Chinese businesses all across Belize were shut down today, from corner groceries to hardware stores, to bakeries, to restaurants, to fried chicken joints...all of them.
For urban communities that have become dependent on these businesses -just getting through the day required making small adjustments in routine.
But it wasn't the end of the world, and for some businesses, it was a genuine bonanza - Monica Bodden found out why.
Usually these stores are bustling with customers at all hours of the day but today these shutters are pull shut as the Chinese community mourns the passing of Helen Yue and silently protest being the repeated target of violent crimes.
Monica Bodden
"And how is this lock down affecting city residents?"
Lee Harrison Flowers
"It doesn't bother me in any way because usually when I would buy my products like for example I am here in front of this bread place to buy my bread so I am here to purchase that. It didn't really affect me in any way."
Laverne Olivera
"This will affect everybody not only me but everybody big because these people say that they are shutdown because of the girl that got kill, but if you go in Princess Casino you will see all of them in there right now."
Monica Bodden
"But how this is affecting you?"
Laverne Olivera
"Bad, you can't get water, you can't get nothing, it affect us bad because it's the whole of Belize."
But for one Belizean business, it was a bonanza since business tripled. As you can see they even had some Chinese customers.
Angela Hyde - Store Owner
"Well I would say that it almost tripled base on the records that we have since the Chinese did not open. But I would also like to add that I think it's a damn shame for us to do good base on that fact that the Chinese shops did not open. I mean to say that we are Belizean people just like majority of the people that live in this country and I think they should support us because at the end of the day they might look at it as they are supporting us now but eventually if we give the people the power to take over they will drop it on us."
But while driving around the city we noticed something strange. The one Chinese store was still opened on Curassow Street. While my camera video-taped the store - the owners swiftly jumped up and pulled those shutters.
So it was a mixed day, with a novel twist, in Belmopan, these Chinese were eating at a Belizean eatery, a remarkable role reversal, if only for a day.
According to our records, this is the third communitywide shutdown effected by the Chinese community since the year two thousand - and all three have arisen after the murder of a female at a business or store.
