For Xixi, life now revolves around the color-coded QR codes installed on her smartphone. People across China have grown used to showing a green “
health code” to enter public buildings like malls and office buildings during the pandemic. But since the Shanghai lockdown began, some schools have taken the technology much further. Xixi, a sociology student at Shanghai University, now has to show a green QR code to access the campus supermarket, or even the public bathroom to take a shower. The bathroom code turns green for five and a half hours once every two days. The rest of the time, the postgraduate has to wash using the sinks in her dormitory.
“It’s such a strange feeling: the idea that all our daily activities — what we eat, or when we can take a shower — are included in the authorities’ plan,” Xixi tells Sixth Tone. “Our generation has never experienced anything like this before.”
Students across Shanghai are struggling to adapt to a surreal new normal, as the city’s universities impose strict pandemic control measures amid China’s largest COVID-19 outbreak since 2020.
