Hi there:
I hope this message finds you and loved ones enjoying good health and a peace of mind.
As promised, here’s the first of a mini-series of stories looking back at the fallout from the COVID outbreak in China.
As far as the country’s senior leadership is concerned, the pandemic is over, with the much-feared resurgence of cases after the relaxing of infection control measures in December never materializing. That assertion has yet to be independently verified.
While the final number of total cases and deaths remains murky, longform accounts published online have painted a vivid picture of the outbreak’s exacting mental toll, often the result of the government’s aggressive containment policy. In this selection, writing under a pseudonym, an imminent university graduate provides this detailed report on how COVID fundamentally altered her residential college experience and tampered with her career aspirations.
The source material was first published in Chinese by The Story Plan on Jan. 31.
Take care and see you soon.
—ML
Disconnected, Isolated and Out of Sync: How COVID Ruined My College Experience
By Topsy Turvy
Edited by Fog
1.
In 2019, as a high school senior, I was admitted to a second-tier university in Jiangsu Province. During the train ride home after my first semester ended in early January 2020, a news item about a type of pneumonia "caused by unknown reasons" popped up when I turned on my phone. I didn't take notice, pressing the trash icon at the bottom of the pop-up box and promptly emptying my trash bin. Little did I know that that single event would have a profound impact on my college life.
With Lunar New Year some 20-plus days away, the outbreak exploded as COVID swept across the country. TV newscasts aired updates on case numbers in various locations. In no time, the national tally surpassed 10,000 patients. My hometown also reported 50-odd cases.
Back then, the keywords that sparked panic were "severe cases," "deaths" and "highly transmissible." When it became common knowledge that the virus spread through saliva and aerosol form, surgical masks became a necessity. Overnight, my elder sister joined the mad scramble, securing 50 medical masks before stocks ran out nationwide.
From then on, mask wearing outdoors and a thorough disinfection with alcohol after returning home became our family's routine. On any given trip out of the house, a quick glance revealed the faces of most pedestrians half obscured by blue masks. You couldn't see anyone's full looks.
In spite of these extra measures, the epidemic still felt distant to me. It didn't seem real, not even affecting my day-to-day life. The outbreak in my hometown was still manageable. Many shops were closed, but that was also because store owners had gone home for the Lunar New Year break. Both my elder sister and brother were still looking for jobs, so they didn't have to work from home like so many others did. Plus my hometown was not under lockdown. My mother's shop could still operate as usual.
I naively thought that this virus ruckus would blow over quickly, just like the seasonal flu, and that all would be fine again. Yet through the Lantern Festival and beyond, patient figures only ballooned while the number of severe cases and deaths across the country climbed. New phenomena that had come about purely because of the pandemic gradually became part of our routine, like the overall outbreak data supplied by Alipay, health QR codes and movement tracking codes. The footprint of positive cases was widely publicized.
Only then did it strike me hard that the outbreak had a far deadlier consequence—the restriction of space. If you were infected, you had to be quarantined. Public transportation was curtailed and ordinary people couldn't head into urban areas casually. Both medium- and high-risk districts were off-limits. In reality, that meant you were essentially confined to home.
One day a news report on life inside a makeshift COVID hospital was playing on TV. "I wonder if your beginning of term will be delayed," my big sister said out loud. Our campus is situated near Nanjing and Suzhou. The number of cases in neighboring cities was skyrocketing at the time.
My sister's prediction was spot on. At the end of our 2020 winter break, our school didn't resume classes as scheduled. Instead, I got word from my guidance counselor that the start of the semester was postponed and that online classes would take place first. That marked the official entry of online lessons into my student life.
The written notice also asked students to install Tencent Conference and Tencent Classroom on their laptops a week in advance, as well as to get in touch with their respective instructors and join newly formed WeChat groups for their classes. That way instructors could fine-tune the online teaching software and get ready for lectures.
2.
In spite of the preparation, the quality of online teaching was far from ideal on the first day of classes. Problems surfaced left and right.
First, the speed of Internet connections varied. Frozen screens and blackouts were a common issue, which led students to miss roll call.
