The initial reason for posting this is because the emotions in my heart have not been able to get rid of, and I want to talk to you all and seek your comfort. Thanks to everyone’s concern and those words of comfort, my heart is now much calmer.
I’ve read the comments about this matter, and I’d like to express my opinion again.
I think it should be the most basic right of a citizen to go back to his own country (I am not a law student, so please correct me if I am wrong). No matter what age you are, no matter what U.S. visa you have, no matter whether you have a green card or not, no matter what your reason for leaving the country, no matter what your reason for going back, the embassy should not deny a citizen the right to go back to his country after meeting all the testing requirements issued by the embassy. The embassy should not treat Chinese 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 Chinese citizens who return to China at different times, on different flights, or with different types of visas differently.
Even if the embassy does not want us Chinese citizens to return to China because of the Epidemic, the embassy can do so in more ways than issuing red codes to us one by one when check-in is 10 minutes away. Among those of us who are waiting hard at the airport are old people, children, those who sold their cars and surrendered their houses to return to China, and those who came to the U.S. with connecting flights from other countries and are homeless in the United States. We can’t return now, but please can the embassy at least treat us as human beings.
“Children are the ones who distinguish between right and wrong, adults only look at the pros and cons.” Maybe I am still too naive, but I still want to share my story with you. Although my voice is faint, I still hope more people can hear it.
After years of diving in Chinese and never speaking out, I purposely registered an account to tell you about my Parents‘ experience of getting a red code on AA127 flight and not being able to return Home.
My parents were supposed to fly to Shanghai on the 1.13 AA flight, but the embassy did not issue them a green code, they both passed the double negative test, and finally the embassy gave the reason “non-essential, not urgent The embassy gave the reason “not necessary, not urgent”. The two old people watched the plane leave with their luggage at the airport. My parents, both on travel visas, had been stranded in the US for a year because of the epidemic and their visas expired the day after the plane took off, yet the embassy still gave them a red code and they ended up not getting on the plane. It was said that AA127 sold more than 200 tickets, but only 80 people got on the plane, and almost all of them were International Students with F visas.
I was deeply anxious because I saw in another post that a pair of parents from AA127 on January 10th also did not get on the plane on their travel visas. Later, I kept looking at various information on the internet and guessed that the embassy now needed to provide proof of urgency for travel. I also prepared a letter telling the embassy in detail why the parents had to return to their home country.
My 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 required that the testing be done at the local designated site where the plane departed from, and there was only one designated site in Dallas right now, so the line was very long. They waited for several hours in line and finally got the test done, so they went to the hotel with peace of mind.
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 did not even need to submit any urgent and necessary statement. The other visa holders were red codes, and for whatever reason, none of them were green codes! One fellow said he was a green card holder and had to return home to visit his 91-year-old grandmother, who was sick and hospitalized, and 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 my parents submitted their documents, they did get the red code soon after. This Time we united all the people who took the red code to send a long letter to the embassy, we just want to know how the embassy in the end is to determine the necessary urgency of the trip. The email was sent to the sea, the embassy did not give any reply, but I believe they saw it, because when we submitted the materials again, the embassy did not review our materials, we have been the yellow code, review. And the ones who received green codes one after another during the period were international students with student visas.
Until the morning of the plane’s departure, those of us with yellow codes became red codes again one after another. Until this time, I still had illusions about the embassy. I immediately tried to call the embassy and was lucky enough to get through. The operator was surprisingly patient and listened to me cry about my parents’ reasons for returning home, and then took notes. This was the only time in the whole process that I could feel that the embassy had a shred of humanity. I naively thought that the embassy understood our difficulties and would deal with them accordingly. So, we took the yellow code and still went to the airport. The group had planned that if we were still red-coded, we would protest at the airport to protest the embassy’s differential treatment of us. During that time all of us with yellow codes sent countless emails and made countless phone calls to the embassy. The emails were never answered and the phone calls were never answered. We were so angry that we held signs at the airport, we sent pictures to the embassy to protest against their unfair treatment of us, but the emails remained unanswered. The whole time no one could get through to the embassy and the embassy did not have a single explanation for any of us. The airport check in closed at 2:15, until 2:05, the yellow code in our hands began to turn into red code, we still did not give up, immediately submit documents, we still want to persist to the end. 2:15 airport check in closed, everything is over, we still have the yellow code in our hands, the audit is underway.
