Author: Litong Wang & Shengbo E
The east gate of China received a coup de main by the pandemic after the Chinese New Year: Shanghai, the economic hub of China's mainland, started to cry like a stumbled toddler. It seems ironic how a bastion of global finance, a paradigm for urbanization, could still suffer from a tremendous lack of food. When other regions of China have allegedly ‘conquered’ COVID-19, it became even more nerve-racking.
We are often subject to inertia after such a shock. However, dwelling on the past bustle and prosperity is of no avail. In April, a month after the epidemic broke out, the total import plus export volume of Shanghai dropped 36.5 percent, and the percentage decrease in the investment of Primary Industry compared with the same time last year was a staggering 52.4%. Under these inanimate numbers are living beings with concrete pain. Nevertheless, among them, we also have seen some of the best traits manifested by the commonplace hero of an entrepreneur, who, though in great pain, clung firmly to the cause for which he fought. Let us go back to that early Spring, during which he struggled with his whole strength for the survival of his company and his workmen.
When hearing of the announcement of the upcoming four-day blockade of Shanghai Pudong New District, Li certainly was partially flustered. As the manufacturer of the outer casing of a type of new-generation fuel cells, Li’s company has long held a tight contracted cooperation with H, a clean energy organization. Just right before the 2022 Shanghai Omicron Pandemic’s breakout, his company underwent an expansion, during which the removal of its factory delayed the latest production order given by his client.
What Li faced was fairly clear: the supposed due of delivery had already passed, and here came the severe blockade that would occlude all non-pandemic-preventing transportation and outing, meaning that during this 4-day period, none of his workers could get to the factory and resume the postponed production. Meanwhile, he soon perceived a potential danger: what if the situation worsened, forcing the blockade to persist? What if the already belate production plan went shelved for another week, month, or several of them? H has long been the company’s biggest client and the profit generated from their partnership accounted for more than 50% of Li’s company’s financial sources; Li didn’t want to gamble this strenuously consolidated relationship on some erratic government decisions at any extent. He was going to recall the workers and put the production back to normal before the blockade initiated.
The time Li received the announcement of preparing for blockade was 9 p.m. on March 27th, and the exact time of transportation shutdown would be at 0 a.m. of the 28th. He had only 3 hours to implement the quickest reaction. He soon drew out the name list of 50 picked core staffs and workers of the company and contacted them by phone. The team was roughly packed up, rushing to the factory within the limited time. Perhaps some of them would complain about suddenly working overtime and spending nights in the workshop, but that was due to their unconsciousness of the fact that, thanks to their boss’s decision within the twinkling of eyes, they would be the ones who later largely saved the company during the pandemic.
Li’s foresight of the course of the pandemic proved to be extremely accurate: the number of diagnosed cases skyrocketed, and the government went persistently intensifying the blockade policies over the whole city. Entering April 2022, the mass majority of Shanghai became totally confined to their homes and attended daily nucleic acid tests for screening any potential infector at once. The city was divided into different levels of risk zones being severely supervised and the transportation was completely cleared for ambulances and commodities delivery only. In short, if it was not that instant decision of sending the workers back to the factory during that ‘life-saving’ 3 hours, they wouldn’t have found any opportunity again to bring back their regular production in the next two months before the blockade gradually came to an end.
However, troubles kept knocking at Li’s door one after another. At the early stage of this Shanghai pandemic, the city partially got into the circumstance of food shortages due to a large cut on available transport capacity by the blockade and a strict inspection of non-pandemic-preventing commodities’ delivery. For a hastily preparation within only 3 hours, the 50 personnel certainly wasn’t ready for a highly prolonged blockade—their food reserves soon ran out after a week of stay in the factory while the transportation from elsewhere was absolutely unavailable. That was the time at which Li truly was at the edge of freaking out: “It was hard to believe that we lived in the 21st century, and starvation appeared in the biggest city of the nation,” recalled Li, “At that critical moment, I suddenly felt that—costs, contracts, and reputation—all theses things were extricable; the current issue was that my workers were at risk of their living.” Li and his family drew on all the channels they could find to acquire enough food for 50 people in total and certified transportation with special pandemic passes. During this most chaotic period of time, even the market supply and transportation system were in utter disarray, they still successfully got the food delivered into the factory.
