I have not felt comfortable being back at school with my students, living a somewhat normal existence, while the rest of the world is still hunkering down. We've gotten so comfortable in the province that I am living in that no one is really wearing masks anymore. It's like we all fell in a dark hole between January and April, and then climbed out into a new fresh existence . . . Where everything is exactly the same as it was before we fell in the hole. Except, now I am trapped here for the foreseeable future: no summer, no traveling, no going back to the States, no nothing. KNOW NOTHING.
I am comforted by my dog and my cat. In fact, I do not know what I would do if I did not have my dog or my cat right now.
My dog wakes me up with a paw in the eyeball and licks all over the face at 4:30am every morning, regardless of whether it's the weekend or not. I get out of bed and walk him around the apartment complex, we visit his mother and her 5 new puppies, and then we come back home. When we get upstairs, I turn on the kitchen sink for the cat and my day begins. Each day, this same routine, over and over again. A fixed sequence of events helps me stay focused on the present and sane. So, even though I wake up earlier then most everyone else, I am thankful.
The weekend before we started back to school, I made a Coronavirus 2020 Kitchen Dance Playlist. I have included it below. This helped me throughout the month of April, as a way to blow off steam when I got home and while I was doing the dishes. As many people know, when my colleagues and I got back to campus in early April, we were told that we were losing our Spring Break, gaining a 6-day workweek, and our school year would be lengthened to late July. My new school has requested our presence by July 26th, which means I will have less than 2 weeks to move and situate the animals. So, dancing each night is a HUGE release. I highly recommend it.
Below are some of the things I was writing or thinking about during March. February and March were hard because we did not know what was going on. No local news is provided in English and our school was not communicating with us regularly. So, it was a tough time, which is somewhat reflected in the entries below. Keep safe, everyone!
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The bright sun shines in from the window.
The skies are blue, the birds are singing.
Housebound for 8 weeks, I am pale and calm.
No pollution, no honking, no shouting.
An eerie quiet creeps over this city of 9 million.
I am left with my own thoughts, as the walls creep in from all sides.
Every two days, we are allowed to leave.
Gathering groceries, replenishing water.
The flowers are blooming, spring is here.
"Make art!" People say.
Lord knows I have the time.
But being trapped is different, frustrating the spirit.
Every time I leave the house, my temperature is taken 3, 4, 5 times a day.
I wear masks. I wear gloves. I look down at the ground as I walk.
The stray dogs fall in line behind me, protecting me everywhere I go.
At home, I prepare daily lessons for my students online.
They send me pictures of what they create, and I send feedback.
"Stop growing!" I say to one of my second graders whom I have not seen in over 2 months.
I write remember to take a shower on my to-do list and ignore it for the thousandth time. I write a blogpost and lose interest before posting it. I write out my goals for the next 3 years and question why.
Did the people going through the Spanish Flu feel this way? What about The Black Death? I drift off to sleep, later each night because what day is it anyway?
No light at the end of the tunnel.
The new normal.
Here's the deal . . . I am in the belly of the beast, and there are some interesting precautions happening (like temperature taking and various other things). But it really doesn't seem any different than H1N1. I know people have died, and that's a tragedy for sure . . . But people die all the time from the flu and H1N1 and street traffic and pollution and the numbers are much larger for these things than for what is happening now with Coronavirus. Plus, the affected/effected populations are generally older people. Just like with the regular flu. It doesn't make sense to me to stop whole populations of people from going to school or going to their job or stopping all festivals from taking place. I mean, how much power are we going to give this thing? We are ALL going to stop living our lives because of this. Just hole up and let the plague wash over us? Really? It's very frustrating. This could be my 8 weeks of isolation talking. Who knows? I just think that maybe there might be something else going on--worldwide--that the heads of countries know about, but the general public does not. Otherwise, all of this panic just doesn't make sense.
