Going Home This Year丨Singaporean Chinese have not returned home for more than 1,200 days. What should we do if we have recently returned from Singapore?

After landing in Shanghai, the welcome slogan at the airport

Red Star News reporter丨Chen Yifan Lan Jing

Editor丨Wang He

Waited for 1200 After many days, the Singaporean Chinese Xiao Wang finally returned home. He spent nearly 40,000 yuan to buy a plane ticket and was so excited that he couldn't sleep all night. When he landed in Shanghai and cleared customs smoothly, the 36-year-old man shed tears and even wanted to kneel down and kiss the airport floor tiles. On December 26, 2022, the Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism of the State Council issued the "Overall Plan on Implementing "Category B and B Control" for New Coronavirus Infections. Regarding optimizing the management of personnel exchanges between China and foreign countries, the plan mentions that starting from January 8, 2023, people coming to China will undergo a nucleic acid test 48 hours before departure. Those with negative results can come to China without applying for health status at our embassies and consulates abroad. code and fill the result into the customs health declaration card. If tested positive, relevant personnel should wait until they turn negative before coming to China. Canceling nucleic acid testing and centralized quarantine for all personnel upon entry. Those whose health declaration is normal and there are no abnormalities in routine quarantine at customs ports can be released into the public. The "Five Ones" and passenger load factor restrictions and other international passenger flight quantity control measures will be cancelled. There are no quarantine measures at the airport, and there is no requirement to pick up after landing. Seeing everything return to normal, Xiao Wang knew that things would get better and better in the future.

Snatch a ticket and go home

In the end, I spent nearly 40,000 yuan

I am Xiao Wang. I went to Singapore to study in preparatory courses in 2005, and then entered Nanyang Polytechnic. Studying at university. In 2010, I stayed in Singapore to work in shipping-related jobs after graduating from university. I am now 36 years old.

In the past Spring Festival, I would go back to Shandong from Singapore to celebrate the New Year. I would either fly from Singapore to Shanghai and then back to Shandong from Shanghai; or I would fly directly from Singapore to Shandong. You can usually get home on the same day. There are no less than 20 flights from Singapore to China every day. However, during the epidemic, it is difficult for Singapore to have one flight to China every day, and there will be infinite circuit breaker. You will never be able to get on the plane after buying the ticket.

On November 11, 2022, the Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism of the State Council issued the "Notice on Further Optimizing the Prevention and Control Measures of the New Coronavirus Epidemic and Doing a Scientific and Accurate Prevention and Control Work", known as the "Twenty Articles", which canceled The circuit breaker mechanism for inbound flights has been established, and the quarantine duration and nucleic acid testing for incoming personnel have been adjusted.

After the promulgation of the "Twenty Measures", flights to China have stabilized. We all rushed to apply for visas.

I applied for a visa to return to China on December 8, 2022, and immediately booked a flight for January 2, 2023. At that time, I still needed to be quarantined when I came back. But soon, on December 26, 2022, the Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism of the State Council issued the "Overall Plan on Implementing "Category B and B Control" for New Coronavirus Infections. Starting from January 8, 2023, all visits to China will be cancelled. Nucleic acid testing of personnel and centralized quarantine at entry will be implemented, and measures to control the number of international passenger flights such as the "Five Ones" and passenger load factor restrictions will be cancelled.

In the middle of the night, when I saw this policy, I immediately got up and changed my ticket to January 9th, so that I would not have to quarantine.

I spent 5,800 Singapore dollars just to buy the ticket, plus a 1,900 Singapore dollar change fee, which ended up costing nearly 40,000 yuan.

I even grabbed a ticket at that time. When I got up the next morning and looked at it, all the tickets for the flight back to China were empty.

Air tickets back to China are much cheaper now, but I can’t wait. I would rather spend more money, I don't care about the money, I just want to go home.

Xiao Wang had been looking at the route map on the plane

The mobile phone was shut down

Cannot use the taxi app, so he had to pay in cash

2023 On January 9, I took the Airbus 380 from Singapore to Shanghai at 8 a.m. But I got up at around 4 o'clock. I was so excited that I couldn't sleep all night long.

I slept on the plane until 10:30, and then kept looking at the real-time route map of the plane, watching the flight fly over Hong Kong, over Shaoguan, and between Nanchang and Changsha. Because I could access the Internet on the plane, I was very excited and kept telling my friends where I was flying. When we are about to arrive, tell your friends in Hangzhou that I am already flying above your head. Finally landed in Shanghai.

