and beer. Everyone is very excited. Someone put the treasured Maotai in the elevator. He said that everyone poured a little and had a drink together. Li Bai's husband took a few cans of Coke from it and put in hanging ear coffee and a few packs of Zhonghua cigarettes. Many people say that this is the happiest day since the lockdown.

At 5:30 p.m., the woman in the phone booth wore a pair of bibs, a ball head, and white shoes to start walking the dog. She only walked for 10 minutes. She doesn't come out very often, she comes out to throw out the garbage, to dry the quilt, and to take the tub outside.

There is no one on the street. I didn't see anyone delivering supplies to her.

April 17

The whole building began to pay attention to the woman in the phone booth. But the community is still completely closed, and no one can approach the phone booth.

Someone flew a drone, and it was the first official hello from the building and the phone booth lady. The meeting was made into a video, accompanied by music, with the opening subtitle: "The daily life of the phone booth - the neighbors on the road that neighbors pay attention to."

The leaves grew bigger, and the sun shone through the leaves to cast shadows of varying lengths next to the phone booth. The woman in the phone booth was wearing a plain one-piece suit with a ball head and a pair of boots. She was stooping to organize things. Then, she saw the drone and was stunned. She raised her hands and shook it from side to side. He jumped again and greeted the drone warmly.

At the end of the video, the road next to the phone booth is full of sunlight and empty.

The head of the building said that the woman in the telephone booth was living very well, moving freely and without any fatigue.

At five o'clock in the afternoon, a police car pulled up next to the phone booth. The phone booth woman squatted outside and continued to organize things.

I haven't cleaned up the machine translation. Foreigner here means not a native of Shanghai:

April 28

At ten o'clock in the evening, Li Bo's friend rode to the phone booth again. When he was waiting for the traffic light, he saw a police car. He followed behind the police car. He didn't expect the police car to go to the phone booth. The police car drove slowly, as if surveying the terrain, but just took a look and left.

The woman is still in the phone booth. When a friend saw the police car leaving, he went up to communicate with her. Li Bai's friend said that she looked in her forties, not a young woman anymore. She said that she was a foreigner and had been working odd jobs in Shanghai before, working intermittently and doing a little bit of work. She didn't have a fixed place to live. She was going to close the city at the end of March and couldn't pay the rent for a long time, so she found this phone booth and lived there. She has a clear mind, and she emphasizes that she needs to eat directly, bread, biscuits. rather than rice noodles. Li Bo's friend said that you can exchange these things with others, keep them for now, and give the puppy some ham tomorrow.

April 29

At twelve o'clock in the middle of the night, Li Bo was about to fall asleep, and she put on her earplugs and an eye mask. Suddenly, her husband got up and said why it was so noisy outside. They went to the window and found a loud quarrel in the phone booth. Li Bai immediately took out her mobile phone and started shooting. She also reminded her husband to turn off the lights in the room, to have anti-reconnaissance awareness, and not let people know that we were shooting.

Many people in the building got up, and everyone heard the quarrel. The head of the building said, "Da Bai has come to find the lady in the telephone booth."

The police car was parked on the side of the road, and two men in protective suits first pressed her to the ground. She cried out loudly, and said in a crying voice, "Why did you hit someone." The man got up, walked to the phone booth, and put the Throw her things out one by one and tell her to move out tonight. The woman stepped forward to try to stop her, and she screamed with excitement. Seeing this, one of the men was furious, stepped forward and knocked her to the ground and pressed her hard. They went to another door of the phone booth, opened, entered, cleared.

In the end, the woman in the phone booth didn't take anything. She just hugged her puppy, walked barefoot, and went south.

It was raining at the time.

At more than two in the morning on the 29th, someone in the building saw the police coming again. They asked the security guards at the elementary school to pack the scattered items into protective suits. The phone booth was quickly cleared.

April 30 The inside of the phone booth was empty, and there was a blue seal on the outside of the phone booth.