The wifi signal in my bedroom is quite weak. Whenever the signal was weak, my laptop logged out of the online lecture session automatically. When I was up against a sign-in deadline, I often found myself running around our apartment clutching my laptop in search of a spot with a strong signal. More often than not I'd be reduced to finishing a lecture on a plastic stool in the corner of our living room. A single lecture seldom streamed without interruption, which led to incomplete note-taking.
The other issue is the frequent lack of sound. Initially, we thought it was our respective Internet connections. Five minutes into one lecture, we began to suspect our instructor forgot to turn on his mike. Our class representative gave a heads up by tagging our teacher in a message in our class WeChat group. Alas, the teacher was so focused on his PowerPoint presentation and lesson plan he missed the message. And so we went for half a lecture without sound. The instructor didn't notice the problem until the midway break. He had no choice but to repeat his lecture during our next session.
Our interaction with teachers was confined to the PowerPoint presentation inside the blue window where our video-conference session took place. A click on the participant breakdown revealed a torrent of tiny white text against a blue backdrop listing our student ID numbers and names. Mixed in was a variety of avatars.
Initially we didn't even have textbooks. Teachers or class reps placed orders on their own initiative, collecting mailing addresses from students and passing them onto bookstores for shipping.
Unlike attending lectures in person, taking online classes from home blurred the line between personal and academic lives. To find the optimal state of mind was just as challenging as meditating under a giant waterfall. It took a tremendous amount of concentration.
Back then, whenever help was needed around the house, I couldn't find it in me to just shut out the outside world. I had no choice but to set aside my online class and pitch in. If I happened to miss an announcement or roll call, I could only suck it up.
It wasn't just me. My classmates couldn't stop complaining either.
During one online class, the instructor called on my roommate Xiao Qing. When Xiao Qing turned on her microphone, static erupted, almost overtaking Xiao Qing's own voice. The teacher frowned, although he asked patiently: "Classmate Xiao Qing, there's quite a bit of background noise. Where exactly are you?"
Xiao Qing's Internet connection was spotty. After her voice froze twice, she went silent completely. The instructor called her name again. In situations like this, Xiao Qing's silence would typically be viewed as truancy, which in turn would be marked as an absence. Her overall grade for the class would suffer.
Myself and Xiao Qing's two other roommates began to panic. We frantically messaged her in our four-person WeChat group. "Are you there? What's going on? Is your connection slow?" After 3 or 4 seconds, Xiao Qing responded tersely: "Super-slow connection."
We immediately explained her situation to our teacher in the chat session for the online class. Luckily, the instructor didn't press further, simply answering "OK" before resuming his lecture. Thus the mini-crisis was weathered.
Still, before ending the lesson, the teacher added: "Even though we are holding classes online, I still want everyone to take our sessions seriously and set the right tone."
After class, Xiao Qing initiated a conference call in our roommate group to thank us. She said her connection was poor and she was struggling to send messages. All she could manage was those two words. There was still a lot of background noise on Xiao Qing's end that sounded like the howling of the wind. In between the static, another one of our roommates, Zhang Ru, couldn't resist asking: "Where exactly are you?"
Xiao Qing turned up the volume on her mike to enunciate: "It's a busy farming period. I'm harvesting corn in our fields."
We were blown away, proceeding to ask: "Doesn't your family know that you have class?"
"There's nothing I can do. An extra person is an extra pair of hands. We can't let the corn rot in the fields. I can't sit out. Plus it's quite noisy outside. It's impossible for me to focus on my studies."
Xiao Qing then sighed and wondered if the teacher's comment at the end of the lecture was targeted at her. "It's not that I don't want to attend class. Whenever I turn on my phone, my family thinks I'm fooling around. They don't take it seriously at all. Who else are they going to call on?"
We could only offer words of consolation. "A couple of other students also didn't respond later on. Maybe the instructor was just fed up. Don't read too much into it."
Meanwhile, classmates who lived in medium- and high-risk areas had to comply with frequent mass testing. Lining up for a PCR test while tuning into an online lecture was a common occurrence. Most teachers were sympathetic though. As important as classes were, they took a backseat to infection control.
