At just 15, Zander Reagin has experienced something only a few international students have. From his time in Korea and China during the spread of COVID, Zander has lived through quarantine in both countries, and his rare experience shows us how each country handled the crisis.

Zander’s first experience with quarantine began in Seoul, Korea, where he lived as a fifth grader. His entire family tested positive for COVID, except him. A physical screen was installed in his home to keep him separated from the rest of his family.

He attended school alone, transported by a private bus arranged only for him. “I wasn’t allowed to talk to anyone else for two weeks, not even my parents.”

Although isolated, people in white hazmat suits would deliver essentials once or twice a week, such as fresh meat, vegetables, and toilet paper. “They’d even pick up and throw your garbage for you, that’s how helpful they were.”

Zander and his family were eventually moving to Beijing, but due to China’s strict COVID protocols at the time, they were required to quarantine at Shenzhen before continuing.

Upon landing at the airport in China, Zander’s family and other passengers were held on the bus for six hours before being transported to a quarantine site through a bus ride that lasted three hours.

When they arrived at the quarantine site, they were instructed to stand in line, and were sprayed by disinfectant head to toe before checking into a hotel. “The whole place was falling apart,” he recalls. Keeping the windows open was a necessity because it was the middle of summer and the A/Cs were moldy.

He was required to take blood tests twice a day, a huge difference compared to the weekly nose swabs required in Korea.

“Somebody got COVID at school once, and we all had to quarantine for a month straight. Swabbed our mouths daily, but we had to walk all the way to the clinic.”

Zander looks back at his past and prefers his quarantine experience in South Korea compared to his experience in China. But despite his times of isolation and struggle, he learned a lot from his experience, making him more resilient and adaptable, traits that he carries with him as he continues his education in Beijing.

It’s Day 8 now. We’ve been in centralized quarantine in Shanghai for a full week and I’m ready to share some insights we’ve gleaned from this trying time where we’ve had plenty of meltdowns (from adults too), lots of confusion, some fun, and precious few rewarding moments.

You can find very helpful packing lists for centralized quarantine with a quick online search. Sadly, I didn’t remember to follow those lists in preparation, but we made do with what we had! The following items were indispensable to our daily quarantine lives:

The spork save lives!

1. Travel cutlery and mugs: Since they only supply adult-sized chopsticks, the spoon and fork (or spork!) is crucial for little ones. The knife was also especially useful in cutting fruits like mangoes, which we were lucky to get. Our YETI mugs also kept our tea hot, and let us store leftover canned food in the mini fridge which we were also lucky to have.

2. Cleaning cloth / antibacterial wipes: There’s absolutely no housekeeping services and I only managed to beg for a loan of a vacuum cleaner for a couple hours once. So we have been mopping by hand with a micro fibre cloth we had gotten free from a car wash during the vacation. What’s gross is I’m still finding hair that doesn’t belong to any of us every single time.

Even with daily cleaning…

3. Snacks, canned food, and freeze-dried food: Beefaroni and granola bars saved the kid’s stomach on the many occasions when the supplied meal was unacceptable to young palates. A special treat, like a piece of chocolate every day, can also help lift spirits. We even brought cans of tuna, but we forgot to bring a can opener, so that should totally go on the list! (Or get those cans that open without one.)

Always baos for breakfast…

Insert special mention about waimai, because I promised to share everything I learned: At our hotel, we failed to convince the staff to let us order waimai, even with the possibility of the kid going hungry and starving (yes I did threaten that might happen). However, a mom at another centralized quarantine facility in Beijing told us that she was allowed to receive foodstuffs via kuaidi as long as they were packed inside clear containers.

The kid’s corner…

4. Games and toys: A Ziploc bag of K’NEX (Oh Ziploc bags are super useful!), NERF football, Battleship, Yahtzee, puzzles, and we totally should have brought a deck of cards! Also crafts and drawing pads or just a notepad for creative scribbling.

5. Enough clothes to avoid laundry, or laundry soap: Trust me, washing underwear worn by an active kid in summer with hand soap just doesn’t cut it. Bring a small thing of detergent. Quarantine hack: Dri-FIT clothing or swimwear dries faster and doesn’t smell as bad as cotton clothes! Oh, and use hangers to dry the clothes!