I took a nucleic acid test before getting on the plane, and now I only need to hold a 48-hour nucleic acid negative certificate. When passing through border control, it was really smooth. The immigration officer at the airport looked at my 60-day visit visa, crossed it out, stamped it, and I entered the country.

When I left the customs, I couldn’t help but start crying. I even wanted to kneel on the ground and kiss the land of China. It’s really been too long since I’ve been back. Before the epidemic, I came back three times a year, but I didn’t come back for more than 3 years and 1,200 days.

My grandma was critically ill and admitted to the ICU at the beginning of 2021, and my parents did not dare to tell me. When they finally greeted me, they meant to prepare me mentally, but my grandma was rescued.

Now I see the hope of a new life, I can think about what will happen at home in the future, and I can come back if I want to.

In 2021, Singapore stipulated that the number of people gathering for dinner could not exceed 5 people, so we controlled the number of people at each dinner party to less than 5 people. By 2022, it will slowly be opened to no more than 10 people gathering for dinner. I also posted a message on WeChat Moments, saying that I could no longer gather 10 people to eat together. I thought about it for a long time, but I couldn’t come up with this picture: It turns out that 10 people can eat together, and there are still more people on this table. Can seat 10 people.

But it’s different now. You see that everything is slowly recovering, and things will get better in the future.

I went through the border control, got my luggage and rushed out of the airport. There were no isolation measures, nucleic acid tests, or any obstructions along the way.

The funny thing is, because I haven’t been back for three years, my Chinese mobile phone number has been stopped for some reason, so I can’t use taxi-hailing apps like Didi and AutoNavi.

I asked someone to call a car for me, but when I finally paid, I couldn’t scan Didi’s payment code, and I couldn’t log in. I took out a 50-yuan RMB note and told the driver that a 10-yuan note would be fine.

The driver suddenly laughed after hearing this. He may have thought I was a country bumpkin.

Shandong fruit radish

Go home for the New Year

Every time there is Shandong fruit radish

After I arrive in Shanghai, I will first deal with the company Then I registered a new mobile phone number, and I decided to keep recharging it from now on.

On January 18, I landed in Qingdao, took Didi Express, and drove more than 170 kilometers directly to my door in Laizhou. In the past three years, my parents have moved to a new house, and I have not been here even once. This time I came back the wrong way, but fortunately they were waiting for me at the gate of the community.

At around 5 pm, I got out of the car and cried as soon as I saw him. My parents are both in their sixties, their faces have wrinkles, and their hair has turned gray.

My dad was standing by the car, and my mom was at the gate of the community. I first hugged my mother and cried, and then I hugged my dad and cried. I cried loudly. I cried so much that even the community security guards were a little surprised.

Maybe my parents are emotionally restrained, unlike me. After not seeing each other for three years, my mother told me to stop crying, it was so embarrassing and asked me to go in quickly. My dad didn't say anything, just smiled.

After I got home, I found that they hadn’t thrown away any of my old things and had packed them all for me in my new house. At home, I even found my junior and senior high school student ID cards, as well as my business card from when I was a student at Nanyang Polytechnic, the secretary-general of the Chinese International Students Association. They kept my room neatly.

That night, my favorite Shandong fruit radish, Laizhou Bay three-tuberculose swimming crab, fried pork with garlic moss and even a king crab were on the table.

I especially like to eat fruit radishes. Before I came back, I told my mother to save some radishes. After returning to China, I basically had fruit radishes for every meal. I ate this kind of sweet radish all by myself. You can eat a plate.

Photos of Xiao Wang himself

I have never stopped eating crabs. I eat crabs at noon and at night. I also send crabs to relatives when they pay New Year greetings and New Year gifts.

For example, our Laizhou Bay three-tuberculose swimming crab is in great demand during this period. The crab paste of the female crab is particularly fat and cannot be found anywhere else. What we eat in Singapore now are all Sri Lankan crabs, which are not delicious anyway.

In addition to crabs, I also ate cherry tomatoes and strawberries when I went home, both of which were not delicious in Singapore. Tonight, my parents are going to cook the Zhejiang Jinhua ham and smoked bamboo shoots I bought.

It’s really a different feeling to go home for the New Year. Finally, I don’t have to worry about who and where to have New Year’s Eve dinner with. We will definitely have our New Year’s Eve dinner at our own home this year. Just like before, I watched the Spring Festival Gala at home and then started making dumplings for the next morning.