The only problem is there appeared to be no end to this chaotic and inefficient mode of online learning. All of us yearned to return to campus, so that the fuzzy boundary between our personal and academic lives could be re-established.
Yet there was still no word of a resumption of regular classes by the end of the semester.
3.
And so the second semester of sophomore year went by amid online classes from February to June. Initially I thought taking classes online from home was simply a minor aberration. Little did I know that was only the beginning of the fallout from the outbreak.
In due course, the lockdown of Wuhan was lifted and outbreaks across the country were brought under control. In mid-August, we finally got word on an imminent return to campus. Yet the process wasn't as straightforward as we expected.
First, the return of students took place in phases. Sophomores and juniors made up the first batch and seniors the second. Freshmen were asked to head back the last, after the Oct. 1 National Day holiday break. Mandatory military training for first years was postponed.
Meanwhile, students from medium- and high-risk areas were ordered to hold off on their return. Students allowed back on campus had to first log their health condition for 14 days straight and were banned from passing through medium- or high-risk districts on their journey back to campus. On arrival, they had to produce a negative PCR test result no older than 48 hours, a green health code and a clean movement tracking code. They also had to have their temperature taken by campus security.
The layers of filtering meant that less than half of the student population ended back on campus. And what we students on campus like myself had to look forward to was cleaning dusty dorm rooms left unattended for some six months and a bubble protocol with no end in sight.
At the same time, the online classes we had temporarily bid farewell to resumed and entered our lives again. At the end of the day, all teaching arrangements deferred to the phrase "in line with the latest infection control requirements."
There were no classes during the first week of the new term. We had to self-isolate on our dorms for 7 days, cut down on trips away from our dorms and gatherings and keep track of our temperature on a daily basis. Anyone who developed a fever or was a close contact had to inform their guidance counselor. These students were then transported to a neighboring hospital by for quarantine. As for dorm rooms that had likely been contaminated by close contacts, seals were placed on their doors after the residents were removed.
Initially, we only heard about sealed rooms in university-wide WeChat groups and groups for students from the same hometowns and provinces. The reported cases were quite far away, at least several buildings from my dorm. So when I heard the news, all I felt was a sliver of worry and fear. These emotions were quickly overtaken by academic pressure. They barely made a dent.
But one night we got an urgent message from our counselor saying students in our major were among the latest close contacts. The note said the situation had been handled and to simply take precautions and not panic. Yet in reality, students in our dorm began panicking that night. Unaware of the footprint of these close contacts, it was hard for us to gauge if we had crossed paths with them at some point. Clouded by fear and anxiety, we struggled to fall asleep, chatting from our beds instead. One of my roommates said: "It sounds so scary. Plus our counselor said the close contacts are in our major and live in the same building. It just sounds awful."
My roommate wasn't afraid of getting infected. She was just worried about suddenly being sent to quarantine in a foreign location, stripped of friends to lean on. She also dreaded the guilt of affecting the lives of other people.
The next day, to avoid a crowd, I got up early for a drinking water refill. I noticed the dorm room directly across from the water room was slapped with a black-and-white banner prominently featuring the word "sealed" in the middle.
I had only seen seals like that on TV. They typically showed up in scenes about esteemed families that had gone bankrupt and had their property confiscated by banks as collateral. In my mind, they were associated with economic depression, mystery and something untouchable. At that moment, combined with the likely presence of the COVID virus, the seal had turned the dorm room into no man's land.
That dorm room was merely one door down from ours. In my roommate's words, "I don't even want to breathe when I pass by on a water run."
When I got back from lunch, a small crowd had formed in front of the sealed room. A few plastic bags and three lunch boxes had also appeared. The bags contained fruit, drinks and instant noodles. A brand new water dispenser still in its packaging sat on the side. Three people in full body suits stood in front of the door. One got ready to move the water dispenser, the second held Q-tips, test tubes and a thermometer gun and the third was taking notes, paper pressed against the wall. I couldn't see the students in the dorm room. All I saw was the three medical workers talking to them.
