Written in March 2020

On Sunday 22nd March, Mothers Day I got to Cardiff airport and waved goodbye to my parents. After being at home for 7 or 8 weeks (I’ve forgotten) I felt like it was time to go, but at the same time a little bit unsure of what I faced on the other side- i.e China. Didn’t necessarily feel scared, but more like anxious of what things would be like. To be honest I was fed up of hearing about the whole ‘coronavirus’ pandemic on the news, everyone was talking about it whether it was taking the pugs for a walk and meeting a neighbour, listening to the radio or just scrolling through social media on my phone. I feel like I have lived out this coronavirus from the very beginning it started in China, except I escaped it in time to miss the whole part of being stuck inside all the time there.

So, at Cardiff airport I was greeted by a fairly quiet airport, a few people sat around looking gloomy, everyone a far few meters apart from each other. No one was really wearing facemasks, I was thinking in my head though if this were China- everyone would be!

I got on the fairly small aircraft the same that I travelled on to arrive to the UK from Paris several weeks ago. As I boarded that plane I had a strange feeling in the pit of my gut- is this the right thing? If I think about it more, I hadn’t really wanted to go but had been pestered by constant emails from my school every day labeled ‘urgent’ there was even a wechat group I was in with other teachers trying to form a pack together to stand up against SLT, and argue our point of not coming back. I even ordered a new passport when I heard I had to come back, I did need a new passport as I had run out of pages in my old one, but in the back of my mind it was maybe a bit of an excuse. The passport office said it wouldn’t be back till 24th/25th yet school wanted us to travel on 21st/22nd. But my passport came back super early- the 20th, so I took that as a sign it was time to go back and I was meant to go. The point of the matter is no one was sure that going back to China was the ‘right’ thing. The school was hopeful to open on the 7th April, but there was no confirmed date so this gave no one much motive.

The flight to Amsterdam was super quick and efficient- about 1 hour. The thing that surprised me about Amsterdam airport that I had not really thought through was that none of the food or coffee places were open. It was lunch time there and I was really hungry, however I did manage to find a cheese sandwich in one of the supermarkets and there was one place open for coffee. Had a little chat with the girls working there about why I was travelling, they found it hard to believe that I was going back to China. Then we moved onto discussing ‘hand sanitizer’ and they said that their hands were dry from putting it on so much. I knew the feeling!

Amsterdam was a bright and open airy airport, I spent most my time just walking around to get my legs moving and ready for the next 10 hour flight. Heard an airport worker talking to some passengers that had travelled from the States that they were not allowed to enter Ghana and that they either had to stay here or go back to the States. Strange travelling at a time when borders were just on the brink of closing everywhere, I felt sorry for them!

Boarded my flight to Bangkok for the next leg of the journey- 10 hours. Although that seems a long time to people, now I am used to long haul flights after travelling so much back from China to the UK. I was travelling with KLM and as the plane went into the air I noticed how empty the flight was, there was people alright but not many and most of them were wearing masks and gloves. I tried to wear my gloves most of the time but they kept getting caught or it was very difficult to do anything with them on, so I ended up taking them off, just had to use more hand sanitizer instead and make my hands super dry. On the flight they sat me next to 2 people and there was surrounding chairs next to me empty and I wondered why I had been charged an extra 50 quid to make a seat reservation when there were so many empty seats? Also, they announced we had to sit in our assigned seats until after take-off! So as soon as I could- I moved away from the people and spread my things across a four seater in the middle even though they made a strange announcement that ‘if you want to change seats you can only sit by the window’ but I generally just ignored that, and really did not see the reason in it and no one bothered me either.

My journey started off by eating a pasta dish and salad which was actually quite yummy, they made an announcement that their usual services were suspended so no tea/coffee/alcohol etc… and I wondered how I was going to survive a 10 hour plane journey without any of these! Anyhow eat dinner, watched 2 films, then walked down to the flight attendant to check again about getting any tea, they just looked at me in turn shaking their heads. The most bizarre thing about this moment is when I walked right to the back of the plane, the entire back carriage part of the plane was completely empty, not one single person there, it was strangely eerie. Anyway, I got back to seat and spread myself across the four seats and laid down, blankets covering me and a couple of pillows lining along the edge of the seat and under my head to make myself nice and comfortable and I did manage to get some sleep.

Transitioning at Bangkok was not easy and that was another story. Between landing in Bangkok and then checking in and getting my baggage again, I had 3.5 hours. That sounds like A LOT but it really wasn’t. As I got off the plane I instantly ended up in a line where I had to fill out a form about my health, and this had to be done on my phone, so luckily I had battery and wifi. What I have realized travelling internationally is that if you don’t have wifi and a fully charged phone life is generally pretty difficult!

