According to most accounts, Zhu Aitao has it all. Now she is ready to leave it all behind. The 35-year-old, originally from Shandong Province, China, lives in Beijing’s wealthiest district with her husband – her high school sweetheart – and their two young children. They own their house and two cars, a BMW and a Lexus. They both have stable jobs: Zhu runs public relations for a multinational car company, and her husband writes for a state-owned magazine. Sick of their lives as pandemics dictate – frequent and sudden lockdowns, endless cycles of mass trials and constant uncertainty – Zhu hopes to move her family to Thailand as soon as possible and eventually migrate to Europe or the United States. States. “I feel like I have an emotional breakdown,” he said. “I feel powerless. It is like an authoritarian father telling you that all this is for your sake. You just have to listen. Do not ask questions. “ Zhu is one of a growing number of Chinese urban professionals enrolled in a new school of thought known as runxue, the study of how to “escape” from their homeland. For many like Zhu, it’s not just China’s strict zero-Covid policy, but what the future looks like in a society where politics — supporting the policies of the top leader regardless of cost — prevails. science and the well-being of whose inhabitants daily life is subject to increasing state intervention. Xi’s tough policies on coronavirus cause buzz in China “It’s immigration driven by a sense of frustration,” said Xiang Biao, director of the immigration-focused Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Germany. “People are not running away from the virus. “People run away from such measures from the top down and despise the feelings and dignity of individuals.” Immigration investigations have escalated since chaotic quarantine measures were imposed in April in China’s most populous city, Shanghai, where residents struggled to feed and saw family members die after failing to receive emergency medical care. The term runxue, or “the science of running,” soon gained momentum on the Internet among disgruntled Shanghai residents and dozens of other Chinese cities in some form of lockdown. On April 3, when a senior Chinese official visited Shanghai and ordered “firm” adherence to the zero coronavirus, searches for “immigration” on the WeChat social networking platform rose more than 400 percent from almost a day earlier and again 500 one hundred on May 17th. as restrictions continued. Searches for immigration claims in Canada and Malaysia, as well as the question “good immigration destinations”, increased twenty-fold between the end of March and the beginning of April, according to Baidu. Watching from afar, Luna Liu, a Tianjin-based PhD candidate in England at the University of London, posted on the Douban Forum that she would give free advice to anyone hoping to move to Britain. He has now made an appointment until November, with half a dozen people still on the waiting list. “I can feel that many of the people I spoke to had delusions about the system at home. Following the Shanghai lockdown, these illusions were shattered. “They realized that if they wanted to live freely, they had to leave,” Liu said. Shanghai Covid Siege: Food Shortages, Talking Robots, Hungry Animals While runxue has not caused mass migration, this is the latest example of deeper pessimism in China amid a slowdown in growth, historic youth unemployment rates, an increasingly restrictive political environment and uncertainty about China’s opening as the country turns more and more inward. A common joke on the internet is that anxious bourgeois have three options. They can continue to fight in the rat breed of Chinese society, making little progress in an approach known as neijuan, or “involution,” the process of turning inward into a self-destructive competition with others. Others may choose to leave life with difficulty and instead chat or “lie down”. Now, those who have the means can choose to emigrate or “run”. Young Chinese take a stand against the pressures of modern life – lying down “This is definitely not a normal phenomenon, nor is it something that could be widely discussed in a healthy society,” said Li Nuo, 45, of Hebei Prefecture, who acquired permanent residence in Japan last year and now runs e-commerce. company in Osaka. Recently, she has been helping friends and relatives trying to leave China. “If China is really as strong and important as it claims, why are so many people willing to go into exile and why so many young people do not feel safe? “What it says is that this society is sick,” he said. Foreign passports and green cards have long been the prerogative of China’s wealthiest families, who are often looking for better educational opportunities for their children. Now, more middle-class families and young people are also looking for a way out. Joy Zhou, 23, who works for a non-governmental organization in Beijing, plans to move to Canada for the next year or two to study and hopes to establish permanent residency there. Zhou started thinking about moving abroad last year to experience life in a new cultural environment. Now, he feels a sense of urgency. “The withdrawal is not just about the pandemic. I do not identify with about 80 percent of the dominant social values here, “she said, noting her concern for women’s rights, workers’ treatment and the increasingly restricted freedom of speech in China. “This system is without a doubt backwards. “People seem to have learned to cope with life in an irrational system, but will our lives ever get better?” While many are talking about leaving, few will actually make the leap, according to Julia Jing, a consultant at the Pacific Overseas Group in Beijing, which offers immigration advice. He said the company received more inquiries in the first four months of this year than in 2021 as a whole. Jing said that while there are more opportunities abroad for Chinese tech entrepreneurs and professionals at a time when domestic companies are laying off employees, residents should also consider things like caring for elderly parents, language barriers or the possibility of border controls. to prevent them from returning home indefinitely. However, Internet users, both older and younger, publish extensive and detailed articles on migration logistics and technical details, despite the fact that they are unlikely to follow such advice. The discussion about the possibility of migration becomes both a form of imagination and a way of relaxation. “People think runxue is a way of not just imagining a different life. “It’s a way of imagining their autonomy,” said Xiang, of the Max Planck Institute. “It’s a way of expressing anger, weakness and frustration.” Locked in their homes: Portraits of the Shanghai lockdown Formal attitudes toward immigration, once considered a betrayal of socialist ideology in the early years of the People’s Republic of China, have eased over the years. Waves of immigration include students, contract workers, activists and other immigrants in the 1980s and 1990s. 13 percent of the continent’s population had them, according to government figures. Now, as authorities work to attract talent and prevent brain drain in the face of a shrinking and aging population, some are worried that immigration will be politicized again. In the last two years, authorities have issued fewer passports and restricted outbound travel in the name of coronavirus measures. Last year, China issued 630,000 passports, compared to an average of 10.8 million a year from 2002 to 2017. In May, the National Immigration Service said it would continue to “severely restrict non-essential departures” of Chinese citizens. On social media, Internet users have posted bills with their passports obtained from employers or foreign residence cards and passports issued by border officials. The immigration authority in May denied that passports had been revoked or that residence permits had been revoked. China closes debate on Covid’s difficulties. users counterattack Although censors do not seem to be moderating the online debate over runxue, authorities are likely to be concerned about an ideology that promotes the country’s abandonment. On WeChat, some runxue articles have been blocked for ‘breaking the relevant laws’. Internet users on GitHub said that some Weibo and WeChat accounts that publish immigration tips were closed. In the Baidu search engine, search volume data on immigration-related terms are no longer available to the public. “It’s not just what people who shape society do. It is also where people imagine their future or a good life. “Runxue says people imagine the good life to be somewhere else, and that says a lot about Chinese society today,” said Heidi Ostbo Haugen, a professor of Chinese studies at the University of Oslo. “They are always ready to leave and that does something about how you live your life here and now,” he said. For Zhu, Beijing’s public relations manager, the biggest obstacle to leaving is her husband, a traditional man for whom moving to Beijing from their hometown of Shandong was already a big request. Recently, the issue of moving with him erupted nervously. He did not immediately say no. Meanwhile, she tries to stay busy to avoid focusing on things like her children spending their childhood under pandemic restrictions, which causes her insomnia. “I just try to fill my work and life as much as possible. Although I do not like the current politics, who knows if it will happen …