When I returned to my own room, I got a message on my phone. It was from one of the girls in the sealed room, someone I was quite close to. First she sent three crying emojis, followed by: "Our room was sealed. I just got woken up to take a PCR test." I told her not to panic and asked what happened.
It turns out that tracking data revealed that one of her roommates had crossed paths with a COVID patient on her journey back to campus, which turned her health code yellow. The roommate was already in quarantine. The remaining three girls were confined to their room for 10 days. Meals and supplies would be delivered. Our counselor called it a "healthy quarantine."
The term sounded quite innocuous, but my friend thought otherwise. "I never felt the virus was that close to me. When I woke up and saw the medical workers in front of me and learned were we were being locked up for 10 long days, fear set in, even though I had never been afraid," she wrote.
Luckily, no one sought to take a hands-off approach. Special circumstances demanded solidarity. The sudden lockdown caught our dormmates completely off-guard. It was impossible for the official deliveries to cover all bases during the 10-day quarantine. When we learned the three girls were low on trash bags and sanitary pads, my roommate Zhang Ru took the lead. She and I bought a batch from the convenience store on campus and left it outside the sealed room before knocking.
After 10 days, the three girls were still healthy and the incident blew over. The seal on their door was torn, although a remaining strip served as a reminder of what happened to people who passed by.
4.
After a tumultuous beginning of term, the outbreak on campus tapered off. Apart from online classes and bubble protocol, life remained the same.
From the moment we set foot on campus, we were barred from leaving. Stuck on campus, we could only learn about the outside world through news reports on our phones and events personally connected to us.
An official school notice said students were banned from leaving campus except in special circumstances. Unauthorized leave was an offense subject to warning and even a formal write-up and public announcement in severe cases.
After that, all our activities were confined to campus grounds—our dorms and cafeteria, to be more precise.
Dine-in service was suspended at our cafeteria. Only takeout was allowed. Masks were mandatory in all public spaces. Outside takeout and bulk purchase delivery was banned. On-campus meal delivery from the cafeteria was set up, but delivery times were quite slow given limited manpower. Placing an order took a mere 5 minutes, but it was common for a meal to take some 2 hours to be served. The WeChat group for takeout orders was inundated with follow-up messages sent by hungry students.
Large gatherings were prohibited, so evening galas and performances were broadcast live instead. Watching hosts shepherd proceedings in our school hall felt like watching CCTV's annual Spring Festival Gala from home on Lunar New Year's Eve. It was impossible to get a sense of the atmosphere on site. Our screens felt ice cold beneath our fingertips.
Our days were dominated by online classes. On a full day, they could last from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Apart from food runs to the cafeteria, we spent all our time in our dorms. We were afraid to venture out because each trip away marked an incremental risk of getting infected.
But staying in our dorms meant we barely had any entertainment options.
Back then, all we did was watch online lectures, do homework and repeat. Our lives were limited to a small space. Our beds and desks were where we spent the most time. Our days could be summed up as follows: get up and wash up, log into online classes, eat, study, shower and then sleep. Same routine over and over again. The sheer monotony was unbearable even for an extreme homebody like myself.
At that point, our city wasn't reporting new cases anymore. We had achieved "dynamic zero" for the time being. Still, to cut down on human movement, our campus remained under closed management.
Eventually we had such a bad case of cabin fever we proposed a trip outside. Even a campus stroll to smell the flowers would do. And so donning masks, caps and jackets to minimize skin exposure, we took a walk on the path flanked by the most trees in full protective armor.
Our new campus was only a few years old. The main greenery comprised rows of small trees. Yet fall had just arrived, so the trees and lawns by the path were a bit barren. Dead leaves covered the ground, a chilly breeze swept and few people were out and about. Even the typically upbeat Zhang Ru could only mourn: "All the trees are bare. We're deprived even the pleasure of admiring the flowers." Amid the outbreak, the entire campus lacked energy and vitality. It was a picture of depression.
