ISP News

Here are two short passages written by two international students sharing their experiences related with Covid. 

Returning Home for Love or for Quarantine 

Rather than saying going back to my home country, it's better to call it a “time” trip. It is often said that " One will miss their relatives in festive season". Since February 2020, Covid 19 has been in every part of the earth. I, like all the other International Students, had to be separated from my family for two full years due to the border restrictions. At the end of 2021 we decided to go back home as my grandpa hasn’t been well. 

Why do I say this is an “time” travel? The most important thing to go back is to accompany my grandfather as he has been suffering serious disease, which I have been feeling so guilty as I haven’t seen him for more than two years. We don’t know he has been that sick. In our tradition, if our family members were sick, they would not tell us about it, for fear that it would affect our studies. They just don’t want us to live in a foreign country with too much concerns? There is an old saying: "People always report good news but not bad news". Family members often bring their best side in the facetime calls. Actually, he was suffering and fighting against the disease. I think the hardest thing about international students is not being able to accompany their family members

When it comes to the process of returning to my home country, I have to complain about things that I couldn't understand. The price of the flight ticket back to my home country is as high as $5200, which is six times more than usual. We weren’t given a single bite of food for that 12 hours on board. What’s worse, we were asked to do so many Covid tests, fill in numerous forms, and wait for particularly equipped vans to transfer us to where we were arranged to go as we were travelling back from overseas.  

Following the regulations, we had to have the hotel quarantine for 14 days in the first destination before we could fly to my home province. Let’s not talk about how the life was like during the quarantine in the first destination. On arriving in my home province, we had to be quarantined in a hotel for another 14 days and then we could go back to my own home. Can you imagine what it feels like if you haven’t been home for more than two years and but you still have to be separate with your family members even you are already in your hometown with only a few kilometres away from my own home. My family were watching us downstairs in the hotel, but I couldn't do anything about it? Almost all of us were about to collapse. As you know if a person is quarantined in a hotel without personal freedom, he would get sick. 

After I finished my quarantine, I was very busy, and hardly had time to be relaxed. When I saw my grandfather, I really burst into cry. The tall, strong grandfather was gone. I could imagine how much pain he has been suffering for the past years.  

It is like what the ancestors said that parting is easy, but meeting is difficult. But I think as an international student, it is difficult to meet and leave. During this harsh returning, I was quarantined in hotels for a month, and I had to quarantine at home for 28 days extra in my own home, which I can’t understand at all why we had to quarantine for such a long time. 

We think studying abroad is about to experience a different learning environment and probably a better way for me to study. This is one of my reasons to go to a country more than 10,000 kilometres away from home. I wish my grandpa to be better day by day, and looking forward to seeing him soon. I wish all international students a happy and relaxing life in Australia.  

Chuanyue Shan

Year 11

Life During Covid 

I still remember when I came to Australia on 25th January 2020, which was the day just before Chinese New Year, and just when I arrived I heard about the news that China locked its border and banned all international airlines. At the beginning, I thought this wasn’t going to last for long, but I never expected that I was going to stay in Australia without coming back to my homeland for such a long time. 

During these two years, the most memorable time is when we had to study online, and experience the longest lockdown in the world. That was a very unusual experience, where we stayed indoors 24/7 without seeing our friends. At that point, I saw Melbourne people’s life, financial condition, and even safety was seriously affected, and how it could recover from the pandemic. However, at one point, I really regretted that I came to the country, which is when I watched how China is back on track from Covid and Australia got worse and worse. I was nervous when there were 20k new cases every day, the concern is not for myself, but for my mother, she is nearly 60 years old and is much more likely to suffer from the disease. I was once afraid that we won’t have an opportunity to come go back to our homeland together, but fortunately, we've been through it. Now everything is becoming better, and our safety is guaranteed. 

 Now my family and I are planning to go back to China to meet our family members over there, and we can't wait to see that. 

 Steven Xiao

Year 10