MS Journalism: Outside Beijing vs. Inside Beijing: What's the Difference?

Posted: 09/06/2020

By: Angel Liu, Samuel Wu, and Laurence Yang

Are you curious about how students and teachers outside Beijing are doing? Are you wondering how their countries’ policies are different from Beijing’s?

Most students are still in Beijing, but some are in different countries. Likewise, most teachers in the ET Middle School are in their home countries or staying where they last traveled. We are going to take a look at different places students and teachers are staying during this time: Teacher Christian and Shaylin Chavez are in Indonesia; Teacher Lashanda Wildgoose is in the Bahamas; E8 Enoch Sun is in California, USA; and Teacher Jaime and E7 Hudson Jones are in the USA.

Teacher Christian and Teacher Shaylin are in  Bali, Indonesia.  They originally went there to travel and have stayed there since Spring Festival because of the pandemic. During their time in Indonesia, Teacher Christian said he has learned a lot of new things and has been reading a lot of books. He has learned some new recipes and is even learning how to speak Spanish. He says he misses stable Wi-Fi speeds because Wi-Fi is not great where they’re staying. He also misses “playing basketball on Wednesday nights.” Teacher Christian said the government in Indonesia is telling people to go out as little as possible, and tourists have drastically decreased. “There is not much social distancing, but people are wearing masks when they are out,” he said.

In the Bahamas, Teacher Lashanda’s quarantine life is very different from that of Teacher Christian. People are being asked to stay home unless they’re going to get daily essentials such as food and water or seeking medical care. The government in the Bahamas is cautious about the coronavirus because, “we are a very small country where two of our major islands were badly damaged by a category five hurricane destroying many homes and medical facilities in September, so we do not have the proper facilities to handle the large numbers of COVID-19 cases that a lot of the other countries have. If our numbers start to go up, we run the risk of not being able to help ourselves,” she said. However, the good thing about staying home so much for Teacher Lashanda is that she can spend time with her family.

Things are very different in the USA. Teacher Jaime and Hudson Jones are currently in North Carolina, USA. They returned from Thailand in early April. They went to Thailand for vacation and stayed there until the situation became worse there. Then, they returned to their home in the USA. In Thailand, they were asked to quarantine by the government, and there were marks on the ground to keep them distanced from strangers in grocery stores and public places. In the U.S., Teacher Jaime said that they quarantined for three weeks before going to stay with some elderly friends because they want to take full precautions to protect them. Teacher Jaime said, “It can be difficult with five children being cooped up inside for so long.” Hudson also said that he was very bored. Both of them said they miss their cat.

E8 Enoch is also in the USA right now. He is in California. He went there for vacation and has not returned to China yet. The local government tells them “not to go out and avoid crowded spaces, as well as maintain social distance (2 meters).” For him, social distancing life means that “if you want to converse, basically you have to yell at the other person from like 60 feet away.” Because he has been there for such a long time, he misses Beijing and school.

People who are away miss things that are in their homes, and people who are at home want to go out somewhere that is not their home. But everyone wants the pandemic to be over quickly. Despite the pandemic, school continues – whether in person or online. Just remember, no matter where you are, you are a part of the SMIC family.