Our foray outside failed to disperse the rain and clouds of the low pressure system hanging over our dorm room. After lights out, roommate Xiao Qing was browsing her phone when she suddenly exclaimed that about a dozen cases had surfaced in a previously low-risk city. The source was a patient who had lied about his movements.
The roommate whose berth was situated across from Xiao Qing's voiced her surprise while my mood took a dive. Just when the overall situation seemed to be improving, we were back to square one. The news undoubtedly nipped any hope of a reopening in the bud.
Little did we expect Zhang Ru to have the strongest reaction. In an angry and resigned tone, she fumed: "What's wrong with these people, running around at a time like this? Are they trying to get people killed?"
In normal times, in our eyes, Zhang Ru was passionate and optimistic. Whenever she was around, there would be no dead air. She was the source of happiness in our room. She was always positive. This was the first time we had heard her speak like that. The pandemic was affecting our lives bit by bit. First, it attacked our bodies and health. Next up was our state of mind. Zhang Ru broke down in tears that night. Between tugs of tissue paper to wipe away her tears and snot, she vented in a trembling voice: "I feel like I'm about to go crazy. I wake up to either my desk or my bed. I can't go anywhere. College life is free and happy for everyone else. They can do whatever they want. Yet as fate has it we were stuck with the short straw. College for us is no different than prison. The days pass by and we live like zombies. I'm just about fed up with the outbreak!"
Zhang Ru calmed down slightly after our words of consolation. Yet after a brief respite she posed a question that no one could answer: "When is this constant lockdown going to end? We're going to have to intern and undergo practical training. Are we going to do that in front of our laptops too?"
After nearly two months of bubble protocol, everyone's routines were simplified ad nauseum. It wasn't just Zhang Ru who was in a foul mood. The university-wide chat group was also brimming with complaints about infection control measures and closed campus management.
After learning that some neighboring universities had ended closed management, the tone of discussion on our campus took a twist. In student-led chat groups, people started to question the necessity of a bubble protocol.
"Other schools are located in a city with several dozen cases. Yet you don't see them locking down their campuses."
"Even the university next door reopened last week. How come we are still in lockdown? On what grounds?"
"Can't we end the lockdown? I really want to play outside (tears)..."
Later on, folks began speculating why school officials were still clinging onto lockdown protocols. The discussion blew wide open, with some students even leveling explicit accusations and complaints at university management.
With skepticism on the rise and the murky atmosphere of closed management instilling widespread doubt in everyone's minds, it took only the flimsiest speculation to galvanize emotions.
The next day our guidance counselor held an emergency meeting at 2 p.m. First, she briefed us on the latest infection control measures and gave an update on scholarship applications.
After that, she slowed down and started a new train of thought. "Lately folks have been wondering why university management hasn't ended our lockdown, given the fact that other schools have done so. The fact is the outbreak isn't looking good right now. Our campus is the relatively safest location. If you leave campus, what if you come across a patient or a close contact and get infected? You have to take responsibility for your own health. We can't vouch for what's going on outside, but as along as you defer to our rules, school officials won't screw you over."
She pointedly added: "There's a lot of random crap online. You have to filter through it carefully. Don't be influenced by anything you read. School officials won't hurt you, no? University students are adults. You need to take responsibility for your actions. Whatever you say or do, you need to maintain a cool head. You need to weigh your words and actions, especially in today's Internet era. Got it?"
At the end of the meeting, the counselor sought to soothe ruffled feathers and lower the temperature. "I understand how boring it is for everyone to be stuck on campus, but there's no way around it. If something comes up, you can have a chat with me. Also, a counseling center has been set up at the student activities center. You can go there too. Don't hold it all inside."
The fact was, being confined to campus, our access to information was relatively limited. We had no way of verifying online rumors. All we could do was defer to school rules and respect the overall infection control strategy. The rest was beyond our pay grade.
5.
We finally got word of the reopening of campus in the second semester of our sophomore year in early 2021.
The so-called "reopening" came with many strings attached. Even if you weren't leaving campus, you had to report your daily itinerary on an official mini-app. If you planned on going off-campus, you needed a permission slip and had to report your destination and estimated time of return. Medium- and high-risk areas were off-limits.
