 How's it going my friends? I know that these are interesting times and very scary times for pretty much every person on the planet right now and I hope you're all taking good care of yourselves. I am all good here in Boulder, Colorado. I'm healthy hanging out inside my house. Usually on my YouTube channel I make outdoor adventure videos aimed at inspiring you to get off your couches. Obviously I can't do that right now and maybe I'll link some of my favorite adventures below if you're looking for something to watch but what I can do is I can still make videos but just from the comfort of my own home and I was put in touch with a young man who's living in China. Actually he's from Colorado and he's been living in China for about a year and he has been on lockdown quarantine for 51 days so I got in touch with him and I recorded an interview and it's fascinating and he's been documenting his life on his Instagram channel since day one of this and I will link that below and it's fascinating what he's going through and so I had a little conversation with him and I hope you enjoy it. So talk about this quarantine and the shutdown and how strict is it? Can you leave? How are you getting food? All that good stuff. Yeah so it all started I was actually on vacation when China really got hit and they started the quarantine. You were on vacation in China? In China yeah I was in Harbin China to go snowboarding and I actually never got to go snowboarding because all the snow places to go snowboarding shut down. Literally like the day after we arrived in Harbin all of that shut down all the restaurants were shutting down we got kicked out of two bars because they were just like yo the government is telling us to shut down like you guys have to leave and then you know it just got to the point where it's like well there's nothing to do here we came here to go snowboarding and go on vacation but that's just obviously not happening anymore so we bought new tickets to fly home got home to Yinchuan got like an Uber back and then that's when we noticed that things were like really getting serious because they had like a DUI checkpoint almost but it was just to take everyone's temperature and ask them where they had been they found out that we had been on an airplane and traveling once they found out that we weren't coming from Wuhan then they they were like they let us go. And so where do you live exactly how far from Wuhan are you? Yeah so I'm 1400 kilometers northeast or northwest of Wuhan yeah it's called Yinchuan it's the 30th largest city in China um there's I think almost three million people who live here and it's just in the middle of the desert right right south of Inner Mongolia. So you fly back from your vacation they check your temperature make sure you're not sick and then that is that when it started is that when you're on lockdown? Yeah literally when I got to my apartment you know 20 minutes later that was that was day one that was that was the day that that I started counting. Well just got back from the airport it's five o'clock in the evening right now and usually my apartment complex is a busy bustling place with kids. A few days after that they gave us this little check mark. Yeah there you go this is my punch card this allows me to leave my apartment complex. This is just for the security guards to check which day so this was the month of what like April or no February so this is February's so they check what day that you left and then you couldn't leave for two days after that. And by left you mean like leaving your apartment? No leaving my apartment complex so I could walk around the inside of the complex but I couldn't leave the gates of the complex and the thing is with like all Chinese community and apartment complexes is there's usually only like two or three entrances and what they've done is just closed every one of them except one and it kind of check points and bottlenecks everyone through that one entrance and exit so they know who's leaving and how often and they can take everyone's temperature because even to come into my apartment complex I had to get my temperature taken every time. Yeah there's probably 12-14 buildings in this complex that's a good size you see there's lots of area for the dogs to go run around in the grass and everything. You know it's been a roller coaster ride it's some days I just you know it's like it's okay I can do it I figure out you know fun things to do and I entertain myself and then some mornings I wake up and I'm just like I don't want to be here yeah I bet I don't know I'm so bored I'm like so over this I don't want to be here anymore I want to go out I want to do things. How are you dealing mentally how are you staying positive and keeping a smile on your face? I know you're a Colorado guy and we're all pretty happy people but there comes a time when it just wears you down. Yeah unfortunately I think it was I'm just one of those people that I was ingrained in my DNA you know it's hard not to be like this for me but you know it's just keeping yourself entertained and and I kind of set some rules for myself in the beginning so I didn't get sucked into the black hole that is the couch so I just make sure that I don't I don't watch TV or movies unless it's dark. Okay I found something that I've always wanted to learn and I started learning it. What's that? I learned the ukulele. Oh very cool. Yeah so I you know I jam on it every day and I mean after 50 days of