Nearly 20 months ago, In the midst of what would be my first 3 months strict lockdown chaos that was April – I got an email, something extraordinary for someone like me. At the time I had lost access to my studio, the city was on complete lockdown, my transporter had huge restrictions imposed and the courier companies were touch and go at best. I did not have access to my stock room either. I still could make shoes and clothes because the workshops were located in other places that were not (YET) under strict lockdown measures.
This meant I really had to dig deep and pushed the people involved in making this a reality within the time constraints ahead. We had to make shoes really fast to beat the impending closure of that area; I had someone negotiating hard with local management of our stock room so that he could get a 15 minute access to gather gloves and parts that we desperately needed. BY then the transporter in Shanghai got shut down and courier companies were ordered to stop activities. The airports were closed and no internal courier services to move stuff around. I had to pressure the transporter and together we decided to move some of the items from Shanghai to a complete different city a couple of hours away – not a small feat in a city in strict lockdown, calling in favors from truckers that had special permits to move in the region. We eventually gathered everything needed in that one place which was still half functioning; packed and shipped it – possibly the most expensive shipping freight I ever paid BUT the only thing that mattered was for that order to go out on that day…the last day since the next that city was shut down as well.
The order eventually arrived on time…and I was relieved. A couple of weeks later ; I received another email – from another account – which made me understood the true significance of what I had accomplished. I just needed to dig deep again in order to send more stuff fast- by then access to the shoe workshop was iffy because the local administration was not very clear as to what they should be doing, so we were able to sneak a quick production day in between closure and luckily find a transport to a bigger city nearby where one of the national courier service was still partially operating. The stock room was still shut but somehow the big boss of the building had been “sealed” inside the compound and agreed to go to the stock room and get stuff for us. He prepared a box that was then dropped ( literally) on the other side of the gate for someone to pick it up and take it to the shipping warehouse over 2 hours driving away. Once again the transporter prepared a box and called in a huge favor from another/bigger transporter in the region to get that box out to another city from where they could actually ship out via Fedex which was still operating a couple of days a week from that airport. It just had to happen – the significance for me personally was too great not to complete the challenge.
Nearly a year later – I was finally out of China – after nearly 4 years – heading to a Celebration. My social anxiety was through the roof; ironically I do not do well in large crowds, very sensitive to sensory overload especially sounds and lights, and various other “issues” – costuming helps me with that and finding comfort in discussion with a few friends that I had not seen for a long while were oasis of reassurances. Then there was that night when I heard “ OMG you are the guy, the shoe guy !” And there I find myself talking with someone that had been on the receiving side of these orders… I tried to convey how important these had been, how crazily complicated ( and lucky I had been) to make this happened but I guess I kinda failed, it was not to right time nor place.
Today, is a proud day for me because I’ve witnessed the fruit of that labor and it looked glorious. The work that has been done is breathtaking; knowing that I had an ever so tiny role to play is immensely rewarding; not an ego booster; but a personal reminder that no matter how bad things were at the time, we still managed to pull it off, that no matter how “damaged” I came out of these 3 years; there is also something good that came out of it; something giving the community and fandom so much joy.
So thank you for those who trusted me with getting what you needed – you all know who you are – �I have little word to express my gratitude. To this day I have not found someone outside of China that could possibly comprehend what these lockdowns actually meant for those of us here; but you brought a moment of joy and hope when I needed it the most.