

Residents were confined to their homes with limited access to food and healthcare.

The term went viral at the beginning of the two months-long Shanghai lockdown, which started in early April and is only ending on June 1. It's added to the character for "study," xue (学), making the meme something like "the study of running away." It means "profitable" in Chinese, but its romanization run makes it a code word for running away, or emigrating overseas. The term plays on the romanization of the Chinese character 润. Now, China's forever lockdowns have caused some to look for a more radical solution: "runology," or runxue in Chinese. In years past, some young people tried to escape the pressures of life in China-high housing prices, fierce employment competition, lack of work-life balance-by dropping out, or what was known in Chinese as " lying flat," tangping.