Now that you know what to pack, here’s a family-friendly routine that worked for us to survive centralized quarantine with our 7-year-old.

Cosmic Kids yoga in the morning

7.30am Morning Stretches

8am Breakfast (Fruits first!)

9am Parents work online/kid gets unstructured playtime (K’NEX and books play a big part here)

10am Snack + family game

11am Back to work/kid studies (Online classes like BrainPOP Jr. or a grade-appropriate workbook)

12pm Lunch

1pm Reading

1.30pm Reading discussion

2pm Parents work/kid studies

3pm Device time (We are Nintendo fans so the Switch is our choice)

4pm Game/activity time (Can you say NERF football? And sometimes we clean or do laundry.)

5.30pm Shower

6pm Dinner

7pm Family movie!

8.30pm Wind down and sleep by 9pm!

Want to see this routine in action? Check out the video below for our typical day in centralized quarantine!

Tonya Ramsburg, who was in quarantine at the same time as us, had the fantastic idea to do themed days – from Star Wars to 4th of July to Christmas (in August no less!) – where the family did crafts and even dressed around the theme (i.e. red, white and blue PJs). They also prepared a new and exciting activity for each day, such as tie-dye, scrapbooking, water beads, diamond painting, science kits and more. FYI, her family also packed two camping stoves and enough food for a small army. After all, it was their second time going through this centralized quarantine process, so they knew what they were in for.

Tie dye fun in quarantine!

Watch out for my final article once we are released from quarantine, to find out what exactly happens in that process!

KEEP READING: A True Quarantine Story in 2022: What It’s Really Like

Images: Vivienne Tseng-Rush, Tonya Ramsburg

Any of you returning to Beijing after a summer reconnecting with family in your home countries are probably facing the dreaded quarantine. The idea of a week or longer spent locked in a single room, no matter how luxurious, can seem daunting. But there are some things you can do to make the time meaningful, productive, and fun.

Use the Bathroom:

There is so much fun to be had in this often overlooked area, and it makes maximum use of your limited space with relatively easy clean-up.

DIY Bubbles: Soap, water, dental floss. Most quarantine hotels will provide all three of these things, so let your kids experiment with making their own bubble solution and then use dental floss or shoelaces to create a bubble loop. Dip it in the solution and gently move the circle through the air to create bubbles. Try adding dye from found objects like colored paper or leftover juice to create crazy colors.

Shaving Cream Tactile Bin: Use Daddy or Mommy’s shaving cream to cover a dry shower or tub floor. Mix in small manipulatives like buttons found in the hotel sewing kit or toys like Legos or plastic soldiers or animals for smaller pre-K kids. Older early elementary kids can trace shapes, letters or numbers in the foam using their finger or a chopstick for a fun way to practice writing skills.

Bath Crayons: Easy to pack and great for a hotel bathroom, bath crayons allow kids to create a mural or practice their shapes, numbers, and letters. Any online ordering service will have them and there are tons of options. It’s hard to go wrong with Crayola, and Honeysticks offers an eco-friendly option that gets good reviews.

Work Out:

Kids need to move, and the endorphin boost will give the whole family a sunnier disposition in a small space and ensure a more normal sleep cycle.

Pillow Fight: Keep it safe, but jumping around on the beds and flinging pillows at each other will not only get your heart pumping, but it’s also a novel thing they aren’t allowed to do at home and it can help make the confinement an adventure.

Dance Party: Tik Tok dance challenge anyone? Or download line dances you used to love like the Cupid Shuffle, Electric Slide, or the Macarena and educate the kids in old-school cool.

Workout Game: Use the deck of cards you’ve got to play a workout game. Each suit is a different exercise (hearts are jumping jacks and spades are push-ups, for example). Flip the first card and do the exercise the number of times specified by the number of the card. So, for example, the ten of hearts could mean doing ten jumping jacks.

Keep It Educational:

According to the Northwest Evaluation Association, studies found that over the summer students forget as much as 34 percent of what they learned the previous year. But never fear! If you spend as little as 30 minutes a day reviewing with your child you can help ensure they go into the new school year well-informed and confident. Here’s how to make it a little more fun.

