The Long Way Home: Returning to China During COVID-19

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Ever since the COVID-19 outbreak began eight months ago, I’ve been staying abroad in Israel with my mother. As the new semester dawned, it became apparent that we had to travel back to China, both for her work and for my school. But the question was “how”?

Prior to August, we’d racked our brains trying to find a way to fly back. Having booked tickets in March and in June, all of them were subsequently canceled. However, I remember vividly on my first day of school, a miracle happened. Due to the time difference between Israel and China, I had gone back to sleep after taking my classes. I woke up to the overjoyed sound of my mother announcing she finally secured a flight for us.

An empty airport is a surreal sight

Tel Aviv to Frankfurt

Goodbyes are always bittersweet. I spent my last day in Israel silently bidding farewell to all my favorite spots in town, not knowing when I’ll be back. I’ve never seen our apartment so empty: bowls without food, beds without bedsheets, picture frames without pictures.

At midnight, my mom’s colleague drove us to Tel Aviv Ben Gurion Airport. Once again, the emptiness took me by surprise. The ceiling of the arrival hall is usually bombarded with helium balloons saying “Welcome Home”, but this time it’s barren. Every other seat in the hall was marked off-limits by a “Please keep distance” sticker. Not only were the shops closed, but the items on sale were removed too, leaving rows of empty shelves. We had a sandwich and some water right before our 4am boarding time so that we could keep our masks on throughout the flight. Around me, people began to file in, wearing their surgical masks much more properly than on the streets. I was shocked to discover that most children under ten still weren’t given a mask to wear.

Killing time at the airport

We flew to Frankfurt first because Israel has yet to reopen direct flights to China and this was the closest option. The flight was fully packed, with passengers touching shoulder to shoulder. I had on a surgical mask and face shield whilst those around me either had a surgical mask or cloth mask. A few rows ahead of us was a man with no mask whatsoever. When we reminded him, he took one out and wore it under his chin.

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Frankfurt to Chengdu

We landed in Frankfurt at 7am local time and had a 12-hour layover. The airport was massive and the shops were all open, so killing time wasn’t a problem. As our boarding time drew closer, we saw passengers arrive in full-on protective suits. On second look I realized they were all Chinese. On top of the suit, they were wearing N95 masks with face shields, goggles, and gloves. Even young children did the same. We felt a little like the odd ones out with our surgical masks and regular clothes.

The latest travel attire

Once again, the plane was fully packed with no empty seats left. The flight was ten hours long and I slept through the entirety of it. I was awake long enough to notice all the flight attendants were dressed in protective suits too. On their backs were their names and “Air China” written in permanent marker. One flight attendant had “the most handsome” written instead of his name. For a split second, it felt like a spaceship. This was nothing like the COVID-19 life in Israel and it was a major moment of reverse culture shock for me.

What I used to enjoy most on flights was the variety of drink options. To my disappointment, only bottled water and vacuum-sealed sausages were provided.

Chengdu

Because most flights from abroad aren’t directly to Beijing at the moment, we flew to Chengdu. When we landed, we were immediately greeted by airport staff in protective suits who sanitized all our suitcases. Then we patiently made our way through a maze-like structure inside the airport for the next three hours. The same process is being performed at airports all across China.

First, we all sat down and filled out an online form about our personal information. Then we waited to be called on to walk through a passageway with multiple infrared temperature guns. Our temperatures were written on sticky notes and given to us. The area after that was laid out like an office. Workers in protective suits sat behind computers, and one-by-one we went to them to hand in our temperature sticky notes and print out our health declarations. With those declarations in hand, we were directed to nurses for our nucleic acid amplification testing, better known as COVID-19 testing. A stick was poked down my throat and in my nose. This was the second time I went through this process, with the first time being in Israel. Yet it still wasn’t any less painful.

Finally, we showed the QR code generated from that form at the start and were sent on a designated bus to our quarantine hotel. I watched a foreigner lash out in anger when they asked for his QR code because he wasn’t aware he had to screenshot it at the beginning and now had to refill the form. I unexpectedly empathized with him. This was the first QR code I’ve had to scan in nearly a year and I felt like a tourist in my own country. I kept thinking and rethinking about that as we traveled through the city center of Chengdu and to our new home for the next two weeks.

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Photos: Qinglan Du 

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