Gifts for migrant workers help ease separation
Cleaners work on Nanjing Road Pedestrian Mall ahead of the Spring Festival.
Festive gifts and events have been prepared for migrant workers who will spend the Spring Festival in Shanghai as part of COVID-19 prevention efforts.
Tens of thousands of construction workers, deliverymen, hospital workers, street cleaners, police officers and firefighters from out of town will stay in Shanghai for the seven-day holiday to begin on Monday.
Street cleaner Cao Desheng on Nanjing Road Pedestrian Mall will be spending the traditional holiday in the city for the third year since the outbreak of the pandemic in early 2020.
After cleaning the street, Cao, 50, carries a barrel of disinfectant to sterilize seats, telephone booths, street fronts and other public areas at least thrice every day. It takes an hour-and-a-half for him to walk through the 1.8-kilometer-long street with the 20-kilogram plastic barrel on his back.
"Nanjing Road is the face of Shanghai," Cao said. "I must protect it well."
Cleaner Cao receives the gift pack jointly prepared by time-honored brands on Nanjing Road.
Time-honored restaurants and brands of the street have jointly prepared gift packs with traditional festive treats for the front line workers.
The presents include marinated huangniluo, or a bubble snail, from Shao Wan Sheng, the 170-year-old Shanghai brand, known for its pickled and liquor-laced foods, as well as hudiesu, or butterfly cookies, popular in 1930s Shanghai, from Sanyang Food Store.
Cao decided to send the gifts back home.
"Though I can only send Chinese New Year greetings online, my parents and children will be happy to receive the gift pack," Cao said.
The gift packs are also presented to the meal deliverymen and courier staff working around the street. Medics, community workers and volunteers serving citizens and tourists to take COVID-19 vaccines on the street have also received the gifts.
"I will send the gift home to let my parents know my workplace in Shanghai is so nice," said a meal deliveryman surnamed Jiang from neighboring Jiangsu Province.
Meal deliverymen receive the gifts.
He will also stay in the city during the holiday to answer the call of his company to reduce movements during the holiday amid the pandemic.
Shanghai is taking more stringent prevention and control measures amid higher risks of COVID-19 contagion during the winter-spring period, especially over the upcoming Spring Festival holiday. Residents who are not native to the city are being encouraged to spend the Spring Festival in the city.
In downtown Xujiahui commercial hub, cleaners are invited to a public activity center to make and taste dumplings, write spring festival couplets or listen to a health lecture given by traditional Chinese medicine doctors.
Spring Festival, or the Chinese Lunar New Year, falls on February 1 this year. The traditional holiday normally sees more people on the move, more gatherings, and more imports of cold-chain food and cargo, bringing more challenges for prevention and control efforts.
To curb the pandemic, non-native residents are being advised to avoid leaving Shanghai, or going aboard during the period, to reduce the traffic of people, according to the measures.
The landmark Nanjing Road E. is decorated with red lanterns for the coming Year of the Tiger.
