QT Freedom
Room key- check
Passport- check
Willingness to rejoin the world- nup
One final look around 1820 and I’m pushing my 4 bags towards the elevator where I meet my pal from 1801, we’ve chatted every day but never actually met. We are excited & you can tell by the pitch and volume of our voices as we cart everything into the elevator.
Check out is smooth, there is nothing to worry about, except the limited amount of luggage my fellow inmates have traveled with. Just a backpack? Really?
Airport transfer is a highly efficient and well-managed government procedure unless you happen to be in the group with the foreigner who has vodka in her bag and has a red travel code. Perhaps the system hasn’t updated with my quarantine information. I’m allowed to fly but I should expect to take a new covid test when I reach Zhejiang. No problem.
Social distancing doesn’t exist here, even during pre-COVID times, but I like my space and physically leverage my hand-carry case between me and the gentleman sniffing my hair behind me in the boarding queue.
This has irritated me and the adrenaline from being a free woman fades as the turbulence from the flight shakes me like a maraca. Thank god we’ve landed and as the push to get off the plane begins, a steward marches up the aisle and tells me I need to sit down and wait. My Chinese is flowing like a waterfall at the moment and I ask if there is a problem, she replies “yes”. Apparently, the ground staff is waiting for me. Huh? What? A failed phone call to get some translation help sees me disembark to awaiting arms of Hangzhou’s airport staff. What the hell is going on? My lunch wants to make a reappearance from the turbulence.
I’m being escorted to baggage claim, then outside the terminal to another terminal to a … playpen? While this is happening I’m frantically trying to get a hold of someone from school who can translate for me, but Elsa is running late to meet me. And suddenly I ask the dreaded question “why the hell did I come back here!”
I sit alone and wanting to spew in the pen until 3 guards in hazmat arrive to question me about my red code. I don’t know why it’s red, I do know it should be green. I hand over the government certificate that proves I’ve been released from quarantine, my COVID test results, and my patience. Through translator apps, and frustration from both sides we make several attempts to refresh the app. Elsa arrives. Hooray! She’s not allowed into the pen but does a fine job in answering the questions from 5 meters away.
An hour and a half later, my code goes green, and now… now I’m a free woman in China.
