The story of En attendant Godot
- Annie Zhang
- Apr 14, 2020
- 8 min read
THE 13 HOURS WAITING AFTER ARRIVAL
Narrated by: Sun Guang
Written by: Annie Zhang
“A word to describe my journey? I would say, ‘waiting’.”
The 19-year-old returned student Sun Guang was studying at London School of Economics when he made the decision to return to China from London on March 17 under the increasingly serious coronavirus epidemic in Britain.
Returned on three days after the announcement of forced quarantine on returnees by the People’s Government of Guangdong Province, he confronted directly to the stiff connections of the way transporting from airport to the quarantine hotel.
“When my friends asked what I was waiting for during the time, I just replied that I was ‘waiting for Godot’—a waiting without any expectations,” written at the very first line of his diary, Sun has documented his experience in an article published on his WeChat official account, expressing his personal views on the hostile attitudes towards returned students.
The article has unexpectedly gained the page view reaching a million. The high clicking then has caused great distress on Sun,
“Someone even threat to flesh search on me.”
He was forced to delete his diary from the official account platform in protection of himself as well as his family.
Nevertheless, Sun still agreed on sharing his return diary with the Quarantine Diary project after rejecting several interview requests from the official media. He expressed his fearless, “I’m not afraid of any questionings because I have to tell the truest experience to more people.”
March 12
Today is pretty special.
The confirmed cases in the UK has suddenly jumped from less than 200 at the date I booked my flight ticket to about 800 today. Even though I predicted there might be a burst of the coronavirus, I was still shocked about the fast peace of virus spreading within days.
As many flights to China has been cancelled after Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister of Britain, chaired a Cobra emergency meeting, I crossed my fingers and sincerely pray for everything going smoothly on my journey back home—there are only five days left of my departure. And thankfully, I have brought forward the ticket previously booked for March 27, which made the emergency call to my parents at the midnight of China highly worthwhile. Otherwise I won’t able to return home after the lockdown of the whole UK.
March 17
5:56 p.m.
Departed from London Heathrow at about 5 p.m. on March 16, I felt peaceful and ease when sitting in the business class of the flight during the 15-hour flying period. Yet I could never predict that the suffering started right after my arrival.
My flight was landed at Hong Kong Airport in the afternoon of March 17, then I rent a car to drive through the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge to enter mainland China via the port in Zhuhai.
Arrived Zhuhai Port at 6:42 p.m., there was no one could be seen in the surroundings, and only the lights shined at me as the greetings of my return. That gave me an illusion that I could manage to go through all the tests in a short time, but then the reality gave me a punch on my face.
10:06 p.m.
It took about three hours for me to go through three continuous temperature tests as well as a strict nucleic acid test, yet these tests were not compulsory at the time—only required to those who have been marked with red labels, including the students studying abroad.
Complaints burst from the returnees around me after witnessing foreigners holding different passports passing the customs check instantly without any forced demand on taking the nucleic acid test. For instance, one of my friend from Hong Kong who was holding a special administrative region passport has passed the customs directly, making me feel a kind of unfair to be given red label directly and forced to receive extra checks. Yet I still persuade myself to accept this arrangement.
However, the feeling of uncertainty grew as I finally have been taken to a holding area to join the waiting together with up to 100 people.
We were asked to stay in the rock-hard benches hungrily and thirstily with our big luggage cases, during the time two staff were recording our returnees’ information one by one slowly without any explanations why our information was required to be documented. I really wish there could be anyone stand out to explain to our returnees what the following arrangements would be—but there was simply no one telling us what happened next.
The atmosphere in the waiting zone was anxious and frustrated—it was obvious that only configuring two staff to work for recoding was too slow—forcing us to wait for extra three hours before the staff from each city came and picked up returnees to our destination.
March 18
00:45 a.m.
I was informed that the staff from Guangzhou had arrived and to take us back home at about 11:30 p.m., then we were sent to a hotel in Zhuhai for further waiting.
During the time my parents had come to Zhuhai to meet with me, and they collected my suitcases under the approval by the quarantine staff, which greatly released my stress. However, I was not allowed to leave for the reason that my passport was withdrawn, and we were told that we had to wait for a coach to come and send us to the transit stop.
At 00:45 a.m., the coach finally came and took five of our returnees whose destination were Guangzhou back home—I was full of hope knowing my destination.
The coach was sliding slowly in the deep dark night.
Everyone was so tired that most of us fell asleep quickly with loud snoring. I kept awake and watched movies from the tiny screen of the coach, predicting the time left before I finally could stay in my warm and sweet home.
Beyond any expectations, the coach suddenly stopped on the way 20 minutes before entering the edge of Guangzhou—it was broken down on a bridge with the deserted surrounding.