Still, when word came down our entire dorm couldn't contain our excitement and euphoria. The official notice was issued in the morning. By afternoon, my roommates and I had already packed our things in preparation for a trip to a small mall in the neighborhood.
The mall was filled with infinite options for eating, drinking and playing. When I jogged by one evening shortly after 9 p.m. freshman year, its light shined bright from across the barricade near the back entrance of our campus. People came and went at a regular frequency. It was all hustle and bustle, a miniature city that never slept.
What I didn't expect is for the mall to be as badly impacted by the pandemic as university students. We were shocked by the sight before us the day we entered the mall.
The only mini-supermarket on the first floor had already gone out of business. Among the other shops nearby that should have been open, some half were locked up. Abandoned chairs, tables and cardboard waste could be seen behind their glass doors.
The mall was located in a downtown spot in University City, its main clientele being college students. Closed campus management and dine-in restrictions over the past year meant a precipitous drop in foot traffic. Patrons were a rare occurrence.
Most of the mall's restaurants and food stalls that could survive had shifted their focus to online takeout orders. The ones that couldn't had long collapsed and vanished.
The air conditioning in the mall was mixed with the smell of damp mold. When it filled my nostrils, I couldn't resist sneezing. A few more steps inside the mall and I was overwhelmed by the drastic change in scenery. The arrival of the outbreak resembled a typhoon that had blown by, leaving behind a trail of destruction.
Come junior year, it was time for the national campaign to get vaccinated. At that point, the outbreak in Jiangsu had been effectively brought under control. The city where I was based had achieved "dynamic zero," plus it had been a long time since a new case had been reported. As a result, control measures on our campus weren't as strict as a year ago. We were in semi-open status. Apart from previous requirements for leaving campus, we attended class in person more than half of the time. We were also allowed to come and go from campus freely.
Perhaps it was because the virulence of the virus had declined to a manageable level, but even the surfacing of a few new cases didn't prompt school officials to order lockdowns as they had in the past. What was added to our control measures was mass and regular PCR testing.
Everyone had to get tested at least once a week. If you were randomly selected or it happened to be time for university-wide testing, some students ended up getting tested up to three times a week. If you missed more than three tests, you received a warning and a formal write-up.
Out of all the testing requirements, school management took university-wide testing the most seriously. School officials vetted student rosters for every single faculty a day before to make sure everyone was available for testing the next day.
If PCR testing conflicted with class, classes were suspended to pave way for mass testing. Instructors were responsible for rescheduling missed classes.
In cases of adverse weather, even typhoon conditions could not delay mass testing. PCR testing became part of our regular lives. In this case, folks weren't as grumpy as the early days of campus lockdown. Everyone just co-operated the best they could.
When lining up, on occasion I'd think back to what a medical expert said on the news back in 2020, that "we might have to co-exist with the virus in the long run." We used to think that as long as the virus wasn't stamped out, we'd be stuck in the limbo of alternating between lockdown and reopening. In which case we would have nothing to look forward to in our college days. A mostly closed environment bred nothing but discontent.
And yet there we stood in line peacefully, a meter apart from each other. It suddenly dawned on me that all these demands were no longer intolerable. Instead, they had become as routine as eating and sleeping. Our relationship with COVID had shifted from one of antagonism and anger to gradual indifference and adjustment.
6.
I returned to campus for the first semester of senior year in the fall of 2022. According to our schedule, we had four final classes to complete.
The course load wasn't that heavy, which meant a lot more free time. The classmates around me either started to prepare for graduate school or civil service exams or scour for internship placements. Our guidance counselor was sending notices about briefing sessions, job fairs and so on to our major WeChat group on a weekly basis.
Our campus infection control measures remained the same. After two weeks of online classes, we switched back to face-to-face instruction. We had to get a PCR test once a week. If you had to go off-campus for an internship or job interview, all you had to do was file your itinerary through the official mini-app. It was relatively easy to come and go.