Once I filled in a form about my health, I then had to wait in another line where someone checked it over, followed by another line. When I reached the front, there was a notice on the wall asking for ‘health insurance’ or some kind of check that I didn’t have coronavirus! I had none of these so I had to explain and argue my point that this was not something I was aware of, plus I was not sure how I would have had a test in the UK for coronavirus. Besides, I was about to get on a flight to Shanghai where I would have an EXTREMELY thorough check, I was not staying in Bangkok. I got through the health check- then there was the immigration, I could tell they were suspicious too and they kept asking for evidence that I was travelling on to Shanghai.

During this time, I really wished my baggage had gone straight through, would not have had to go through all this ridiculous fuss! But beggars can’t be choosers had literally spent hours looking for an appropriate flight that was not too much hassle or too expensive. All of them were too expensive and too much hassle, this was just the best I could find out of the bunch.

Feeling relieved I had finally got through, I found my baggage more or less straight away and headed for ‘departures.’ When I got there to ‘Spring Airlines’ well guess what I am greeted with? The longest ever line in the whole of the departures area full of Chinese people. Officially I realized that I was now part of the scramble of people trying to get back to China before the borders closed. Even though they hadn’t announced the borders would close then, oh everybody knew it would, so all the emails and urgency from school was beginning to kind of make sense. So far, my journey in retrospect of the amount of people had been quiet, but wow here the facemasks and the plastic overalls were out and I thought it my head, ‘welcome back to Asia!’

I waited in the Spring Airlines queue for maybe an hour and a half, then shot through security and immigration as fast as I could. When I looked at my watch I realized that I had 45 minutes till my next flight boarded. I was starving as I hadn’t eaten for about 12 hours, needed to make sure I had lots of water and food for when I got to Shanghai (as I heard it was a long wait there with nowhere to buy any) and really needed the loo, plus I had to get to my boarding gate in that time, I literally felt like I was running against the clock.

I walked fast past the endless shops desperately hunting for a Burger King or MacDonalds (any quick fast food takeout!) In about 10 minutes and now in my mind that took way too long- I found a Burger King to my relief. By this point I was sweating a lot well because it’s Thailand and the air conditioning in the airport was obviously not great. Quickly tried to punch on the screen what I wanted and pay with ‘wechat’ but oh no ‘I’m a foreigner, I can’t use wechat in Asia’ I remembered. For those of you who don’t know wechat, it’s a Chinese app like whatsapp and you can pretty much pay for anything on it everywhere in China, in-fact you’re almost handicapped if you can’t pay with wechat in China. But what annoys me when I travel to other places in Asia is that it always has signs ‘pay with wechat’ everywhere, but because I’m a foreigner I can only use wechat in China… just very bizarre. Anyway, literally stuffed my cheeseburger and fries down, didn’t have time to drink all the coke, not the most enjoyable food. I also find when I’m in a rush and I’m travelling, I go into super panic mode and then start to get OCD about all the important things in my bag like my passport and my purse. I know they’re there, but because I’m rushing I’m worried that I might leave them behind and have to check that they’re there like 10 times.

Once I had sorted myself out, I had 5 minutes to spare to get to the boarding gate and I felt like it was the furthest away from where I was and right at the very end of the terminal. Once I got there though there was really no rush. Everyone was sitting down and waiting, and in fact we didn’t start boarding till 45 minutes later when the plane was expected to take off.

Now this was a busy flight and full to the brim and people were certainly dressed to fight a virus, face masks, goggles, full white body suit or wearing the type of rain coats that you would wear if you were about to go head out on some theme park water ride at Alton Towers and of course gloves. But the majority of all of these people dressed like this were Asian, for all the Westerners it was simply a face mask and gloves.

Generally, I’m not a huge fan of ‘Spring Airlines’ having flown with them before, the chairs are not that comfortable and hardly any leg space. On this flight, I felt like we were packed in like sardines, if I was going to catch coronavirus, this was the place. I also wondered how some people could be comfortable wearing all this gear for a long haul flight? I had my facemask on now, but took it off when I was travelling to Bangkok. Looking around I truly these people had worn the hazmat suits for the whole of the time. I very much doubt they took any of the gear off. Whereas even wearing a facemask or gloves start to drive me mad after having them on for half an hour.

