The Little Mermaid was singing what everyone felt.

“I want to be where the people are!” she cried, sweeping an arm through the air as jets of water shot up, shimmering in front of a pink pastel castle.

“I want to see, want to see them dancing,” Ariel sang as an entranced crowd learned forward, faces masked, Mickey Mouse ears swaying in rhythm.

It was the second week since the reopening of Shanghai Disneyland, the first Disney park to resume the fun in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. After months of isolation, visitors threw themselves into the fantasy land with abandon, exchanging, for a time anyway, a world of disease, recession, and political turmoil for a socially distanced delirium of bubbles, churros, Snow White, Jack Sparrow and varying octaves of childhood songs.

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