A deck of cards offers endless opportunities for entertainment and it’s a great way of teaching numbers, counting, sorting, and sequencing. Go Fish, War, Snap, Slapjack, Dòu Dìzhǔ … the amount of games is infinite and kids will play for hours. You can even play a version of Memory by matching the color and numbers but not the suits. Start a family tournament and keep a tally of who wins the most games. If you get bored with the games a quick internet search will give you endless lists of new games to try.

Family Book Club or Reading Challenge: During a lockdown, let the kids pick the book and then commit to reading it as a family. Read chapter one the first night and then discuss it at breakfast. Chapter two is the topic for that night’s dinner convo, etc. Not only will this offer new things to discuss, it also encourages critical thinking and the ability to verbalize opinions and support them with facts. That’s an important life tool regardless of what field your kids eventually go into. If you need help, Scholastic’s website is a great resource for helping to choose age-appropriate books and to find book club guides for the discussion.

Reverse the Summer Slide: Find out which curriculum your school uses and determine the standards for each grade level. For example, if they follow US Common Core, you go to the website and discover Common Core Grade 2 math standards focus on addition, subtraction, measurements, and time. Find a few worksheets online for addition and subtraction or play a game where you ask them to guess the length/height of things in the room and then measure them using the measuring tape in the sewing kit.

Project-Based Learning:

Everything is a learning opportunity, and those so-called “soft skills” like creative problem solving and critical thinking don’t happen automatically. Most people learn them through trial and error as they take on projects. Here are a few you can tackle with limited resources. And remember it’s process not product. Not everything your kids make is gold, but what they learn by doing is platinum.

Movies: Sick of watching movies? Make one! There are tons of cool, easy movie apps now, from Canva to Video Leap, and most of them have a free basic version. Have the kids write their own movie script and then film and edit it. If they don’t want to act in it themselves, have them make puppets out of socks or coloring books. It’s a way to work on writing, sequencing, creative problem solving and to learn some technical skills on the computer as well.

Art: Make an art piece using found, disposable objects in the room. Old paper cups can be ripped into cool shapes for a collage and hotel room note paper is almost perfect origami squares. Extra plastic trash bags or shower caps make great koi kites and empty toiletry bottles or toilet paper rolls have endless possibilities. No glue? Could we use toothpaste, or tie it together with floss? Let them get creative and solve problems with a little out-of-the-box thinking.

Scrapbook: If you were on vacation there is a good chance you took a ton of photos. Turn them into a scrapbook, slide show, or journal of the trip. Whether digital or analog, the process of selecting photos and then recording what happened is a fun way to relive and remember all the fun you had. It also builds organizational, presentation, and storytelling skills

KEEP READING: Clothing Auction Network Makes Back-to-School Shopping Fun Again!

Images: Canva

We made it!

After a 19-hour flight from San Francisco to Shanghai, plus a four-hour wait in the airport, followed by another hour of traveling, and then another two hours of waiting at the quarantine hotel to be registered, our family made it to the room where we would exist for the next ten days. Why ten and not seven? I’ll explain later.

As you go on to read my true quarantine story, do keep in mind how everyone’s quarantine experience can vary a lot. This is due to an odd top-down administrative choice to randomly assign quarantine hotels to travelers flying into China, which applies to both locals and foreigners from what I’ve seen. This air of mystery is probably what confounds the entire experience and makes it so frustrating, especially for families.

5 Things I Learned About Centralized Quarantine in 2022’s China

1. Paperwork, Schmaperwork

Seven days before even setting foot in China, we were told to opt for self-quarantine in the city of our departing flight. Full disclosure: We didn’t. We didn’t go partying around town, but we certainly made the most of our remaining days of freedom. And then 48 hours before our flight, we proceeded to a designated facility to perform a NAT or PCR test. *Warning: This is a nose swab variety and deeply unpleasant. This test was repeated at the same facility 24 hours later, and the results were sent to our email later that day. We printed this out, as well as our vaccination certificates (from China) and Health Declaration and Travel Declaration Forms detailing every city we visited while on vacation.

As Linkin Park put it so eloquently, in the end, it doesn’t even matter.

After we arrived in Shanghai, we scanned at least three QR codes, which led to a different form each time that we had to fill out to generate yet another QR code, which was required to pass each checkpoint in the airport. No one asked to see our small mountain of paperwork at all. What a waste of trees.