Everything settled, I have no more anger, there is only sad. It’s like a child whose mother likes to be taken away without having to do anything, and you, no matter what effort you make, are abandoned. I burst into tears. Crying not because your parents didn’t get on the plane back home, but because experiencing something makes you feel like 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 a small red code. We cried because the high and mighty embassy could treat us so arrogantly and unfairly. I cried because a Chinese citizen holding a Chinese Passport had to rack his brains to prove why he wanted to go back to his own country. Crying because a Chinese citizen needs to go back to his own country based on the visa given to us by the US. We cried because throughout the process the embassy did not have any instructions on what travel was “urgently necessary” and we were guessing like flies at the various requirements of the embassy. In the end, it was all in vain.
After crying, I felt much more at peace. I understand that the embassy may want to tighten the policy on returning to China because of the epidemic. However, you could have issued a policy to tell us who can and can’t go back to China, you could have vetted us if it was “necessary and urgent” before we started planning everything. “You could have returned an email to us with an explanation, you could have made a phone call to calm us down, you could have been fair instead of just limiting Delta and AA flights. If you could have shown a little fairness, a little compassion and empathy throughout the process, we wouldn’t have been so helpless and desperate at the airport. I know you had your difficulties, and you couldn’t just tell us “don’t come back in order to control the epidemic”, because no other country in the world would refuse to let its citizens go home. No other country in the world would deny its citizens the right to go home, and in such a condescending and callous manner. Those of us who flew on Delta and AA without student visas were the victims of the charade.
The most ironic thing is that throughout the process, everyone else gave us the green light, except for the embassy of our home country who was cold and uncaring to us from start to finish. The nucleic acid testing people did their job, and the AA airport flight attendants waited patiently and sent special people to explain things to us. Even at the hotel where we were staying, which was not supposed to be printable, the attendant, after seeing the protest signs we had written, asked me with a shocked look on his face if this was true, and then immediately printed a few for me.
As an overseas Chinese, I was torn. On one hand, I experienced firsthand being abandoned by my country. On the one hand, I saw the wall shouting War Wolf again, and Hua Da Ma proudly said we picked up tens of thousands and tens of thousands of Chinese people from all over the world. On the one hand, we felt the concern and sympathy of one ordinary American, and on the other hand, we were treated with indifference by our own embassy. On the one hand, we were actively donating money and supplies during the Wuhan epidemic, but on the other hand, we were turned away when we wanted to go back to our own country and were shouted “Thousands of miles to poison”. On the one hand, I was experiencing the need for a Chinese person to prove to the embassy why you should return to your country, and on the other hand, I heard my country shouting that we are a big country and we are successful in fighting the epidemic.
It was posted on Chinese because as an overseas Chinese, I believe people understand me better. If there is really someone from the embassy who can see it, please also listen to the voice of our overseas Chinese. Although I know that we are destined to be the small group of people you have to sacrifice and you don’t care about our feelings at all. In your eyes, we are not a living human being, we are just a few numbers to answer to our superiors.
This time, I was really hurt by my country, so please be merciful with your mouth.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ tell you a joke again, there is a big brother to get the red code after the pain, thinking hard, and then said I have an acquaintance in the domestic Public Security Bureau, let him give me a crime certificate, just say I am involved in the black. Then ask the embassy I want to immediately return to the country to ambush the law, can not be considered “urgent and necessary”. The actual fact is that you can’t get a good deal on your own.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In fact, I was relieved that my parents were not able to board the plane in the end. I think even on the plane to Shanghai, it is estimated to go through 91 difficulties to reach home. We can accept the country’s harsh return policy, and we can respond to the country’s call for us to spend the Chinese New Year in Shanghai. However, we are also individuals, we also have basic dignity and rights, why should the embassy do things so decisively. Later, I figured out that because we are a common people, the embassy can sacrifice us without any consequences. For the first time, I was too angry and sad to be by myself. We have been honest all our lives, in the United States for so many years, and finally forced by China to be desperate, but even in the U.S. airport to protest their home country. In fact, there were many people at the scene who were very angry and agreed to hold signs in protest, but when it came time to take pictures, many of them left in silence. I understand their plight, they are afraid that even if they get on the plane, they will be invited to tea. And those of us who had the courage to hold up the sign, also chose to block our faces, because we are also afraid, we are also afraid of cyber violence, we are also afraid that our families at home are implicated.
Recent Comments