Arriving at Shanghai

From hearing about what other people had been saying when they arrived at Shanghai airport I knew that it was going to be a long time before I even went to a hotel to get tested for coronavirus, let alone got back to my apartment. The whole thing was going to be well… painful. Once the Spring Airlines flight landed in Pudong airport I felt a little relieved at least, the first stage was complete. My second relief came when I switched over my SIM card and put my Chinese SIM back in, after not using that SIM for about 9 weeks it was still working and I had data. Instantly the wechat group ‘Wisdom Rose Theme Park’ chat from the other teachers started flashing on my phone, some of my other teachers friends had arrived at the hotel and had been there for the night already and the banter and sarcasm was just off the rails, complaining about the quarantine food, and the 5 star service at the hotel, even in my exhaustion of sitting on the plane and not knowing when I could get off it just made me crack up, this whole journey, these whole couple of months- well it was a story and it was a story to laugh and cry about.

Anyhow I’m not sure how much I was laughing or thinking about how hilarious my life was in my head, because then the pain started, yes the painful experience of arriving to Pudong airport in Shanghai.

When we had landed I knew that there was going to be people instantly getting up and trying to get their belongings and get off the plane, because that is what happens every time I am on a flight with mainly Chinese people. I am not stereotyping, but I have travelled a lot in Asia and trust me this happens every time. But, sure enough, they were told to sit down, because we weren’t going anywhere for a while. Even I knew that before I boarded the flight, and I am surprised that they didn’t. But then when I think about it again, I guess I’m not surprised.

For about an hour, we waited and I spent my time on wechat messaging to my friends already in Shanghai, and then to my surprise they started calling seat numbers only after 1 hour, and my number was one of the first to be called! I didn’t even hear it though and the two people sitting next to me had to nudge me, telling me I had to get up, and then I got excited. I also noticed that when I got up, pretty much most of the foreigners had been put in the back of the aircraft it seemed, you know because all of us virus spreaders have to contained at the back.

Walked to the front and my temperature was taken- 36.3 and they asked me where I had come from including all the connecting flights. Then we were sent to wait in the area outside the aircraft, we waited there while more people piled out, and following this we were sent down to sit on the runway bus. Now at this point, I thought ‘yes we will be in the airport soon,’ but nope just sat on the bus while pretty much the whole aircraft squeezed on, that in itself took an hour. I kept thinking to myself in my head, ‘if I am going to catch the virus then this is the place it will happen.’

Finally, after over an hour the bus started moving, I was lucky to have a seat as I had been one of the first people on but no one came to sit next to me the whole time despite the bus being rammed, not that I particularly cared anyhow.

Now walking into the airport, I feel like I was greeted by of something out a horror film, there was endless white coats everywhere, plastic white coats, the whole PPE gear, masks, goggles and there was a huge endless line of them. In fact, I wasn’t really sure where I was going, but as I followed everyone else the line just kept on going and going and going. Once we got to the end of the line I wondered if I was in the right place? Then two other Europeans near me asked the airport worker if they were in the right spot and he seemed to move them forward in the line, so I did exactly the same and then he moved me forward. Not entirely sure why but I wasn’t complaining. Then there was more shouting from the airport workers and a whole load of people started moving in another direction out of the line, I was totally confused. Okay, I understand some Chinese but clearly not enough. So then, the French couple in front of me said ‘they’re calling all people from Bangkok,’ and well I’d transmitted through Bangkok so I followed the other line. Then after walking several meters the airport worker told me that I should not go this way, and pointed to where I needed to stand back in the old line.

By this point, my confusion had led me nearer to the front of the line. I mean the worker had pointed where I should go, so I did exactly as I was told. I saw I was nearer to my passport getting checked where a decision would be made if I was ‘green, yellow or red.’ When I went back into the line though, one Chinese guy turned around and gave me a sneering smile saying, “are you pushing in the line?” Even though I guess I was being a little bit sneaky in going nearer to the front, but my patience was waning and I knew I could win this, especially in a nation where pushing in line is well a perfectly normal thing. I told him straight but with pretend confusion, ‘The airport worker told me to go down there, then asked me to move with the other line, then pointed here, I really don’t know. This is where he told me to stand so I am going to stand here. If you have a problem and want to have an argument about it then go ahead.’ Well as I guessed it wasn’t worth his time to get into a conflict with a foreigner, so he just sort of rolled his eyes then turned back around.

