Like many families that are based in China, but not citizens of that country, we had a difficult choice to make: stay and endure the uncertain situation, or leave the country. Eventually, we chose the latter course. Here is why we did so, and how our experiences have gone thus far, including our two-week self-quarantine period.
In my previous blog, I collected posts I put up on Facebook of my daily experiences in Shanghai as the coronavirus (COVID-19 as it was eventually know) crisis accelerated. During that week of mounting anxiety in Shanghai, we were presented with a choice: either stay and work through an unpleasant and uncertain period of time, or else leave the country. My wife, who works for Shanghai television, had to remain in the city in order to work, so she was firm on staying. Towards the end of the week, we decided that it was best for me to take our two daughters and fly elsewhere for a while. Since our schools were closed, and all the fun sucked out of the city through the closing of restaurants, bars, clubs, pubs, and other grub hubs, what was the point in sticking around, especially given the uncertainty of when things would open up again?
The question then was, where to go? We thought about going to Japan, but it quickly became clear that that country was facing a rising crisis of its own. Ultimately, the sensible thing to do, being American citizens, was to fly back to our own home country and spend some time there, while also having the opportunity to visit our kinfolk.
I decided it best to fly to San Francisco first. Given that we were expected to undergo a period of self-quarantining, why not spend it in the Bay Area, where we were guaranteed a warm climate, fresh air, sunshine, and blue skies—all things that one dearly misses during a typical Shanghai winter. Added to that is the fact that my aunt and uncle live in the Berkeley area, and it is always a nice treat to visit them. Also, after many years of flying back and forth to China, I’ve come to the realization that I simply cannot endure the China-East Coast USA flight without risking a serious illness (at least not while flying in Economy class). And that would have been a disaster under the circumstances.
So my wife arranged through her travel agent to get a flight for us on February 10 to San Francisco on Korean Airlines, via Seoul. When we arrived at the Pudong Airport in Shanghai, it was nearly empty. On our flight to Seoul, the occupancy rate was perhaps 20 percent—mostly Koreans I assume, returning to their home country. We were checked several times during this flight, both at the Pudong Airport and the Incheon airport, where they took our temperatures. Even in the Incheon airport, many people were wearing masks. (This was before the crisis broke out in Korea by the way).
The flight to San Francisco was packed, as to be expected I suppose. Many people wore masks on the flight. When we arrived in the SFO airport, while going through immigration, we were diverted to a corner of the room, where CDC officers administered another temperature check and gave us some guidelines for going through our self-quarantine. They also took my phone number and address in the USA, which is my parents’ address in Massachusetts. They gave us a chart sheet and told us to take our temperatures twice a day and record them on the sheet, along with any symptoms or lack thereof. All of this was done with the utmost of friendliness and care.
Now, I will be writing more kind words about the CDC and their involvement with our case, but I do have to stop here and admit that the self-quarantine guidelines seem to assume that one has a home within which to quarantine oneself. I have nothing against the guidelines per say—they were quite reasonable—but for those of us who do not have our own homes in the USA, the self-quarantine period entails a few challenges.
First, it is very expensive to quarantine oneself in a hotel. We needed to find one that we could spend 14 days in, while feeling somewhat comfortable and getting our work and our schoolwork done, since my daughters’ schools in Shanghai and my university in China, Duke Kunshan, had moved all operations, including teaching, online (more of that in a bit). Also, since we didn’t have a kitchen, we had to feed ourselves through takeout and shopping for ready-made food. Not to mention doing the laundry. All of this added up to a few thousand dollars.
Another challenge is limiting one’s interactions with society. Since we had only spent time in Shanghai (and a brief return to Kunshan for me, where I had only one or two mask-wearing encounters with colleagues before returning), I reasoned that our chances of being carriers of the virus were vanishingly small, though not impossible. At the time we left Shanghai, a city of over 20 million, there were only around 100 documented cases of the virus. Nevertheless, we adhered to the basic principles of the quarantine period and kept our distance from people whenever we could. We had most of our meals in our hotel room, and only went out to do some shopping and laundry and such. I admit we did visit a couple of shopping malls, which by Shanghai standards were practically empty.
