[Part II] Since January - How Chinese Student Affairs Professionals Navigate COVID-19

Recap of Part I

In part I of this essay, Kelly, Stephanie, Caitlyn and I discussed our experiences processing COVID-19 news since January of 2020. From a cultural perspective, we have engaged in reflections on ways in which this epidemic was overlooked by the U.S. public, along with individual decisions on how to process institutional response. In Part II, we will learn more about Jenny’s perspective working in a satellite campus at Beijing, China. We will also discuss how has this pandemic impact our professional and personal decisions for the future.

Working in Beijing: Jenny

For people who had close relationships to both China and the U.S., COVID-19 manifested into our lives and interacted with our surrounding cultures beyond medical terms and border controls. Unlike Stephanie, Caitlyn, Kelly or me, Jenny works for a satellite office of a U.S. public research institution in Beijing, China. When I contacted her, she was still in her hometown, working remotely due to the prevention measures in China. With her experiences working with diverse national and cultural contexts, the differences between U.S. and China’s response came as no surprise. In response to the outbreak in Wuhan, Jenny’s institution reacted quickly, such as issuing community letters and sharing public information in February. Their president also sent out an anti-stigmatization letter to the community at large, raising awareness to the increase of xenophobia against Asian students related to COVID-19. In Jenny’s context, COVID-19 shifted how many Chinese people live their ordinary lives, but it also disrupted how Chinese international students pursue their studies. Parents of international students began messaging Jenny on social media groups, resulting in 700 to 800 worrying messages daily. The first wave of messages was travel concerns - with multiple travel bans against China and alerts coming from different countries, parents in January worried about their students’ access to international higher education. As the U.S. showed more evidence of epidemic outbreak and anti-Chinese sentiment, parents became troubled about their children’s safety overseas. During the U.S. heated debates on whether COVID-19 was a hoax and how does #flattenthecurve work [1], Chinese parents were in passionate discussion on how to ensure the safety and health of their children: should our children return? When and how should they return? Shall we request a plane for transport? Are the embassies still open in China? How would returning to China impact our children’s visa? How does the Leave of Absence work? Will our children be displaced by the school if the school shuts down? Jenny really empathized with these parents and was moved by Chinese students’ effort in comforting and calming their parents. “In a crisis like this, there’s just no perfect solution. Parents, schools, and everyone are getting pulled in different directions and receiving an overwhelming amount of information. '' From Jenny’s perspective, the COVID-19 has been a dynamic and evolving situation. Rapidly changing policy from the federal government, from the state, from the school meant that there’s no way to envision a long-term plan or proactive approach to this matter. As a result, these additional unknowns and ever-changing guidelines complicated and compounded the frustration and confusion of COVID-19 for students, parents and staff alike.

Looking Ahead

After talking with everyone, all our conversation boiled down to a rather cliché but ever more important message: COVID-19 affects everyone, and unity is what is needed to defeat this crisis for humanity. While Jenny’s counterpart in the U.S. was following the local government guidelines, her team in China was supporting Chinese public health measures. The success of her team was the ability and flexibility to understand individual differences and to combine solutions. “For both students and staff, working from home and transitioning to online learning are both learning curves, and sitting in front of a computer for all of your daily functions could be overwhelming. Therefore, we must adapt to our environment and come up with new strategies, so students and staff can both be protected and supported.” In Caitlyn’s case, while she applauded decentralized offices’ expertise and best practices, lack of campus-wide communication led to misinformation and limited support during the actual implementation. Public universities were a prototype of public bureaucracy, and what Caitlyn experienced was a microscopic view of what many citizens have experienced during this outbreak in the U.S. Some sectors felt under-prepared, and some states felt under-supported [2]. People’s privileges were more apparent than ever [3], and the lack of equity embroiled with misinformation further chipped away a sense of unity. To put it in simpler terms, Caitlyn stated that there was no doubt that the U.S. reacted too slow to COVID-19. But is it the lack of information, lack of access to resources, or lack of coordination? Perhaps it is a lack of empathy: the inability to see how other country’s suffering could translate into a disaster in the flagship of a first-world country.

