The skies looked threatening when we left our temporary home in Virginia for the airport. My in-laws drove us in their minivan, loaded to the brim with sixteen pieces of luggage and four of us squished in the backseats. The forecast had predicted thunderstorms that evening but thankfully it was still dry when we arrived at Dulles.
We’d already had a tearful good-bye with my in-laws back in June, when we’d thought we’d be leaving earlier in the summer and had driven up to Massachusetts to see them. This time, I was too tired to shed many tears, too anxious that something would go wrong on our journey and that this wouldn’t actually be goodbye. So this time, we exchanged quick hugs — even though it was likely we wouldn’t see them for a long time — and focused on the journey ahead.
As we walked into the brightly-lit airy terminal, I reminded myself that it was close to a miracle that we were able to get on a flight bound for China at all. Not only are international flights to China severely limited, but the country has banned foreigners from entering ever since COVID-19 became a global pandemic. (And yes, the irony is not lost on me that the pandemic began in China.)
We’d been granted rare permission to return to Beijing. My family and I had passed a COVID-19 test that was administered a few days before. A privately-chartered United plane would take us and about a hundred other passengers to San Francisco, then Guam. There, we’d transfer to another plane. Because China has banned international flights from the capital of Beijing, the plane would land in Tianjin, a port city about a hundred miles away. In the airport, we’d take another COVID-19 test and wait for an unknown amount of time for the results. If they were negative, we’d be allowed to board a shuttle bus to return to home, to quarantine for 14 days. If we passed a third COVID-19 test at the quarantine’s end, we’d finally be permitted into the outside world — one that we hoped would have schools for our kids and regular work schedules for my husband and me. Like everyone else in these times, all we wanted was normalcy. The idea that it might be within our reach made the stakes of the journey even greater.
Given that we’d been sheltering mostly in a suburban house near Washington D.C. for the last few months, it was a shock to enter a terminal filled with people. When we’d gone to get a COVID-19 test a few days before, I’d nearly had a panic attack because two other people had shared an elevator with us; now we were about to board a metal tube with more than a hundred others.
But aside from the masks that everyone was wearing, the airport check-in area seemed just like pre-pandemic times. The United employees were actually friendlier than before; they exchanged relaxed banter and laughs, which set me at ease. Going through security was a little more nerve-wracking with long lines and security personnel wearing plastic face shields, which were strange novelties to my kids.
And yet, again, there was reassurance: the floors glimmered from all the bleach and sanitizing. We were one of the few (and possibly only) flights leaving at this time of night; our departure was schedule for one o’clock in the morning. We did our best to get through security as quickly as possible and head to the gate, noticing that all the advertisements that usually decorate airport hallways had disappeared, replaced with billboards soliciting ads.
Boarding the flight, we were careful to socially distance from others, though what was the point given that we were going to be in enclosed spaces with the same people for the next forty-plus hours? A flight attendant greeted us with hand sanitizing wipes as we stepped from the covered walkway into the plane. We found our seats halfway toward the back of the plane; my daughter and I had four seats in the center row, as did my husband and son, who sat behind us.
Maybe because flying had been so much a part of our lives before the pandemic, I was surprised to find that it was strangely reassuring to be on a plane, even if it was a small confined space. It felt … normal. (Maybe that’s also how people feel going to restaurants these days; it’s an illusion as we’re lulled into our pre-pandemic lifestyle.) But my feelings were pretty moot for the first leg of the flight, to San Francisco, because I was exhausted and fell asleep as we soon as we took off and only awoke as the plane descended. (My daughter did as well.) We’d landed in San Francisco, and the flight crew wished us well before they got off the plane and another crew boarded. I felt for the flight attendants; it must be a terrible, stressful job in these times but yet they’d remained composed and professional throughout the flight.
The flight to Guam was long but comfortable; the screens affixed to the chairs kept my kids entertained. I dozed for a while before starting a book, my friend Barbara Demick’s new Eat the Buddha, about Tibetans in China. Reading about the journeys of Tibetans into exodus put our trip into perspective, and Barbara is an amazing storyteller. (She’ll be making an appearance in the new BSK book club that I’m starting; sign up for my newsletter on my home page if you’d like details.) The airplane food was better than I expected. I gobbled up an omelette stuffed with cheese and some unidentifiable vegetable; the second meal was butter chicken with rice, which was equally delicious. They were the first dishes I’d eaten that I hadn’t cooked myself in weeks. Maybe that’s why they tasted so good.
In Guam, we were greeted by rather unfriendly police who tried to usher us as quickly as possible through the terminal. I would’ve felt the same way; who wanted mainland Americans spreading COVID-19 to their small island? Before we boarded the awaiting aircraft, a specially-outfitted Boeing 747 with a compression chamber for medical emergencies, someone made a few announcements. Because this wasn’t a typical commercial airplane, all of our carry-ons would have to be labelled with our names and stowed toward the back of the plane. And we would have our temperatures checked as we boarded.
We were led onto a very hot tarmac and before us was an enormous windowless airplane. As the sun’s rays beat down on us, I could feel myself breaking into a sweat as I hauled my roll-aboard suitcase up a long flight of stairs. Thankfully, our kids were old enough to walk up the stairs by themselves. As we were lined up getting on the plane, I thought that to anyone who didn’t know better, we must have looked like a long line of refugees — ones that were escaping the United States!
The inside of the plane was cavernous, and it felt like we’d boarded an aircraft that had once lifted the military out of Vietnam. The plane’s furnishings seemed to have been ripped out of retired planes; there was a set of airplane bathrooms that stood tall like port-a-potties in the unfinished space. A narrow row of seats took up part of the back of the plane, while filling up the plane’s center was a wider row of seats with Russian lettering on the tray tables. Labels hastily taped to each chair indicated the seat assignments. In front of the seats was a mysterious area that was curtained off and next to it, the sealed-off medical chamber with a biohazard sign on it.
As I took this all in, an attendant leaned towards me and stuck a thermometer in my ear. He looked at the reading, frowned, and stuck the thermometer in my other ear.
“Sorry,” he said. “You’re a little hot. Stay here.”
He took my husband’s temperature and then the kids’, and waved them along. As they climbed into their seats, I remained near the door of the plane, wondering if I would be locked into the compression chamber, detained in Guam, or even worse, sent back to the United States — by myself … (to be continued in my next post on Friday)
