I couldn't go across the border without the results. And they handed me a buzzer, like at a restaurant when you're waiting for your table, and told me to wait for the results. And the first thing the Hong Kong authorities made me do on the Hong Kong side of the border was take another PCR test with a swab that, I have to say, went deeper than any I've ever experienced. MARTIN: Once you made it across, was that the last step in your journey? And get this - there are only 800 spots a day that they allow. And you have to book a spot online to be able to cross through on a specific day. And that one border point is called Shenzhen Bay. RUWITCH: Well, they've closed them all, except for one.
And how are officials controlling the border checkpoints now? So then crossing the border is your next step. The food was decent, and if it wasn't good on a certain day, there's ways to order food in, so I found it doable. RUWITCH: I'll be honest with you, it was pouring rain. Do you mind if I ask like, what was that like? Were you going stir-crazy? Or what did you do to pass the time? MARTIN: You know, that doesn't sound as fun as it could be, John. That is the sound of the door closing behind me. I closed the door, and then I only opened and closed it ever after that to pick up food or drop trash outside the door. So after that, I was bussed to this hotel.
And by the way, there's a $3,200 fine or possible six-month imprisonment for breaking the rules. RUWITCH: A little hard to hear, but he's saying basically, you can't leave the hotel room. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: I remind you, warning - don't leave the hotel room. And so here's a health department agent at the airport explaining it to me. Demand exceeds supply there, so they're really tough to get. And then everyone who comes into the territory has to spend a week in a specially designated quarantine hotel. And entering Hong Kong required a PCR test 48 hours before flying and a PCR test upon arrival. They opened up for the first time in two years to visitors, and I jumped at that. MARTIN: What did you do? I assume you didn't stow away in the luggage compartment, so what did you do? So under normal circumstances, maybe you'd pay $800, $1,200 for an economy-class, round-trip ticket to a place like Shanghai. And what that's meant is that prices have just gone through the roof. And you can only take direct flights into China, so you can't transit in any third country. You know, there are just a few dozen flights from the U.S. But China's civil aviation authority has piled restrictions on air travel into the country, so the number of flights that are available has been slashed dramatically. RUWITCH: Well, I was in Northern California, and I looked into flying directly to Shanghai from San Francisco because normally, that's an easy thing to do. MARTIN: OK, so where did it start? Where did the journey begin? JOHN RUWITCH, BYLINE: Hey, happy to be here. So to tell us more, he's with us now from the city of Shenzhen. NPR's China affairs correspondent John Ruwitch finally made it into China a few days ago, and we wanted to hear more about what that was like. But the country's attempts to snuff out COVID-19 within its borders has meant that those very borders have become much harder to cross. That policy has promoted the government to impose some tough measures on its citizens, including a lockdown in Shanghai, which is going into its third month. That's an effort to do exactly what it says - keep COVID cases in the country to a minimum. We're going to take another look at China's zero-COVID policy.
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