My courses wrapped up after the halfway mark of the semester, which led to even more free time. I had decided against graduate school and a civil service job. Instead, I sent off a round of resumes online and looked for an internship during winter break.
In retrospect, there were early signs that a national loosening of infection control measures was imminent. In a matter of days, I read news of a possible relaxing on my phone, then word came that Shijiazhuang had canceled mass testing and that Guangzhou had fully reopened.
In late November, we heard from our guidance counselor, who hadn't sent out an emergency message in ages. In an evening note that began with three red exclamation marks, she said that all classes would shift back online the next day, closed campus management was back in effect and campus-wide testing would start in the morning.
In the week that followed, the entire student population was tested daily. This was unthinkable in the past.
At that point, universities in areas with serious outbreaks had started ordering students to go home. That didn't alarm me. I just interpreted the move as a means of advancing winter break and reducing density to cut down on contagion. I didn't think the same measures would be extended to our school because the outbreak in our city wasn't bad. There had only been two or three cases reported.
By early December, I got a few interview offers. Unfortunately, two of them had to be in person, plus they were to take place in a medium-risk district in Nanjing. I checked with our guidance counselor. Once I left campus, I would have to self-isolate in Nanjing for a few days and produce a negative PCR result before being let back into campus. I had no choice but to call my interviewer to explain my situation. She hung up after a few words of courtesy. And so that interview went down the drain.
As for the remaining interview, after some back-and-forth, my interviewer agreed to speak to me online. An appointment was set for the afternoon of Dec. 14. This was a company I had been eyeing for some time and thus I cherished the opportunity dearly. I started laying extensive groundwork on the day the interview was confirmed, studying everything from the company's corporate culture to both the theoretical and practical aspects of the job I was applying for. I also watched online videos offering interview tips and ironed the outfit I planned on wearing for the interview.
Yet the good luck did not continue. The way events unfolded going forward surpassed my imagination.
First, our guidance counselor posted the application for winter break travel as a shared document in our WeChat group much earlier than usual. In previous years, the same form didn't go out until late December. And so few people put down their details. No one thought it was a priority.
Five days later, which was a weekend, closed campus protocol wad suddenly lifted. At the same time, school officials closed all PCR testing sites and rescinded the requirement to report and ask for leave for off-campus trips. Entering campus, one no longer needed a clean PCR test from the past 48 hours, nor green health and movement codes.
Overnight, all the restrictions that had been in place for three years were gone. The relaxation came so abruptly and unexpectedly we were blindsided by the good news. All we could do was brainstorm travel destinations for after final exams and attend farewell meals, where we celebrated our shared years together. Yet it turns out we celebrated too early, unaware of the major trouble that lay ahead.
7.
The following week, our counselor began bombarding our WeChat group with messages, demanding that students report their winter break itineraries ASAP. Barring special circumstances, everyone was required to head home.
On Wednesday, our counselor called a first meeting. She elaborated on the policy of "maximum repatriation." During the meeting, she kept repeating: "Reopening doesn't mean total safety. In other words, it means the university can no longer offer you effective protection. Now it comes down to personal protection. You also have to take responsibility for the risks you take."
The meeting somewhat dampened the spirits of my three roommates and I, which had been quite high for the past few days. We gradually began to confront the main problem that reopening posed—the risk of infection.
Still, the words "infection" and "positive case" didn't cause us too much panic. After all, we had lived under two years of precautionary measures and our university had reported zero cases and implemented emergency quarantine measures. Neighboring cities also were recording precious few cases. It was a tall order for us to get infected. Push came to shove, we could go out less. After the meeting, we gave up plans to travel outside the province after finals, deciding to hold a retreat in our dorm on Christmas Day instead.
The second meeting took place Friday afternoon. Our counselor made her case again. At that point, barely half of the students under her care had filled out the shared document. Some students had yet to book their train or plane tickets and left the relevant sections blank. Unlike her first briefing, this time our counselor mentioned the peak of the imminent outbreak.