One of many QR codes you’ll have to scan

2. NAT NAT NAT

We did a NAT (Nucleic Acid Test) on-site at the airport. This was of the throat swab variety, which I had always preferred, until this deep-throat version that made all of us gag. Later, we would do another NAT on-site at the designated quarantine hotel. And then every other day during quarantine.

3. The Waiting Place

I had over three hours for Dr. Seuss’ words to echo in my head as we stood in line that night. One of the longer waits was the usual airport customs clearance line. Fun discovery: As we stood in the line for foreign passports, a customs officer tempted me with a shorter queue when he found out that I bore a non-US foreign passport (Singapore).

No more pee places for a while after this point

Make sure you pee in the airport before you claim your baggage, because after that there isn’t an easily-accessible toilet until after you get assigned your mystery quarantine hotel, and that wait was over three hours long for us. Some details to this vague process: You will get grouped into different sections following a letter of the alphabet – our family ended up in section F. I would like to emphasize that it doesn’t matter whether you stand at the front of the queue here, as every person in the group will need to be registered before we can all move on to, you guessed it, yet another waiting place – this time for the shuttle bus to bring us to the hotel.

4. Answering the Million Dollar Question: Do They Split Up Families?

In our case, yes. Once we got to the hotel, we were told that each adult gets a room. This meant that even if you are a family of two adults + one kid, they would want to split the family up into one adult + one kid in one room, and the other adult in another room. Now pay attention: This can be avoided if one of the adults has a medical condition that requires medical attention. This can be proven by prescription medication in your possession (Excedrin doesn’t count) or a doctor’s note or prescription. Be courteous as you make your request, no matter how exhausted you are and how justified you feel about your right to stay together as a family because that really helps your case.

5. What’s it really like? 

We were intensely relieved when our shuttle bus pulled up to a JW Marriott hotel, even as I noticed that it was fenced off entirely, and as we were processed for registration inside a shipping container-turned makeshift office at the service entrance of the building. This wait was hours long again and resembled that scene in movies where people are shoving to go first to escape the zombie virus outbreak, except this time they all brought their luggage with them.

As I stood at the back of the line and watched one boy, close to my own child’s age, perched unsteadily on top of his father’s luggage, his eyes heavy with sleep and fatigue, I wished they would have prioritized those of us with young children. But we were lucky that a couple of the 大白 running around in hazmat suits did try to help process us faster, and some even helped us with our luggage. I can’t promise the same of everyone you will encounter through this process, but I thank the universe for sending me little acts of kindness that kept my faith in humanity alive.

After I managed to convince the registration staff that my migraines were debilitating enough to require my family to stay together in one room, we were subjected to another NAT before finally heading to our room. We secured a luggage trolley for our 10+ pieces of luggage and were again kindly assisted by the 大白 who saw us to our room. The hotel was eerily quiet, but it was after midnight at this point. A short coffee table sat outside each room door – the landing pad for our meals and any other things we might need during our “stay.”

The room itself was dusty and the linoleum they had hastily installed over the carpet kept wrinkling no matter which direction we pulled it in. There was dirt and hair in the shower, and even though we had been thrilled to see a bathtub in the bathroom at first, we quickly discovered it did not have a plug to stop the water from flowing. Our hopes of enjoying a bath went down the drain, literally. After I begged for a vacuum cleaner and rigorously performed the housekeeping the room sorely needed, it began to shape up into a pretty nice place.

Ah yes, why ten days instead of seven? Well, the rule is for seven days in centralized quarantine, with an additional three in your own domicile in the arriving city. But since our domicile is in Beijing, we had to stay all ten days in this quarantine hotel (especially since they told us that nobody else would take us for the last three days). Truth be told, we had been ready for 21 days of quarantine when we first left the country, so ten days is totally doable, right?

Stay tuned to see if I maintain my sanity over the next few days in quarantine!

KEEP READING: Quarantined One Day After Giving Birth To Baby; New Mom Tells It All

Images: Vivienne Tseng-Rush

The day after she gave birth, Gemmicah Argonza got the call.

“Did you go to the 7-11 in the basement China World on April 28?” The voice on the line said, “A positive COVID case was found there.”

Her mind raced: Was she there on the 28th? Would she have to go to central quarantine? What about her husband? What would happen to her daughter? Would they take her too?

It’s the call no one wants to get, much less if they’ve literally just had a baby.

In a way, they were prepared for the worst.