It was so dramatic that although we hoped desperately to get to the city centre soon, all we could face was a dark and desolated suburb at midnight. Staff on board tried to explain to us with wry smiles after being questioned repeatedly, yet they were also uncertain about what was going on.
And it took about 40 minutes to get the coach back to normal, during the time we have to stay on the coach waiting hopelessly. I kept checking the real-time location on my phone, attempting to guess where I was.
Unbelievably, I witnessed the coach travelled through the whole Guangzhou city on the map—from the south to the north—after resume moving, and bringing all the returnees to the transfer site at Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport to start a new round of waiting. It was already 2:46 a.m. when we arrived.
3:45 a.m.
End of waiting? No, there were still more waiting for arrangements to come.
I spent my first night back in China unslept surfing through the comments aiming at returned students on the biggest social media platforms Weibo during the waiting on coach before disembark.
To be honest, I was extremely angry when sawing those voices of critics on the comeback of students who studying overseas, regarding us as the add-up of burdens of the whole country. They had no idea what we were experiencing with the lack of understanding by the public, especially to the difficulties overseas students facing when they couldn’t return home during the dilemma.
Yet all the arguments didn’t contribute to my waiting at all. I had to wait till 6:00 a.m. in the morning, witnessing the sky became faintly light before finally receiving an arrangement to take me as well as the other three returned students I met during the waiting time to the quarantine hotel. And it was touching to see that the staff who accompanied with me during the whole transportation journey fell into sleep in the extreme tiredness.
6:27 a.m.
I was informed during the transportation to the hotel that every returnee had to stay for in site quarantine, before then all the communications had given me approvals to stay at home for isolation. And my parents had also conducted responding preparations.
The coach has driven for 40 minutes before reaching an unmade hotel in Sanyuanli, Yuexiu District. By the time I finally got settled in the hotel, a total of 13.5 hours had passed.
The nightmare has just started, as I had to stay in designed quarantine site for 48 hours before finally being allowed to return home for further home isolation.
We were asked to sign an agreement on volunteering to take self-isolation for 14 days without a clear policy instruction, which I am definitely not volunteering to do so. The only clue that provided to us in supporting this volunteer isolation demands was the few conversation records on WeChat—making me highly doubtful on its reliability. And even the staff suggest us not to sign the agreement.
The condition of the hotel was not satisfying—literally—with the huge noise produced by the nearby construction site and the terrible sanitary condition. Although having been given the best room as first check-in guests, I almost couldn’t fall asleep during that 48 hours because of the never-stop noise and kept fighting with countless mosquitos. I even discovered two hairs from different people on my sheet, which led to chaos on my jet lag in the following days.
9:58 a.m.
My parents have brought me breakfast, and it was the time I made decisions to document my returned experience in diary forms. I knew that the arrangement of returning transportation has been immature at the time I returned, but I still hoped that writing them down could contributed to the improvements over time.
March 22
The quarantine period was rather pale compared with the returning journey, to be honest. Each day a group of three quarantine officers would come to my room to conduct the temperature test as well as raising the symptom questions to confirm my condition. The staff was conducting different jobs, as one of which in charge of all the medical examination, one drove the car and one documented the whole process via taking photos.
I was told that an auto monitor was set in front of my room entrance, releasing alarm whenever I tried to open the door in preventing me from leaving the room.
The long 14-day quarantine was regarding by me as the time for of thinking. I asked my parents to send me many books specified on media and communication field as amassment, also urging me reflect on why the public couldn’t understand our students studying abroad.
The day after Sun’s return, the ports began to provide instant foods for returnees in dealing with the complaints about tiredness and hunger during the long waiting time.
Under the regulations released by the Guangdong Provincial Prevention and Control Headquarters Office for COVID-19, all people arriving from overseas to Guangdong are required to undergo nucleic acid testing from March.19, which will be provided for free. The Zhuhai People's Government has formulated a special working group led by deputy mayor Zhang Yisheng in advance on March 18, implementing 24-hour in site commanding and coordinating the epidemic prevention affairs towards each Zhuhai ports.
According to the arrangements of Zhuhai’s virus prevention work, any passengers that enter mainland China through Zhuhai ports need to go through "three inspections, three rows and one transhipment" quarantine measured in the local customs, and then hand over to quarantine staffs from the passenger's destination to tranship for further home isolation or centralized isolation.
The customs authority from Guangdong refused to make any comments on Sun’s experience, only emphasising the continuous improvements of the grass-roots works.
Till the day of publication, Sun has already stepped out from his quarantine period. He is still facing tons of information to reply, but to him, the feeling of freedom suddenly became unfamiliar. “That’s it? I can walk around Guangzhou city now?” He laughs with a strung.
Pseudonym was applied for protecting the character in this article
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