March 12th, 2020
On Sunday afternoon—2 days ago—we were required to walk to a government building in a neighboring apartment complex about 2 kilometers away. When we arrived, we had to show our previous ID card—a pink residence card that showed where we lived and what our names were. Once we were let into the complex, we walked another few blocks to a nondescript building. Inside it looked like a bank, tall counters with employees standing behind. There were 3 employees to be exact, 2 on the phone and 1 helping customers. The customers were international folks, like me. We were here to pick up a green QR code that is linked to our phone. This code tracks our movement throughout the country. It is intended to help curb people from traveling to highly infected areas. I will have to carry this pass at all times, especially when entering stores. If I don’t have the pass, I will be turned away. This pass can be scanned at any time, from any government official, to track where I’ve been.
I have been working in China since August of 2018. This is my 3rd time to work in China, the first one being a week where I was asked to create a large community-based installation in Beijing and the second one where I taught an art camp for 3 weeks in Chengdu. Currently I am teaching at an international school in Nantong, which is about 2.5 hours North of Shanghai. I teach 28 art classes a week to students in nursery through Grade 8. It is challenging, it is thought-provoking, and it is exciting.
We have been out of school since our Chinese New Year break started on January 18th, which is 8 weeks. And, we have been teaching online classes to our students every day, Monday through Friday, since February 10th, which is now in the middle of our 5th week. I remember first hearing about Coronavirus on Wednesday, January 8th from my dad’s wife who texted me about it via WeChat. By the 15th of January, my flight to Qatar scheduled for a January 31st flight for fun with friends over the Chinese New Year break had been cancelled. By February 6th, our school had been closed until further notice with online classes beginning on February 10th.
It’s been a blur, to be honest. I can’t believe when I look at the calendar hanging in my kitchen, that I have been sitting in my apartment for 8 weeks. That’s 2 full months. The first 3 weeks of having stores and businesses closed was normal—nothing is ever open during Chinese New Year. But then everything just stayed closed. My apartment complex blocked off all gates except for one, where they set up tents, monitors, temperature taking stations, and sign-in sheets. There is a big printed banner outside of this area that has a picture of a man in a mask looking off into the distance and says in both Chinese and English, “Go China! We will win!”
In some areas they were taking people’s pets and killing them, worried that all animals were COVID-19 carriers and not just the obscure farmed species found in the Wuhan market. So, while one of my colleagues left back for Canada, and most all international folks left back for their home countries, I stayed to protect my pets: a brand-new puppy found in China and a cat I rescued in Qatar. (They have since debunked the rumor that domestic pets are carriers.)
What’s surprising to me, now, is the amount of shock and panic that is taking place in the United States, with people asking me for help or information on staying safe. That the United States is not taking precautions or making preparations. But universities are closing down, festivals are being cancelled, and Costco and Walgreens are running out of masks, water, toilet paper, and various other household items. In China, we were also not given any information. No one was telling us what was going on, ever. And when we asked for information, our questions were met with blank stares or sighs of irritation because we-shouldn’t-be-asking-so-many-questions-and-just-do-what-is-being-asked-of-you-already. So, a lot of what we were hearing about with what has been happening in China over the past 2.5 months was not from China but from the States and CNN or from other sources like WeChat or news articles from Singapore or Europe. All we were being told is that you must wear a mask, you must wash your hands, and you must stay in your home until further notice.
My apartment is very small with one bedroom and one study, a living area, a bathroom, a closed-in balcony, and a small kitchen. It has lots of windows and light pours into all of the spaces all day long, from sunup to sundown. It is a 6th floor walk-up in a quiet area of town. I love this apartment, especially with my cat snuggled on the bed for most of the day and my puppy playing with his toys in the living area. But this is our 8th week of isolation and, on most days, the walls feel like they are closing in on me. I watch countless hours of Gossip Girl reruns, work on my online classes for 6 hours a day and try my hardest to take showers regularly. Friends and friends-of-friends will post to me on Facebook or Instagram or text to me, “Oh, I would love to be at home all the time! Treat this like a residency! Make some artwork about what you are going through, cook some fun foods, take long naps!” Right. Except my mind is jumbled with worry and depression from not seeing people. I hate sleeping because I think it’s a waste of time, so it’s not really my bag to take naps. And, cook things? I have no oven and a bizarre convection ceramic stovetop that only fits woks. I know people mean well, but under duress it’s hard to stay busy and focused on personal projects and self-care. Did I mention that I’ve gained almost 8 pounds because the gym is closed, there’s not a lot of daily movement, and I just sit in my house eating all of the time?
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