Once, I reached the front of the line I had to fill out a form with my details on, where I had travelled to and if I was experiencing any symptoms of coronavirus. I wanted to point to my head and say ‘no, no, physical symptoms definitely some psychological ones’ going on here though!’ They looked over my paperwork and saw that I had been in the UK, the UK was a medium risk area at that point, I think which meant that I got an orange sticker on my passport. This meant that I would need to have a ‘coronavirus test’ at a government hotel and then spend 14 days in isolation. If you get ‘green’ I think that you are pretty much free to go, and maybe you do not need to do the 14 days or test. Then ‘red’ is coming from a high-risk area like ‘Italy’ (at the time) but basically means doing the same as a person with an ‘orange’ sticker, apart from you have to stay at a hotel for the whole 2 weeks.

Anyway, got my sticker, had to go to two other stands where I showed my passport and filled out another paper with my details on, then it was time to collect my baggage, maybe I was nearly there…

Walking out with my baggage was confusing, one person pointed me in one line, then someone else said go the other way, felt like a guessing game to me. Eventually I came to a line with people from my flight I recognized in. I asked them if they lived in Shanghai and they said ‘yes,’ and then I followed the line around and then entered an area of booths. This area was labeled as different sections of Shanghai, so it looked like I had to find my section, ‘Pudong New Area.’ Was not too difficult, and I was greeted by the white coats again, who yet again wanted me to fill out a form of where I had been for the last 14 days, the transfers and about any symptoms. This time I had to do it on my phone as I needed to keep the QR code, so I could scan it out when I left the airport so generally I was lucky I had data and battery left. I was told to sit down and wait, then they would tell me when a bus would come to take me to the testing centre. I asked if it was the same one my friends went to, but they told me it was completely random and probably not if they arrived a day earlier.

I can tell you that the wait was long, probably about 3 hours, but people who had arrived before had said they had sat there for about 8 hours, and there was no food or drinks around, no Starbucks coffee nearby and it was kind of cold. But at least by the time I had got there, things had sped up. So, then the signal came and I knew it was time to go because the white coats before us stood in a line and we followed them towards the exit. On the way out though, there was a delay and we had to stop, because an Indian couple had not filled out the form from before on their phone, one of them complained they didn’t have Wifi so someone else had to do it on their phone for them, so again this is what I am stressing about always needing your phone! Then out we went and scanned out our QR code and headed towards the bus. The bus outside was only a short wait and we all hobbled tiredly on with our heavy suitcases onto the rattily transport. They told us to make sure we had a photo of our QR code ready for when we arrived at the government hotel, and I stared at the 18% left on my phone and hoped the journey would be quick.

About 40 minutes later we arrived at the hotel, from the window I couldn’t even see the name of the place but was just relieved to get there, I could not wait to put my head down on a pillow and just fall asleep. Luckily again I was one of the first people to be called to have my test done, and so I headed to the tents set up outside the hotel where there were different white coats sat at different sections. At one booth, I filled out another form, the same jargon again as before. I’m so glad I had remembered my flight numbers as I had to write them out so many times. Then the next person took my temperature, 36 again which I think was normal. At the time though I wondered what was abnormal, later, I learned it was anything over 37.3. Then at the last booth she stuck a swab in the back of my throat which made me want to gag, it was quite uncomfortable so she had to do it twice because I was gagging too much, but I guess that was my test for coronavirus done and hopefully that was last painful part.

The whitecoats checked me in and led me up to my room on the 6th floor, and at this point, I still had no idea what the hotel was called and whether I was at the ‘Wisdom Theme Park Hotel’ with the others, I could have been away in lala land for all I knew. This white coat seemed in a very quick rush to get me up to my room, terrified in-fact! On entering my room, the first thing I noticed that there was no duvet, so asked him where it was before he left- hiding in the cupboard apparently. I did have a panic for a second that there would be no duvet in-case I was infected, but then I wondered about who else had used the duvet and had it been washed? Anyhow this certainly wasn’t 5 STAR service, I had to make my own bed and on entering the bathroom there was only 1 small hand towel! How was I meant to dry myself with that? Anyway, by the time I had a shower and (luckily there was shower gel) I opened my suitcase and got into bed, I was more than ready to sleep. Usually I get jet lag and can’t sleep when I go from West to East, but as soon as my head hit than pillow at 1am in the morning there I fell into a deep sleep. I forgot about whether the duvet was infected or what my test result would say.