In mid-April, the second obstacle arose: the packing materials ran short, especially the necessary wrap films. Undoubtedly, acquiring such articles for industrial usage was even harder than food while the market was totally muddled up, and carrying them to the factory when the blockade stood still was also forbidden for saving the available capacity for the cardinal pandemic-preventing work. Nevertheless, Li didn’t give up any possible chance of obtaining these much-needed materials; after numerous attempts of searching and calling, he finally found a much surprising solution to the problem: it was a grocery that sold food and wrap films at the same time and, coincidentally, held the pandemic-preventing transport pass at the same time. Li asked them if they could carry the wrap films with the food together and send them to the factory, and they willingly agreed. Meanwhile, to guard against shortages of other regular production materials, he applied this method as well on cooperation with the rest of his suppliers. He bought a number of idle food-relief containers for his materials to make sure the transport would be permitted for carrying pandemic-preventing commodities and contacted certain individual truck drivers with special pandemic-preventing licenses to stand by. His suppliers were also co-operative, helping him to purchase on his behalf certain odds and ends of material which he could not obtain in Shanghai, and sending them over in their entirety. “The whole process was so complicated and tiring,” commented Li, “that I really was spending all of my time making calls to settle down this material stuff during that most difficult period of time.”
Late April was a fatal challenge for Li and his men: the due of consignment approached, while the final coating process couldn’t be set off a little bit—none of his coating suppliers was at production! This time, Li was almost at his verge of being driven to despair, since his company survived so much hardship and finally made to the one last step, and what awaited for them seemed like only a death sentence inflicted by the pandemic. “I indeed considered giving up; I just wanted to let go of everything and say, ‘That’s it. Stop torturing yourself with such shambles. You have lost your last chance to save your contract with your client.’” Li smiled wryly when he said this. “Yet when I thought about my family not being fed and my workers losing jobs, I forced myself to go on. It was destined to be my duty to do so.” His effort didn’t result in vain, of course: after innumerable calls made throughout the address book, he finally made it to a coating factory that hadn’t been contacted for a long while, who by chance was doing the coating of mobile cabin hospitals during the pandemic, thus kept their production line open up. After several rounds of negotiations, the other party decided to help his company with this coating job, which, to much extent, would be violating the production rule during the pandemic. To familiarize each other with the coating process as soon as possible, Li even secretly sent two of his technicians to his supplier by hiding them in the material container. “That was truly a venture,” said Li, “Once such conduct was found, the aftermath would be extremely destructive—the government wouldn’t present any mercy while seeing someone violating the law this straightforwardly.” Li indeed still felt much fear after the event while looking back to those days; moreover, no one could tell how grateful he was when the coating factory also made up their mind to trust his company and give them a hand—it really was a decisive act that brought Li’s company back from the side of the brink.
The story ended with Li’s company sending 6 full-loaded containers with the finished products to America, which breathtakingly reached his client’s need and maintained their valuable collaboration. In fact, H sincerely understood well how hard the situation in Shanghai was throughout the time; they chose to tighten the wills of receiving the company’s consignment as soon as possible only because they were the sole reliable manufacturer they ever found. So, what Li did during the pandemic, actually, had the effect of elevating their own thankfulness and confidence given upon his company—perhaps, an even brighter prospect awaits it in the near future. Li himself attributed such a grand escape - and in many ways a grand success - to his unprecedented fortune during the pandemic; however, as we can all see, Li was truly devoting all he could do to save his company, and his great responsibility and reliability was shown by the ways he dealt with those unexpected problems one after another, surely convincing those who chose to cooperate with him with 100% confidence.
Like the gold under a goldsmith's hammer, we flex and bend under forces. Humanity has such a vibrancy that often springs forth when we’re in dire need of it. When flood encroaches on the land, it becomes an ark; when arson displays its might, it becomes the manna that puts the fire out. And when it comes to covid and lockdown, entrepreneurship responds with wit and grit, which, in the mundane, we dimly discern. Stripped of their remarkable insight and resolution, these entrepreneurs, far from being the cold alpha figures as generally presumed, possess a heart of care and humanitarianism for their surroundings; it is these qualities that, amid the freezing gusts of the pandemic, still light up our minds and remind us of the temperature of humanity. For our society, especially Shanghai, such is exactly what we desire to thaw the ice built up by covid-19.