A Philippine native, Argonza ran the only Filipino restaurant in the city, Mesa Madre, located in Jianwai Soho. Her husband, Clifford Weiner, was General Manager of Hotel Jen. Both of them were smack in the middle of the Central Business District – an area that would soon be swept up in the citywide COVID lockdown.

Before lockdown: Argonza enjoying Mesa Madre’s Halo-Halo, a Filipino desert

From mid-April, both Argonza and Weiner watched with trepidation as the cases in Beijing grew at a worrying pace, and communities in Panjiayuan, Shuangjing, and Jinsong – just a mile south of them – were closed off one after another.

“We had seen what happened in Shanghai, and we worried it would happen here,” Argonza recalls. News of quarantine shelter conditions, parents being separated from children, and lack of access to supplies were everywhere.

As she was due on April 28, they stocked up on a month’s worth of supplies. “I kept saying, ‘C’mon baby, come out already,’” Argonza recounts. “The last thing I wanted was to give birth in the middle of a lockdown.”

Argonza’s stock of baby supplies

The couple also decided to pack up and move into Hotel Jen. “Communities get locked down in the middle of the night without any warning, but as Hotel Jen’s General Manager, Cliff knew he would have some notice if the hotel was going to lockdown,” Argonza says. “So there could be a chance for us to make a decision to go to the hospital if that happened.”

Fortunately for the couple, it never came to that. On May 5, seven days after she was due, the contractions started. Argonza and Weiner rushed to the hospital, and, in the early hours of May 6, Allegra Weiner was born.

The day after giving birth, Argonza was discharged from the hospital. Things had gone smoothly, and Argonza felt good.

But as soon as the couple arrived home, the call from the CDC came.

“In the first phone call, it was almost as if they weren’t sure if I was at the 7-11,” she recalls. Six phone conversations later, the CDC finally confirmed that there was a payment linked to her at 2:45pm on April 28. The positive case was estimated to have visited the same 7-11 between 1-2pm that day. The timeframe was too close. This made Argonza a close contact – she and Weiner had to quarantine.

“I tried explaining that I’d taken COVID tests every day since the 28th, and that they were all negative” she says. “But it didn’t matter.”

At some point in the back and forth calls, Weiner told the CDC that Argonza had just given birth. “It seemed they didn’t expect this,” she recalls. A few hours later, a bit of good news came: they would only be required to do home quarantine.

Did her recent childbirth affect her quarantine requirements? “I don’t know, honestly,” Argonza says. “I was just really relieved to hear that.”

A CDC team came to install the alarm on their door, and set up a WeChat group that included the couple, a colleague who served as translator, and multiple people from what Argonza assumed was the CDC’s team. They were given instructions for deliveries, trash disposal, and doing both the CDC administered COVID tests as well as the COVID home-testing kits.

One of the challenges the couple faced was getting Allegra to her first two check-ups, which were within the first two weeks after birth.

Because Argonza’s health code was yellow, she had to navigate getting permission from both the hospital and their CDC handlers to make it happen.

“BJU knew what to do,” she says. “They would receive me not in pediatrics but in their fever clinic, and the doctor would be sent based on their internal protocols,” With the CDC, on the other hand, they had to negotiate the terms for traveling. “They finally agreed to have me take Allegra alone in a car, with a driver dressed in full PPE.”

“While it’s frustrating to be locked down, at least my husband is able to spend more time with our daughter,” Argonza muses. “It’s a good that’s come out of this whole situation, and I’m happy for it.”

Looking forward, the couple are most pained at how travel restrictions will prevent them from having Allegra meet their families. “I’m the eldest, so seeing my daughter would mean a lot to my parents,” Argonza says. “But we can’t do that for now.”

Asked if this might be an impetus for them to leave for good, as many expats have done, she responds, “When I’m frustrated in the moment, sometimes I do want to pack up and leave.”

“But at the same time, I love Beijing,” she says. “And my life, my business and my community are here. And I think Beijing is a good place for a child to grow up, especially in her early years. It’s a good place for our family to be.”

KEEP READING: What If I Go Into Labor During Lockdown?

Images: Courtesy of Gemmicah Argonza

Yesterday’s announcement of a change in Covid quarantine policy set off a new wave of concern amongst Beijing parents regarding the possibility of children being separated from their parents, as they have been during hospital treatment.