practice you get pretty good. So I know that you all want to learn something whether it's painting or drawing or singing or an instrument. So let's go back to like how strict this is like are you how do you get food like you can leave the apartment complex and go to a grocery store are people like following you and making sure you're not wandering around? So yeah when I leave it's just kind of on my own discretion but there's there's not much to do all the restaurants are closed bars are closed if you I'm not much of a shopper but if you want to go shopping everything's closed the only thing that are open are the drug stores and grocery stores. Drug store but I think you you can't go in you have to tell them what you want you're not allowed to go in they'll go grab it for you. Yeah you go to the grocery store they were never empty they were always fully stocked we always had toilet paper none of the like produce there was nothing was ever sold out canned goods nothing was ever sold out everything was fully stocked it was no there was no panic buying which was really nice to see. I haven't been through the snack kingdom oh my god I should just just buy all of these Snickers. I could leave every two days but that doesn't mean that I was I would go walk around my apartment complex but you know the thing about quarantine is like everyone's hearing now social distancing making sure that you're not around people. These guys are out marching around in the sun. How many humans have you interacted in the last 51 days? Three. Three and is that like face to face like hanging out talking to somebody? I have a Chinese buddy who owns a bar out here so I I kind of snuck out and met him at his bar because he went to go water his plants. I can't go into their apartment complex they can't come into my apartment complex. Wow can you go to your neighbor's house if you wanted to? Yeah I could I have very little minimal Chinese I have enough Chinese to kind of get me around in a taxi in a restaurant and you know little conversational but not much so I like I wave to my neighbors but it's you know they're not inviting me over I don't know what I would do if I did them over. Going out for for groceries and it's still dead here. So the Chinese are really good at bootlegging movies have you been seeing the best of Hollywood already? You head of the game there? Oh absolutely I always say it but God bless the Chinese copyright laws because I'm seeing it at all I'm seeing it at all no problem. We got a volleyball. Spike it, spike it. You are allowed to at least like if you wanted to go ride a bike or go running or ride your skateboard you can do that it's not like full lockdown. Yeah you can but it is not it's not recommended they don't want you to. And the thing is the Chinese people like when the Chinese government says stop everyone stops um and no no questions no problem it is just like people are very obedient. For better or worse I can't and won't comment on it but when it comes to like a virus outbreak that's exactly what you want. I say it like if this is going to happen in any country China is the best country for it to happen in because it's going to slow down the spread of the disease way more than any other country could. Yeah yeah because you know in the United States now you know there's no cities under full on lockdown but it's you know half of the country doesn't think this is really a big deal and they're not taking it seriously and so they're just going about their normal lives and staying in groups of people and going to restaurants and stuff and you know obviously that's how it spreads. Yeah and it blows my mind that that people are doing that because you know I think I don't remember if it was Trevor Noah or John Oliver they had a graph showing like you know what it is is if no one quarantines and then they had a graph of everyone quarantines and one of them was just a huge spike that came down and one of them was a very gradual hill you know and it's that gradual hill that's not going to just like overload our medical departments our hospitals and and medical personnel so I think you know it's it sucks it's boring it's not fun at all um I'd rather be doing a million other things than this but it's just you know it's just for the good of the humanity. All right day 41 day 41 it's time to figure it out it's time to figure out what I'm gonna do in my life oh man I've seen some of your Instagram videos of like people hosing down benches with some sort of chlorine oh well this stuff has a weird smell to it and I'm not too happy that I'm I'm walking with these guys doing this I don't know what it is every day multiple times a day just in my apartment complex alone and there must be thousands of apartment complexes getting the trash cans and god knows who what else what advice do you have for us Americans who are quite far behind and I don't know if we'll ever get to the point where you are where you're on full on lockdown but what advice do you have for us you've been through this uh you know find the fun you know there's just after like 30 days you just find yourself doing like the weirdest things you know you're having like weird conversations and you're with yourself and singing silly songs and yeah well when you're on day 50 you'll be singing and talking to your hot pot too yeah and just don't don't get sucked into the black hole that is your couch so like you know I I know some people here that I think that's literally