Surviving Under Strange Eyes
- Will
- Apr 20, 2020
- 3 min read
DILEMMAS OF A CHINESE STUDENT RETURNING HOME
Written by: Will
Cumber Li dressed in all white at Aberdeen Airport. To avoid getting infected by the novel coronavirus, the 21-year-old overseas student at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, has put on heavy protective gear—protective clothing, a facemask, and goggles on March 22.
"Don't you feel hot?"
A fellow passenger asked Cumber jokingly. The strange outfit attracted many strange glances. Several travellers took photos without her permission from a distance, sneering at her.
"I felt I was offended, but it was funny in a way," said Cumber, who had a tolerant temper with the taunt, "I did dress very 'turgidly' and differently."
Though being repelled by the rudeness, she chose to turn a blind eye to them. "It was meaningless to argue with them since they hadn't realized the severity of the virus."
As one of the only three Chinese passengers on the flight to Airport Schiphol, Netherlands, Cumber was making a transfer at Amsterdam to catch the flight back to her hometown, China.
The situation of Scotland's coronavirus outbreak had worsened in early March, urging Cumber to make up her mind to go back home, "it was scary to see people around you coughing in the classroom during the pandemic," said Cumber.
Flight information in March updated frequently as the number of flights from Scotland to the Netherlands being sharply decreased to only one or two a day. One week before her departure, Cumber had been informed that the flight to Amsterdam she booked was suddenly cancelled, forcing her to reschedule another flight one day earlier.
The rearrangement resulted in a 16-hour long waiting at the airport in Amsterdam.
Cumber was patient and calm during the waiting. She checked in a capsule hotel inside Airport Schiphol. Staffs there treated her normally, and the room was tidy, making her temperately relaxed. "16 hours passed very quickly," said her.
But Cumber still held her nerve during the waiting for the concern that she could be stuck at the airport at any time. As the restrictions of European countries tightened, Cumber heard of much lockdown hearsay after the European Union member nations agreeing on March 17 to close the bloc's external borders for 30 days.
Fortunately, she got on board on time at 12 p.m., March 23. She was offered a food package containing bread, fruits, and water on the plane owned by China Southern Airlines. To minimize the possibility of contacting passengers and crews, Cumber didn't take risks going to the restroom and hardly removed her facemask.
"I didn't worry anymore," Cumber recalled the relief when arriving at Guangzhou at 7 p.m., March 23. She was immediately taken to undergo temperature testing by officers at the Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport, which later confirmed she was in good health condition. At nearly 11 p.m., she got to a hotel in Yuexiu District for the 14-day quarantine.
During the quarantine, Cumber has spotted many negative comments on social media towards the returned overseas students after the epidemic in China being mitigated.
A survey conducted by China Daily from March 19 indicated that nearly half of respondents thought overseas students should not return home now, up to March 28. The worry on returned students was brought by the increasing number of imported cases. By the end of March 18, China has reported 189 imported cases, and some of which were returned students who study abroad, according to the National Health Commission of the People's Republic of China.
Those comments stabbed her. Unlike the tolerance and calmness she showed previously, she could hardly restrain herself.
"I was uncomfortable when first reading this kind of hostile comments resisting us from coming home," Cumber said disappointedly. She stated that the majority of overseas students who came back have followed the instructions and cooperated with the test carefully.
Nevertheless, Cumber gave understandings to the negative comments due to their concerns on the possibility that the returnees might bring about the outbreak again. But she claimed that the users on social media shouldn't blindly take the blame for the overseas students.
"Everybody was hurt during the pandemic," Cumber said, "people should have empathy, instead of inflicting anger on others."
Pseudonym was applied for protecting the character in this article
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