The same critical consciousness applies to China as well. While Stephanie’s peers in China were celebrating COVID-19’s regional containment and recovery, she warned people to look beyond borders and think as a collective: “If this virus continues to spread in other places, it could return to China again. Government could rely on strict travel policies and border controls for now, but this isn’t sustainable in a globalized world and hurts everyone in the long run.” The stock market turmoil, for Stephanie, was only the tip of an iceberg. As many economists pointed out, an economic slump or recession in the U.S. would be inevitable because of COVID-19 [4]. Behind economic numbers are people’s livelihood, hopes, and dreams for the future. As such, “People shouldn’t think that “It’s not our troubles anymore”. As humankind we are all in this together.” For Stephanie, who currently holds 4 PhD offers, she had no choice but to reconsider her academic decisions to maintain stability and security. Stephanie also reflected on her future in the U.S. “I have a lot of more questions now because of this outbreak: Is this the life that I’ve always wanted? Do I want to be a part of this country? What does it mean to be an Asian person with the current context? These are all very honest and vulnerable discussions I have to have with myself.”

Kelly read an article somewhere that talked about making sacrifices when facing adversity. It is true that with social distancing and alternative instruction methods, people need to find a different way of living life and leading higher education. But people’s attachment and determination for normality and productivity puzzled Kelly. Universities were eager to launch their online programs and to modify practices, and people continued their political interpretations of COVID-19. “But we are in a pandemic, nothing is normal anymore. People need to recognize this and to think about the basic needs instead of hypothetical ideals. People need to evaluate their actions more seriously and realistically.” Because of the Wuhan lockdown, citizens of Hubei Province suffered more psychological, financial, and medical pain than the rest of China [5]: people give up freedom and jobs in exchange of control and peace not only for themselves, but for the rest of its country. Humanity, as of today, is fighting against a titan named COVID-19. As such, it is imperative for people to overlook partisanship, international conflicts, personal preferences, and the normality of having a life with leisure and convenience, so that we, not only as a country, but also as a species can move forward from this natural selection episode.

Footnote/References

1. A viral article introducing the importance of slowing down the rate of the epidemic. https://www.vox.com/2020/3/10/21171481/coronavirus-us-cases-quarantine-cancellation
2. New York taking COVID-19’s fight into their own hands due to limited federal support. https://ny.curbed.com/2020/3/13/21177322/new-york-covid-19-coronavirus-cancellations-nyc
3. An article comparing how ordinary people and celebrities were impacted by COVID-19 differently. https://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/famous-people-normal-people-tests
4. An article discussing U.S. intelligence reporting the outlook of COVID-19 in the U.S. in January and February. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/us-intelligence-reports-from-january-and-february-warned-about-a-likely-pandemic/2020/03/20/299d8cda-6ad5-11ea-b5f1-a5a804158597_story.html
5. An article discussing the impact of the Wuhan Lockdown on its people. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/07/world/asia/china-coronavirus-cost.html

Writer's Bio

Guicheng “Ariel” Tan is a researcher and Area Coordinator at CSU, Long Beach. Her current study investigates the job search experiences of international student affairs professionals. This project aligns with Ariel’s larger research interest in studying the relationship between cultural integration and identity development. Born and raised in Shenyang, China, Ariel received a B.S. in Psychology with Honors from the UC San Diego, College Counseling Certificate from the UC San Diego Extension Program, and M.A. in Higher Education and Student Affairs at New York University. Her previous study focused on the effect of sexualization of female video game characters on self-regard, and the relationship between biculturalism and Chinese students’ college adjustment. Passionate about connecting theories with practices, Ariel loves to reflect, to challenge, and to discover narratives using data and dialogues.