However, a message sent out this morning by Beijing city officials gives a strong indication that families will be able to quarantine together.

The post, which quotes guidelines issued by the Beijing Center for Disease Control and Prevention, doesn’t explicitly state that families will be able to quarantine together, but outlines behaviors that should be followed when sharing rooms while in quarantine, such as separating beds, and avoiding sharing toiletries.

Up until this week, all patients diagnosed with Covid-19, regardless of the severity of their symptoms, have been treated in individual isolation wards at Ditan Hospital. In the rare cases of children contracting the virus, they have been separated from their parents for treatment, regardless of age.

According to Beijing residents who have gone through the process, children under 14 years old flying in from abroad have been able to quarantine with a parent, as long as both parties have tested negative.

This week, rules were relaxed to allow local residents who test positive but are asymptomatic or only have mild symptoms to be quarantined at facilities other than the hospital, presumably at quarantine hotels (though to date we are unaware of the specific locations).

If indeed children can quarantine in the same room as their parents, it comes as great relief to families across the city. We will keep an eye out for further confirmation on this and in the meantime, here is a full-text translation (via WeChat Translate) of the story that went out this morning:

1. Centralized isolation in conditional cases as far as possible to choose a suite of isolation places, each one, relatively independent, but also convenient care. If the isolation point does not have the conditions, should try to choose a large area, there are two beds in the room, it is recommended to achieve physical isolation between the two beds.

2. Parents, as guardians, should pay close attention to the changes in their children’s health and report any abnormal changes in time.

3. Parents and children should wear disposable surgical masks when they are in the same room. Minimize unnecessary contact with children and their supplies during isolation. Do not hug or quarrel during isolation. Keep a distance of more than 1 meter. If close contact is necessary, both sides should wear N95 masks. Cover your mouth and nose when sneezing or coughing.

4. It is recommended to share meals, use special tableware, do not cross the use of tableware.

5. Do not share toiletries such as towels and electronics such as mobile phones during quarantine. Strengthen hand hygiene, provide hand sanitizer, and follow the seven-step method.

6. During the isolation period, the shared toilet should be cleaned and disinfected daily. After each use of the toilet, use 75% alcohol disinfection wipes to wipe and disinfect the toilet seat cushion, flushing on, toilet cover, and other parts of the skin.

7. For frequent contact with door handles, faucets, hand sanitizer, as well as remote controls, mobile phones, landline, and other personal items use 75% alcohol wipes for disinfection.

8. The isolation room should be ventilated at least once a day and in the afternoon, each time more than 30 minutes.

9. Clean the surfaces of the tabletop, countertop, and furniture in the room by wet cleaning. Use quaternary ammonium salt disinfectant or disinfectant wipes to wipe and disinfect the above surfaces at least once a day.

Images: Pexels

As a teen, traveling to China was something I was always excited about, and the thought of being able to see an entirely new part of the world, meeting new people, and being introduced to a new culture was all on my mind during the months before my trip. However, I found myself more and more doubtful of my positive outlook with each passing day. Of course, traveling to a new country is always a thrilling experience, but the idea of leaving behind who I was behind for the last 15 years seemed a bit extreme whenever I thought about it. Having already spent an entire year separated from my mother due to work bringing her to Beijing, I relied heavily on support from my friends, and moving there to stay for an extended period was a change that I’m not sure I was ready for.

Most of 2019 was uninteresting as far as I was concerned. I spent a large part on the trip I had planned for August. Well, soon enough the time to travel came, and it was definitely a unique experience. Being someone who has never traveled by plane before, getting on an airplane for the first time in my life was both stressful and exciting.

The first 40 or so minute flight that we took from our hometown of Skopje, Macedonia passed relatively quickly. However, after changing flights in Istanbul, all of us quickly realized how long and boring the trip from Turkey to China would be. After a grand total of 14 hours, our entire family had finally arrived in Beijing. Almost the entirety of our first day here was spent moving through the entire airport completing different documents, and the only thing that I can recall is the long DiDi trip that we took from the airport to our apartment in Daxing.

