China still maintains a zero-COVID policy, which, for Ha and Nadav, means they haven't been able to leave their apartment building since April 1. She and her husband, Nadav Davidai, and their two kids have had to maintain a healthy sense of humor lately as Shanghai approaches its sixth week of a citywide COVID lockdown. SCHMITZ: Ha Chuong was one of my neighbors. These get circulated, and we almost laugh at them. HA CHUONG: One of the only ways, honestly, to survive this lockdown is to have to see it through some kind of humor. The message says, please comply with COVID restrictions. SCHMITZ: That's a government drone elsewhere in Shanghai, warning people who were singing from their balconies. My family and I left China months before the pandemic, but I still stay in touch with some of my former neighbors through the group messaging platform WeChat, which is where I saw this.
For nine years, I lived in a giant apartment complex called the Summit with thousands of other people in the city of Shanghai.