just they just wake up in the morning stay on the couch and just watch tv and movies all day do you think from what you see over there you you're watching american news do you think we're we're in for it do you think it's gonna hit us as hard as china oh man I unfortunately I think it's gonna hit hit the US horse um because I mean just I keep seeing videos of people at like bars and restaurants and you know I've talked to some people back home and they're just like I don't they just have to like I don't care mentality and it just blows my mind and you know because they're like I'm young I like I can't you know for my psyche for my mental health I can't just like stay in quarantine and it just it like blows my mind that people are like thinking that way yeah it's a pretty selfish way to look at it for sure I don't know I just saw footage of a beach in Florida like yesterday and the beach was just jam packed full of people and what are you guys doing yeah nightfall an ocean drive Miami Beach spring breakers from worldwide hitting the hot spots this after a major day in the water the worry if anyone is carrying the coronavirus it might work its way towards Miami Beach's large senior citizen population yeah how many people do they think have it in china still I mean are you on your way out of this so yeah so I live in the uh ninja semi-autonomous region um and we only we have less than 80 cases okay um and with less than 80 cases look at the measures that they put in yeah and it is a city of three million people you said yeah um yeah and it's a teeny teeny tiny little province it's a muslim majority province um so it's a minority majority area and you know it's kind of you know when people when you tell other people in china you're from from yinchuan they're like oh do you like ride camels to work it kind of has that that stigma yeah um yeah but you know it's we had so few cases and and I think that we were down to zero active cases in our province um so I imagine that we're gonna start you know getting better and better and every time I leave every time I leave my apartment complex now I see more foot traffic I see more like car traffic I see life kind of like slowly progressing back to where it was which is really nice to see what's the first thing you're gonna do when you get freedom um I'm gonna eat chinese barbecue okay how can you barely you have adventures and eat food and I haven't been able to eat chinese food for 51 days now but how you do and you know you said your chinese isn't great how are you getting information about like what you can and can't do I feel like that kind of shouldn't be like the school's responsibility yeah the school's been so bad about giving us any information and the school is where you work right you teach young children yeah exactly okay it's a training school so it's like an after school and weekends program for the kids but I'm not getting like any information from them at all um I'm getting information from other foreigners that I um that I'm friends with in the city I'd even know about these punch cards until my friend um she got one and she told me about it and then like I was like whoa we didn't get one and then like five days later they they issued ours um and then I have some chinese friends that you know they that I talk with every few days and they kind of feed me some of information so yeah yeah it's bonkers I never really thought I you know the day that I flew out to China I didn't think in a million years something like this would happen yeah well it seems like you're staying positive you're smiling you're interacting a lot with people on Instagram which is cool I've archived everything I've archived every single day of this happening so you can actually go back to day one of my my quarantine and and watch you know me progress slowly into insanity oh no oh no grandma grandma don't sit on that bench any bench but that one oh no did you have a beard at the beginning of this oh yeah I always have a beard okay always always nice well if you get enough followers you can quit your job as a teacher and you can become an Instagram model boom I love it I love it I'll try to get the body for it yeah yeah start doing those push-ups and sit-ups man yeah that's awesome well I really appreciate you taking the time to chat with me I wish you all the best from a Colorado boy to another Colorado boy I'm a Bronco fan and we'll be thinking about you and yeah let us let us in on any secrets of the future as the time progresses I absolutely will thank you for getting in contact with me and yeah I'll keep you keep you in touch with what's going on what do you think about that pretty crazy huh and I really appreciate Alexi for taking the time to speak with me and it seems like what's getting him through this is his attitude and I think we can all learn from that you know trying to stay positive trying to stay active mentally and physically trying something new picking up a new hobby but really taking this seriously and not going outside all that much and congregating with large groups of people I think we can definitely go on bike rides and runs and like stay far away from most people but this is what it's going to take and if you are bored inside your house and you want some good stuff to watch I will link some adventures below of some of my favorites they're hopefully uplifting and fun and we'll put a smile on your face and why don't we end this with one big ole chance here we go oh