Exploring Beijing’s iconic landmarks

Looking back, not a single day has passed without me thinking about my home in Skopje, whether that would be my old house, neighborhood, or friends. The difference between now and then is that there were still many things I wanted to see and do in China, and was very hopeful that I would be able to tell all the people at home about my trip here in the summer of 2020. Most of the first months here were filled with different and unique experiences. Me, my parents, and my little sister traveled throughout Beijing and visited many different landmarks around the city, learning more about Chinese history, culture, and way of life in the process. Going to multicultural restaurants, historical monuments, and different city centers, we went to many places during our first months here, and all was going well until a sudden, and much unexpected, turn of events occurred.

The arrival of Covid-19 was unforeseen. Unlike people back home, I was able to experience this global crisis in a more unique way. Since China was essentially ground zero the pandemic, my family and I were the first of our folks to experience quarantines, wearing face masks and the like… People were forced to quit their jobs, others fell victim to the disease, while for some life barely changed.

At the start of February, quarantine in our school campus in the Daxing District was introduced. All of us were ordered to stay inside our apartments, and other parts of the campus were sealed off, preventing us from leaving and even exploring what was inside the campus itself. This left us with few options regarding what to do.

My parents and I loved traveling and visiting different locations, however, we quickly realized that this was no longer possible. For a long time, our entire family spent the nights watching different movies, and I was introduced to the vast world of Hollywood, learning about different actors, directors, screenwriters, and more which provided a source of entertainment throughout the entire lockdown for our entire family, and we frequently discussed the movies we watched together.

Around the same time period, I noticed that I had worsened my performance in many areas: namely, my love for reading, exercising, and learning new things in school. My life began to deteriorate as I spent more and more time communicating with my friends via the internet. There was always a feeling of homesickness throughout my entire stay here in China, however, it was never as noticeable as during this time. Whenever I spoke with my friends, I always felt as if I was back home. While interaction with other people is always good, spending too much time to the point that it damages my daily routine was something that I did not notice was harmful to my overall health until a later time.

Through all of this, I noticed drastic changes in my behavior. Conversations with others became more aggressive, I was quick to get angry and mainly wanted to keep to myself. Before Covid-19 induced lockdown started, I actually maintained some sort of contact with most of the students studying and living here on the school campus, however all of that quickly diminished when we were ordered to not leave our homes. My entire social life was almost ruined due to this entire situation, and now looking back, I believe that caused my change in behavior. I really did not enjoy anything other than speaking with my friends, which is what I did all day every day.

After spending a few days in Nanjing, as a sort of vacation as a reward for finishing school, I began to think about where my life was going, and reflect on the time I had spent in China. I was able to realize all the things that I was missing out on here by choosing to stay homesick and do nothing other than think about my home. It was after returning from Nanjing that I began focusing on making myself happier and improving my life in the process. I exercised more frequently, finished the book that I was reading at the time, started off well with my second year of high school, and started to feeling better overall. This marked a new beginning for me, as I was able to view this entire situation in a new light and use the best given to me out of a bad situation in order to improve myself.

Right now, I am feeling better with each passing day. My outlook on China has changed since I first arrived here, and instead of focusing on when I would return to my hometown of Skopje, I am now able to see Beijing as my home and be more appreciative of the large number of opportunities traveling to China has given me. Of course, I look forward to visiting Macedonia again, but for the time being, I have no problem staying here for a few more months.

We all leave behind certain parts of our lives when we go away from our homes, and for some, the risk of abandoning what they had been building for most of their lives isn’t worth the adventure of creating new ones. However, learning to start over, and rebuild what was started a long time ago from the beginning can lead to the experiences of a lifetime, and change the way people look at many things for the better.

KEEP READING: Social Media During Covid-19: A Teen’s Point-of-View

Images: Tadej Trpkoski

As overwhelming as it might feel to combine online schooling with working from home and all your other household tasks, it helps if you remember that learning should be fun. And Science is one of those topics that should really be learned in the most hands-on, fun way possible so the ideas stick. In fact, all kids are born as little scientists, curious about their world, and excited for experiments. It’s our job to indulge in those curiosities as far as they go, and keep it safe! Here are some cool easy experiments and a few online resources if they need to understand a concept in a more tangible way.

Mad Science Winter Vacation Class Pack: Online Lessons and Materials Shipped to You

In response to parents’ requests for ways to keep kids entertained over the Chinese New Year, Mad Science is holding a special winter discount on their 9 online live bilingual classes and a course kit with 50+ labs inside a box. The teachers send a preview of the material before class, interact with the kids while conducting experiments, and integrate science facts and review so the concepts really sink in. Classes start Feb 1 and the live component is twice a week between the hours of 9.30am-12pm depending on your child’s age. Scan the QR code for more info.