A major outbreak was inevitable in the near future, she said, although the timing was hard to predict. It could come soon, given the highly transmissible nature of the Omicron variant. Once a student was infected, there were limited university resources he or she could draw on. It was an inadequate safety net, but "heading home early means at least you have family to take care of you."
The phrase "peak of the outbreak" alone set off alarm bells quickly. After the meeting, we checked ticket availability immediately. Almost everyone planned on leaving the day after finals ended. No lingering. I decided to head home the day after my interview.
Zhang Ru was going to be the last to leave, scheduling her departure for after New Year's Day. She had been taking driving lessons near our university since sophomore year. Once she headed back to her hometown in Fujian Province, practicing and taking her driver's license exam would be a major hassle. She wanted to leave after taking the exam locally. When we got around to entering our itineraries into the shared document, it was already packed.
Later on we began to dread the meetings our counselor called. Every meeting served to add to our sense of panic.
By our counselor's account, we were bound to get infected after the relaxing of rules. It was simply a matter of time. And once we were infected, it was hard to say how we would fare given the limited resources on hand.
The third meeting was held the following Monday evening. This time our counselor gave a concrete date for the peak of the oncoming outbreak, quoting experts as saying the first wave would hit on Dec. 20. Official school policy was except for students sitting for graduate school exams and those facing special circumstances, everyone had to leave by the 20th.
By then, eight students had already been infected. That was an unthinkable number prior to November.
This looming peak with an exact date resembled the end of the world to us and thus we began to plot our escape. That night, our counselor began urging students to either book or advance their travel tickets. The earlier we left for home the better.
Yet this was not a straightforward matter for students who lived far away. High-speed rail tickets had become a scarcity and the price of air travel had soared in the past few days, with domestic economy class tickets approaching as much as 2,000 yuan (US$290).
Zhang Ru's driver's license exam plans had already gone down the drain. If she were to head home immediately, the 1,000-yuan air fare would be a major expense. If she stayed on campus, there was the prospect of getting infected. She would have to tough it out against the virus on her own in our dorm room. So she frantically searched for flights and transfer options. Every time she refreshed her travel app, the price would go up 200 or 300 yuan.
On one hand, our counselor was breathing down her neck and ticket prices were rising on the other. Caught in the middle, Zhang Ru's days were enveloped by panic. Eventually, she broke down, angrily and anxiously cursing the airlines in tears: "Are you trying to box poor people into a corner?"
As for my train ticket for the 16th, I had no choice but to change it too. The earliest I could possibly advance the ticket to was the 13th or the 14th. The only other availability was after the 20th. I could only settle for standby status on the 13th and the 14th, all while secretly praying that I wouldn't be rescheduled to the 14th, the day of my interview.
Your worst fears often come true. No seats became available as late as 2 hours before departure time on the 13th. I ended up booking a seat for the 14th. Given the daylong journey and spotty mobile reception, it would have been impossible for me to sit for an online interview on the train. I explained my situation to my interviewer and asked to postpone the interview. Alas, the interviewer said his schedule going forward was fully booked.
So this interview that I had spent days prepping for fell through due to factors beyond my control. I had no time to be sad though. I had to pack and ship my belongings in a day.
Zhang Ru managed to snatch a plane ticket in the wee hours and left for the airport hours later. My other roommates also took off one after another and arrived home safely.
I arrived at the train station on the morning of the 14th. There was no longer a long line at the entrance due to checking of health codes. No one was reminding passengers via loudspeaker to pull up their health codes on their phones. I felt extremely emotional when I took my seat on the train and surveyed my surroundings.
In January 2020, I embarked on the identical journey. Looking around me, I saw people chatting away happily and took in scores of beaming faces boosted by the prospect of Lunar New Year family reunions. There was not a single harbinger of the storm that was upon us.
Three years on, as I retraced my steps, people had masks glued to their faces. The compartment was eerily quiet. What percolated in people’s hearts was no longer joy or anticipation, just fear of the massive first wave of infections that was forthcoming.
And thus three years of the massive operation that was lockdown life ended unceremoniously amid anxiety and panic. Perhaps we can finally travel freely and return to normal life in the near future.
And yet my college days are drawing to a close.