During the Epidemic, the Chinese Communist government set up barriers to entry at every level, almost announcing outright that Chinese citizens overseas would not be allowed to return to China. What happened to those who went through the barriers and returned to China?
Li Meng (a pseudonym), a student studying in Germany, recounted her return to China on January 25. She said helplessly, “Suddenly I feel like I can’t go anywhere with my Chinese Passport. It’s definitely a bit chilling to go through all this.”
The following is Li Meng’s personal account of her return to China.
My Family is seriously ill and I feel like returning Home
I am an international student studying piano in Germany and have not been back to China for more than a year. My grandfather was suffering from intestinal cancer and my great uncle just passed away, so my mother was not in a good mood. It’s actually quite difficult for International Students, they say you are a “Chinese virus” abroad, and then when you come back, the internet says “you ‘tumors’, why do you come back”, so it’s always a struggle to So I’ve been torn about whether to come back.
There are many things that make me feel bad, I want to go home, but still hesitate to return to China? I am worried that if I come back, I will be told that I am “adding trouble to the country and the government”. I had an emotional breakdown in November and December (2020), and I couldn’t eat, had insomnia, and needed to take sleep medication to fall asleep. I decided to go back to my country only in early January, I think, and booked a flight.
The tickets were relatively expensive, I bought two tickets, that is, round-trip tickets, both of which were more than 1,000 euros (more than 2,000 euros for a round-trip ticket). According to the usual normal price, fly from Frankfurt to Xiamen round-trip tickets, no more than 550 euros, right, the most expensive is 530 (euros), sometimes more than four hundred (euros).
We had to go to an institution that could do the double negative test, and then not all places could do it, there were some institutions you had to go to in advance to make an appointment, and you had to travel a long way by car to get there. I went to a very small city near Doucet to do it, and they also poke the nose, throat, (intravenous) blood, these three.
After the tests were done, we went back and waited for proof. After uploading all the test results to the embassy for review, we can get the health green code.
On our return day, we needed to go to the airport early. To be on the safe side, we did not choose to take the train and chose to have someone drive us to the airport. I live far away and it took me more than three hours to drive to the airport in Frankfurt.
When we boarded the plane, there were many Chinese people, and we all brought a lot of protective gear, including protective clothing, goggles, disposable gloves, and N95 masks.
Two people on the same flight were unfortunately diagnosed as close contacts
After landing, the queue for the nucleic acid test is really a poke and a cry. For those of us who came back from abroad, of course they (the epidemic prevention staff) will feel more stringent than the daily tests, right? The people on our flight then took several buses to the centralized quarantine hotel. I didn’t dare to take off my mask until I got to my hotel room.
The next afternoon, all of a sudden, the hotel called me, and the hotel personnel said especially calmly, “You pack all your things now and prepare to be transferred.” When I heard about the transfer, I was a little confused, and then I asked, “Why do you want to transfer?” He said, “There are two confirmed cases on your plane, and you are in the front and back three rows, and you are part of the close group.” At that Time, I burst into tears.
I was especially worried that they (the epidemic prevention personnel) would call me at home and that my Parents would be worried to death if they found out. Then I called the hotel command and asked if I could change the “in-country contact” to my brother, because my mother’s information was listed as the “in-country contact” when I entered the country.
As far as we know, one of the confirmed cases, he or she was eating an airplane meal on the plane, and he or she took off the mask and didn’t put it back on for a long time. The two diagnosed ones were both Chinese. We all pulled together a (WeChat) group, and once we reported our seat numbers, we probably knew who was diagnosed with whom, and we were all pretty scared. We know that there is a confirmed case, he (she) is eating airplane meals and not wearing a mask for a long time, and the mask he (she) wears is a breathing valve mask, we are really scared.
We were pulled by ambulance one by one overnight (January 26, 2021) to another hotel where we were quarantined for the secret receiver.
We were isolated in a bad environment and couldn’t make a call for help
At that time, when we first entered this hotel, we felt that the conditions were poor. In fact, we can understand the poor sanitary conditions, we are not people who can not suffer, we can understand, we are here to isolate and not to vacation.
We thought that since we were the secret staff, they should not put us in a very bad environment and make us sick with cold.
But then I realized something was wrong. I could hear the sound of the wind in the room, and I was close to the street, which is near the train station, so it was noisy. Then the air was really leaking, and it felt very cold. We have tried to turn on the central air conditioning, but they said that the central air conditioning is easy to virus infection, then we also expressed understanding, can not open, then we do not open.
The first night I basically did not sleep much, of course, there are also their own fear of this reason in it, but most of the reason is because of the cold, shivering can not, I covered three layers of quilts, wearing a down jacket to sleep. If my head was exposed, I would want to cough and my face would hurt, and then I could only bury my head inside the blanket, and I couldn’t breathe after a long time.
Later, we asked the hotel to equip us with electric blankets or hot water bags, because the room temperature was only about 10 degrees or less. The body temperature was 7 or 8 degrees. My hands had frostbite for one day of stay. I added their hotel command’s WeChat and sent them a WeChat asking if there was any way to solve it, but they completely ignored it.
We can’t even find the hotel staff. What small sun these appliances are not allowed to use, until a girl next to me, she used two hotel kettles at the same time to boil hot water, her side directly tripped, and then sparks, we realized that this is the voltage circuit problems, voltage circuit is not safe ah. And this hotel also has various problems, like what the doors and windows are old and can not be closed, leaking wind, toilet toilets do not flush, the Food has a strange smell, there is hair, bath water temperature is low, etc..
When we asked for help online, the hotel actually bought a “water army” and left a message under our Weibo post, pretending to be us saying something like, “After consultation, we have been changed to such and such hotel”. There were several messages below the microblog, and then there was a screenshot, saying something like, “the government online feedback, the government said it has been transferred to a certain hotel”.
In particular, there are people online who say, “You’re not adding to the government’s mess by coming back? I especially want to ask, “I have a Chinese passport, why can’t I come back?
I really feel so aggrieved, we have a Chinese passport to go back to their own country, being said, “You ‘tumors’ back to do? Give us more work burden.” Suddenly I feel that I am holding a Chinese passport, I can’t go anywhere, and the days of isolation are still long.
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