Mostly, when we went outdoors for fresh air and exercise, we visited regional parks and shorelines, taking advantage of our location in sunny California. Our most memorable trip was to Point Reyes, where we went all the way out to MccLure Beach on Tomales Point.
On the path down to McClure Beach in Point Reyes National Shoreline
Another challenge for us was keeping up with our schoolwork. Like other professors at Duke Kunshan, I was compelled to transform my course into an online course for a group of students who were stranded in their homes scattered all over China, not to mention one in Korea and one in Azerbaijan. I was given a time slot that was designed for professors taking refuge at Duke (where many have gone) or elsewhere on the East Coast, so I had to wake up for a 4 am class the other day. My other class is at 4 pm, so that’s not so bad.
To top it off, my course focuses on the history and current status of live music scenes in urban China, and the group project was to involve field research on a live music scene in China. I had to transform that project into an interview with a musician or person involved in live scenes. In order to teach live classes, Duke helped us to set up a platform called Zoom and integrate it with our learning platform called Sakai. I have to say I’ve been pleased so far with the results, though it is still far from ideal. But I do think that the students appreciate the chance to interact with the professors and with each other, since most of them are stuck in their homes as the crisis or “special period,” as they euphemistically call it, continues to unfold.
Meeting online with my Duke Kunshan students via the platform known as Zoom. That image in the center is from happier days on the Duke Kunshan campus.
My daughters also had to adjust to online schooling, which was not an easy task. Sarah (age 15) goes to Shanghai American School now, and they did a fantastic job of setting up courses online in a very short time. Hannah’s (age 10) school, SHSID, took a bit more time to set things up, and they’ve been in warmup phase. I have to say I’m proud of my daughters for taking up the challenging task of moving to an online schooling platform on such short notice, as well as all the other adjustments they have made since we left China.
A big adjustment for me was becoming a full-time caretaker of two teen girls. For the past few years, since I joined Duke Kunshan, I’ve been a “weekend dad”, spending Friday night through Sunday night with my family in Shanghai, only to return every Monday morning to Kunshan for the work week. Now, I was taking care of them alone, 24/7, making sure that they had three proper meals (not so easy from a hotel room), that their clothes were clean, that they did their schoolwork, got some sunshine and exercise, and had all the things they needed. Now, I have even more respect for single dads and working mothers!
We also had to adjust to the relative isolation of being kept apart from society. While chances were miniscule that we had the bug, we still could not risk spending quality time with friends or family, especially my elderly parents and relatives. My daytime and nighttime companions for the past two weeks were my daughters. Needless to say, this was a huge daddy-daughter bonding experience, and we’ve all benefited greatly from it, but it hasn’t been easy.
Meanwhile, the CDC kept a friendly eye on us as we went through the 14-day quarantine period. They contacted my parents in Massachusetts, who told them we were in the Bay Area. Eventually, they found our location. I had phone calls from CDC officers in San Francisco and Los Angeles, before they narrowed us down to the county where we were located. All of these calls were fairly routine, check-list oriented, and friendly. Basically, they asked us if we were healthy and following the guidelines, which we were, and they gave us information on who to call and where to go if there were any health issues.
Finally, on day 14, with normal temperatures and no symptoms, we were officially over the quarantine period. The first thing I did to celebrate was to have breakfast with another Dartmouth alumnus, whom I hadn’t seen in several years. Then I took my daughters as promised to get a manicure. After that, we went to a movie theater to see the film Little Women, which the girls were excited to see, especially Hannah who has the book. What a beautiful story about sisterhood! I must admit I shed a tear or two along the way, not so much for the sentimental story, but because of seeing everyone on the screen touching and hugging and dancing with each other, and thinking that those days of closeness and human warmth seemed so far away now in the midst of this ongoing pandemic.
That said, , now that we’ve put the quarantine period behind us, I look forward to embracing my own family members and reuniting with old friends. I don’t know how long we will remain in the USA. Our plan is to visit my aunt and uncle in Berkeley for a few days, then fly to Boston, where we will spend time with my folks in my hometown of Acton. The way things are looking, the USA may also be preparing for a viral pandemic. Well, at least we have some experience with this already.