This New Year, many mainlanders who had previously left the country for various reasons and were eagerly looking forward to returning Home soon, are now being coldly and ruthlessly blocked by the Chinese Communist Embassy from returning to their homeland for the New Year. This is the case of the Parents of momomoda, an overseas Chinese and netizen who has been in the United States for many years.
Before that, momomoda had never spoken up in the Chinese network for years. But not long ago, he deliberately registered an account, just to tell everyone about his parents AA127 flight to get the red code can not return home experience. “The initial reason for posting is because the emotions in my heart have been unable to discharge, and I want to talk to everyone and seek their comfort.” “Although my voice is very faint, but I still hope more people can hear.” He said.
According to Momomoda, his parents, both on travel visas, have been stranded in the United States for a year because of the outbreak. They were supposed to fly to Shanghai on the Jan. 13 AA flight, and if they couldn’t return home that day, their visas would have expired the next day, but the embassy ended up not issuing them a green code, giving the reason “non-essential, not urgent “. So the two old men had to drag their luggage through the airport and watch the plane leave. It is said that AA127 sold more than 200 tickets, but only 80 people got on the plane in the end, and almost all of those who could get on the plane were International Students with F visas.
Momomoda recalled that before he left, he saw another post about a pair of parents from AA127 who also did not get on the plane on January 10 with a travel visa. He guessed that the embassy now needed to provide proof of the urgency of the travel necessity, so he grabbed the Time to ask his relatives in China to help him take pictures of various documents and send them over. He also prepared a letter to tell the embassy in detail why his parents wanted to return to their home country.
After that, Momomoda’s parents left for a nearby city at 2:00 a.m., three days in advance, and boarded a flight to Dallas. When they arrived at the airport the next morning, they went straight to the testing site because the embassy now requires that the testing be done at the local designated site where the plane departed from, and there was only one designated site in Dallas, so the line was very long. They waited for several hours in line to finally get the test done, and then went to the hotel with confidence.
The next day, the group started uploading information as soon as they got the results. One after another, someone received a red code and someone received a green code. As expected, all the green codes were for student visas and visiting visas, while the others were all red codes. Those who got the red code were angry, why all the international students were “urgent and necessary” to travel, and even did not need to submit any urgent and necessary explanation, while the others were red code? Why are all international students traveling on “urgent necessity” and not even required to submit any urgent necessity statement, while all other visa holders are on red code? No matter what the reason is, no one has a green code! One guy said he was a green card holder and had to go back to visit his 91 year old grandmother because she was sick in the hospital, but the embassy gave him a red code. The embassy asked him to provide a certificate of critical illness (Good job embassy, people’s grandmother is 91 years old, can’t go back to see if she’s not dying? When Momomoda’s parents submitted the documents, it was true that soon they also got the red code. At this time, they united all the people who took the red code to send a long letter to the embassy, they just want to know how the embassy in the end is to determine the necessary urgency of the trip. But the email was sent to the sea, the embassy did not give any reply, but he believed that the embassy saw it, because when they submitted the materials again, the embassy did not review their materials, they have been the yellow code, the review, and during this period one after another received the green code are student visa international students.
Until the morning of the plane’s departure, the people with yellow codes became red codes again one after another. Until this time, Momomoda still had illusions about the embassy. He immediately tried to call the embassy and was lucky enough to get through. The operator surprisingly listened patiently to his cries about why his parents were returning home and then took notes. He said that this was the only time in the whole process that he felt that the embassy had a shred of humanity. He naively thought that the embassy understood their difficulties and would deal with them accordingly. So, they took the yellow code and still went to the airport. The group had planned that if they were still red-coded, they would protest at the airport to protest the embassy’s differential treatment of me and them. During that time all of them with yellow codes sent countless emails and made countless phone calls to the embassy, but the emails were never answered and the phone calls were never answered. They were so angry that they held signs at the airport and sent pictures to the embassy to protest their unfair treatment, but the emails still went unanswered. None of them could get through to the embassy, and the embassy did not have a single explanation for any of them. The airport check in closed at 2:15, until 2:05, the yellow code in their hands began to turn red, they still did not give up, immediately submitted documents, they still want to persevere to the end. 2:15 airport check in closed, everything is over, they are still in the hands of the yellow code, the audit is underway.
