No, literally a face mask, so that people know that you aren't going to give them the virus. I don't know if it's mandatory to wear a face mask.
But it doesn't seem like it would be too different from what always happens in Chinese New Year in Beijing. All the shopkeepers aren't from Beijing originally, so they close shop for two weeks and go back to their hometown. There's pretty much no restaurants open, except maybe chains. And people are shooting off fireworks all day, so the air is just as polluted as always (generally well above the level of an airport smoking lounge in the winter), so you want to be wearing an N95 mask anyway. (Generally if you can't see the mountains around Beijing, you should consider wearing an N95 mask)
There is usually something open, and the main closures are just for a couple of days during the thick of it, and then afterwards there are lots of CNY sales going on. But that isn’t the point: we usually get out for a few days anyways during CNY, but we are more than a week after CNY-eve, so things should be returning to normal.
In general Beijingers have a higher income while running a shop pays low income, so migrant workers are the ones that mainly fill demand for such labor (including shop keepers, waitresses, cooks, etc...).
Consider that Beijing has 21 million residents but less than 14 million hukou holders, there is a lot of migrant labor to go around.
It's your official place of residence paperwork. It can be used to limit internal migration as many official government activities like voting or paying taxes or whatever have to be done in the area for which your hukou is for. Housing is also suppose to verify you have a hukou for the place you are trying to buy/rent....that sort of thing.
There really is no call for this sort of vitriol, especially when it isn't really paired with any information that we might learn from what you said. If you gave some actually tangible examples, perhaps this anger could at least be intellectually interesting.
I'm not angry. As they say in America, "I have no dog in this fight."
It does not bother me in any way that the government in China gets to decide whether and where people can travel or work or live.
I'm glad they don't do it where I live, but I am sure the average Chinese citizen is glad they don't have to suffer many indignities and strange quirks of western life.
I cannot, for instance, let my child play with a water gun at the public park for fear he will be shot and killed by a police officer. I do not need to pretend that's unquestionably good. It is certainly not the way I would prefer to live. It is just a fact of life.
I'm never going to understand why people love bagels. It's not even the second best bread my people have made. Laffa and Malawach both kick bagel bottom.
1) Beigels don't have as much variety here, and I've only found them on Brick Lane or Chapel Market. Presumably there are some more places in Tottenham.
But it doesn't seem like it would be too different from what always happens in Chinese New Year in Beijing. All the shopkeepers aren't from Beijing originally, so they close shop for two weeks and go back to their hometown. There's pretty much no restaurants open, except maybe chains. And people are shooting off fireworks all day, so the air is just as polluted as always (generally well above the level of an airport smoking lounge in the winter), so you want to be wearing an N95 mask anyway. (Generally if you can't see the mountains around Beijing, you should consider wearing an N95 mask)