The next morning, I awoke about 8 and received a knock at the door- breakfast! I was hopeful for some orange juice and muffin but I reminded myself, ‘you are in China dear girl’ which meant Chinese food. They delivered some hot porridge which is called congee, this congee was okay because they added something to it to give it a bit of a taste, usually I am not a bit fan of it. Then there was some ‘You tiao’ deep fried bread sticks that are super oily, and then a boiled egg. I eat the egg and the porridge, checked my phone for messages from the ‘Wisdom Theme Park Hotel’ crew and realized that they had all been there for 2 nights now. One couple Dennis and Gaelle had just received the call that their results had come back negative, and now they were waiting to go but none of the others had got their result. I wondered how long I would be at the hotel as I stared out at the rather depressing view of drab looking flat fields and the strange looking Dutch houses in the middle of them that I am used to staring out when taking the hour journey from Lingang (where I live) to the city- Longyang Road. I also noticed a sign next to my bed saying, ‘The Venus International hotel’ so I was actually at a different hotel to the rest of them.

The banter continued in the wechat group and Gaelle and Dennis were the first to go. I went back to sleep for a few hours, the mattress in the room was actually pretty comfortable. But the room was strange as the bed next to me had no mattress and was just a board, the whole room had a strange kind of empty eerie feeling, and it made me glad that I wasn’t staying there for the whole 2 weeks, I think I would have gone out of my mind.

I went back to sleep after breakfast and was then awoken by my doorbell ringing, and my rather sad looking lunch arriving, rice, some oily greens and rather tough chicken that was pretty hard to chew, then the phone rang. I could barely understand what she said in English, but she said it was time for me to leave. So, before she hung up I said “negative, is the test negative?” She replied, “yes negative, get ready to go.” I went back to the wechat group and told my friends who had already been there for a day and a half longer than me that my test had arrived back in a mere 13 hours and it was time to go. Well I was overjoyed! It’s a rather crazy thing to feel so happy about, but I felt lucky that it had come back so quickly. Or maybe because my hotel was generally more efficient than theirs.

Still the call had come and I packed up my things eager to go and put my trainers on, tied my shoelaces as ready as I could be. But 3 hours later, I was still sat there, 3 hours later the others were still waiting for their results. Time was nothing in this process, if you want entry into the only country where the virus is supposedly under control, you have to wait, wait and wait, there are no shortcuts. However, maybe half an hour later, the knock came on the door and I scrambled out along the corridor that strangely reminded me of something out of ‘The Shining’ and felt a strong sense of relief. And then I also saw one of my work colleagues who shouted “Claire” at the lift while I was having a conversation with someone else, and I realized that this was probably the last real-life interaction that I would have with any people for 2 weeks.

We walked outside of the hotel and the madness continued, it generally wasn’t as simple as just getting on a bus and going, again it was another wait. Luckily, I had Shannon one of the American Resident Hall teachers to talk to who was bubbly and full of life as always and we shared our stories of being at home for the last 8 something weeks and how absurd everything generally was. Then we waited, and listened for our names to be called in the crowd of people. I figured that where we were going now, not many other people would go, seen as we live in Lingang (China’s infamous ghost city.) While we were waiting, a Chinese man who had travelled from America heard Shannon’s voice and said “America’s healthcare system is going to really struggle now.” I realized all these people here were mostly Chinese, but working and studying in other places and were probably relieved to get back to their home country because of the supposed ideology that the virus had cleared and was under control in China. It was like me several weeks ago, relieved to be back home and away from China or Asia in general, where the virus was breeding and how tables had turned now.

Was not too much of a painful wait for the bus, just over an hour! Eventually our names were called and we got on our own little bus, the seats covered in plastic of course and 3 white coats with us. And as the bus drove us back to our home, I was given two pieces of paperwork to fill out, the same information again, by now I knew it off my heart. We were nearly there… but no we ended up stopping somewhere else for an hour, by that point the moans and groans started to leave my mouth while I spoke to Shannon, what else could we possibly we stopping for? Then about 40 minutes later, I saw it, it was our other work colleague friends heading towards the bus, we were picking them up too! It was generally a very exciting moment and good to have a chat and take selfies in our masks in the plastic bus before heading home, and just good to have some familiar human interaction.

Destination was reached and housekeeping awaited us when we reached our place at Yihao Town. As we walked off the bus, the cameras came out and snapped our photograph, what was going on here, was it the paparazzi? No, it was housekeeping getting the evidence that we had arrived or something along those lines. Anyway, outside my complex it was 2 more pieces of paperwork, the same information again! I wondered why I needed to do it so many times, but no, the other paperwork was for the bus, and then this paperwork was for the accommodation. Two members of housekeeping marched me down the block to my apartment and it felt like a kind of surreal moment, I was going to prison for 2 weeks, but I was going to my apartment. I was going back to my apartment that I left 9 weeks. My destination had arrived, they shut my door and I said “phew.”