Outschool

We got into the Outschool habit last spring, and still love to join a class or social club or two when it’s a subject that interests my kids. Sometimes it takes a while to find the right teacher, but the coolest thing about Outschool is the teachers combine learning with popular games, shows, and more. So that’s how you get Mario Math, Jedi training, LEGO Build clubs, and an assortment of cool science-related courses as well. Some are one-offs and others recurring. It gets tricky with the timezones, but we’ve found many good options no matter when we were available.

NASA Stem for Students

With topics like exploring the space station, NASA’s Search and Rescue office, build an airplane/spacecraft, and decoding secret messages, plus coloring pages, interactive games, and free science-related books, your kids could explore the NASA sit for days! And it is all for free. Scan QR code to start your astronaut training.

SciShow Kids

Every since SciShow Kids premiered, we’ve been excited to share it with our kids. Especially once they got into their “Why?” phase, most questions about nature or how the world works science wise are explained in a non-condescending and factual way, with great graphics to help kids understand the concepts. Their videos are neatly organized in playlists and very easy to find. Older students will also enjoy SciShow, SciShow Space, and SciShow Psych. SciShow also has a game show which is a cool way to “quiz” kids but make it fun!

KEEP READING: Say It Like You Mean It: Online Chinese Learning Resources for Kids

Photos: courtesy of websites, Cindy Marie Jenkins

Having lived in earthquake territory, then hurricane territory, and overseas in general, our family has always had a “bug out bag” at the ready. This is a sturdy bag that holds some essentials for living in any viable situation for 72 hours: first aid, change of socks, bottled water, basic nonperishable snacks, flashlight, changes of clothes, copies of passports/important documents, cell phone chargers, basic tool kit, camping bowls, and utensils — you get the idea.

From the M*A*S*H episode “Bug Out”

Even though the worst we’ve ever come to needing it was during Hurricane Irma in 2017, it’s stayed as a staple of our lives. The hardest part about a bug out bag is keeping clothes for our kids inside that fit them as the months pass.

That’s why as news trickled into the Safe & Sane in Beijing groups about various compounds in Shunyi going into a three-day lockdown, and in some cases not being able to get food delivery, I started to think of starting a “Bug in bag,” just to be safe.

What is a bug in bag, do you ask? It’s everything nonperishable you would need in the event a Covid-19 infection is found in your compound, with a neighbor, or anywhere else you’ve been, and you find yourself having to stay at home for three days minimum until everyone is tested.

Oh yeah, with your kids and doing e-learning as well. And you and/or a partner might be working from home, too. You know, the usual.

This venture is less of a “bag” and more of a “shelf on the pantry we don’t use unless needed.” Here are some thoughts on what to include, just in case:

• Oatmeal
• Snack bars
• Raisins
• Powdered milk
• Coffee beans
• Teabags
• Frozen fruit
• Frozen veggies
• Pasta and favorite sauces
• Ingredients for cookies
• medicine

It isn’t only about food though. If we retreat back to staying at home in order to tamp down any incoming infections, how can we keep the kiddos involved in enriching activities in between video game binges and e-learning? Last week, I wrote about how to prepare your home for both working and learning at home, but is there any way to stock up on inexpensive activities to keep it interesting for the kids — and you — at home together.

Some ideas that might need a Taobao “trip”:

• art paper on a roll so they can create a mural
• a new board game to teach them
• a new card game like UNO, or a regular deck of cards
• a new puzzle
• dry erase activity books
• books about travel or places outside of Beijing
• jump rope or another physical activity for them to master
• magic tricks to learn
• modeling clay
• a new LEGO set
• whiteboard for daily schedules

If your district is locked down for any amount of time, be prepared. Just like the pantry shelf, the above activities will need their own hidden shelf in a closet or stored in a box, so that you can dole them out as needed. Just take some time for thoughtful stocking up and the short time you need to stay home won’t feel nearly as bad. And if you have friends in Shunyi, maybe see if they need any help getting this to their compound.

KEEP READING: Updates: The Latest in Beijing Family News

Photos: Pexels