By the time the dust settled, Momomoda was no longer angry, there was only sadness. He said: “It’s like a child whose mother likes will be taken away without doing anything, and you, no matter what effort you make, are abandoned. I burst into tears. Crying not because my parents didn’t get on the plane back home, but because experiencing something makes you feel that no matter how hard you try, you can’t change the outcome. I cried because all our efforts, thousands of dollars in airfare, hotels, tests, days of running around, months of hope, all went down the drain because of one little red code. We cried because the high and mighty embassy could treat us so arrogantly and unfairly. I cried because a citizen holding a mainland passport had to rack his brains to prove why he wanted to go back to his own country. Crying because a mainland citizen needs to go back to his own country based on the visa given to us by the US. We cried because the embassy did not have any instructions on what travel was ‘urgently necessary’ throughout the process, and we guessed like flies at the various requirements of the embassy, only to find out that it was all in vain.”
If the policy of returning to China was to be tightened because of the domestic Epidemic, the embassy could have issued a policy telling them who could and could not return to China, could have vetted them as “necessary and urgent” before they started planning everything, and could have sent back a letter telling them that they could not return to China. The embassy could have returned an email to explain to them, could have made a phone call to calm them down, could have been fairer instead of just limiting Delta and AA flights. But if the embassy could show a little fairness, a little compassion and empathy throughout the process, they wouldn’t have been so helpless and desperate at the airport.
“I know you have your difficulties, and you can’t just tell us ‘don’t come back in order to control the epidemic,’ because no country in the world would deny its citizens the right to go home, and still with such a condescending and cold gesture. Those of us who flew on Delta and AA without student visas were the victims of being played for fools.” Momomoda said in exasperation.
What is most ironic is that throughout the process, everyone else gave them the green light except for the Chinese Communist Embassy who was callous to them from start to finish – the nucleic acid testers who did their job, the AA airport flight attendants who waited patiently and sent special people to explain things to them. Even at the hotel where they were staying, which was not supposed to be printable, the attendant, after seeing the protest signs they had written, asked Momomoda with a stunned look on his face if this was true. Then he immediately printed a few for him.
As an overseas Chinese, Momomoda said he was torn: while he experienced being abandoned by his motherland, he saw Hua Da Ma proudly saying that we had picked up tens of thousands of mainlanders from all over the world; while he felt the care and sympathy of ordinary Americans, he was treated indifferently by his own embassy; while he actively donated money and materials during the Wuhan epidemic, he was denied access when he wanted to return to his While actively donating money and goods during the Wuhan epidemic, they were turned away when they wanted to return to their own country and were shouted “Thousands of miles of poisoning”; while experiencing a mainlander needing to prove to the embassy why you want to return to your country, they heard The motherland is shouting that we are a big country and we are successful in fighting against the epidemic.
To be fair, it is the most basic right of a citizen to go back to his own country. No matter what age he is, no matter what U.S. visa he has, no matter whether he has a green card or not, no matter what his reason for leaving the country, no matter what his reason for returning, the embassy should not deny a citizen the right to return to his country after meeting all the testing requirements issued by the embassy. The embassy should not treat mainland citizens who return to China at different times, on different flights, or with different types of U.S. visas differently on the grounds of “non-essential and non-urgent”. The Embassy cannot treat mainland citizens who return to China at different times, on different flights, and with different types of U.S. visas differently.
Even if the embassy does not want mainland citizens like Momomoda’s parents to return to China because of the domestic epidemic, there are more ways to achieve this goal than issuing red codes to them one by one when the check-in is still 10 minutes away. Among them who are waiting hard at the airport are old people, children, those who sold their cars and surrendered their houses to return to their home country, and those who came to the U.S. by transfer from other countries and are homeless in the U.S. They can not return to their country now, but the embassy should at least treat them as human beings, but they did not even do this minimum requirement.
No wonder Momomoda said, “We can accept the country’s harsh return policy, and we can respond to the country’s call for us to spend New Year’s Eve in place on the yellow calendar. But we are also individuals, and we have basic dignity and rights. The embassy has made things so decisive that “this time, we are really hurt by our motherland”!
Momomoda’s answer gets to the heart of the matter: In the eyes of the embassy, they are just ordinary people, not even living people, but just a few numbers to answer to their superiors. Therefore, the embassy does not care about their feelings and can sacrifice them regardless of any consequences. In other words, they are destined to be the small group of people that the embassy will sacrifice.
Recent Comments