In Qingdao our neighbourhood mall, a consumerist temple consisting of eight glitzy levels, had a yellow teddy bear as its totem. Effigies of this cuddly golden idol were displayed in all shapes and sizes in almost every shop window, restaurant, elevator and restroom, from the odorous basement to the tackily terraced roof.
The reason for this was unclear. Perhaps it was part of some outlandish, ironic voodoo that aimed to separate shoppers from their hard-earned digital cash. For a nation wherein spiritual famine is soothed by all manners of material excess, it doesn’t take much. Everyone’s always looking to whip out their WeChat Pay QR codes and snuggle up to some good ol’ smartphone retail therapy, no questions asked.
Ah yes, those were the days. All of the Oriental oddities surrounding us were still harsh and fresh and exciting, including some novel flu virus that no one had ever heard of that was starting to spread across the country. In a filthy land that boasts the highest tightly-packed population on earth and where spitting on the street is a national pastime, this was nothing new. Little did we know back then that we were all just walking, talking blow-up dolls for the first crude splat of the New World Order’s cumshot on the globe.
All being said, the mall had become like a second home to us. Apart from shopping and work there really wasn’t much else for us to do. Sometimes, when we were bored, hungover, or both, we would just wander around under the sea of surveillance cameras, tripping out on the masked hordes and giddy from the carbon dioxide accumulating in our muzzles, giggling like tipsy teens at unwittingly naughty chain store names like Elf Sack, Hotwind and Chlitina. We mostly avoided the third floor where my woman taught English to young tots who, by the looks of things, would surely make up the new master race of a brave tomorrow. She didn’t always find this easy, but I liked to remind her that it’s good to feel useful.
One fine winter morning, as I was lugging shopping bags stuffed with groceries and the odd counterfeit brand to the taxi stand, I wasn’t particularly surprised to discover yet another buttery bear in front of the building’s slick eastern façade, donned no less in a medieval warrior’s dapper get-up. But hark! Why, pray tell, was he not wearing ye olde face nappy? And what was he guarding this proud commie-capitalist citadel so fiercely against? Seeing as China - the one place on earth that a fatal respiratory disease should have completely wiped off the goddamn map - had allegedly since come out of the whole shit show smelling like roses, I’m pretty sure the smug little fucker knew something. But having not yet mastered Teddy or Chinese, I never stood a chance of getting it out of him.
All I truly had as armour over there was the language of light, and in the bewildering cacophony of fear that passes for everyday reality right now, I can’t say that much has changed, being back on what used to be home soil. One thing, however, rings crystal clear: while most of the Far East - under the unyielding threat of a deadly plague that is so debilitating that you need to be tested to know if you actually have it - has been neatly wrapped up in window-dressed technocratic tyranny, the coin is still spinning for what’s left of the West. It’s coming down fast, though, and it’s not looking good for the precious few who understand all too well that so-called security without freedom is worth a plastic bear’s shit in the concrete woods. Just go and ask your average Chinese, or any other five-foot toy soldier staring meekly into the sun. Sure and terribly sad enough, that’s just about the same thing these days. And your odds of getting a straight answer are roughly 1.4 billion to one.

Photography, words, narration © Copyright Jac Kritzinger.

Music © Copyright Albertus van Rensburg.