And so it turns out, as you probably could’ve guessed, that my flights to Japan have been cancelled and, as a result, there is no other really easy way to get there so, in essence, my trip to Japan has been cancelled.
Why?
Well, as you can see, the numbers in all categories have gone up. Most cases of the Coronavirus remain mostly within Hubei province in addition to the number of people recovering, which is a positive sign.
But that increase in numbers meant that other countries got nervous about the containment of the virus, most notably, the USA. It wasn’t longer before the USA banned all flights to Mainland China and mandated that anyone who had travelled there in the last couple of weeks would undergo screening and quarantine for 14 days after their arrival. And that sparked a global rush to do the same. Air Canada, the only Canadian carrier that flies to China, also suspended flights until the end of February.
I can’t really blame them, given the history of this country’s health emergencies, but it has made things a touch more complicated.
The USA’s travel ban goes further than what the World Health Organization’s (WHO) recommended, which states that they recommend “avoiding non-essential travel”. Most importantly:
“WHO advises against the application of any restrictions of international traffic based on the information currently available on this event.”
One reason to not ban travel is because this will push people to take alternative means to leave the country, thus making it something manageable (through an airport) to something that is large and unwieldly, such as through overland pockets.
Although people won’t be able to travel, cargo planes and ships will continue to move which means at least there will be some movement for products and services. This is important to keep the economy humming along.
Now, the bigger change in the last few days is that many governments are telling foreign nationals who living in China to leave if they are able to.
Likewise, most governments are stating that people need to avoid “non-essential travel” to China.
Well, I live and work here so I’d say it’s pretty essential for me to be here, right? You’ll recall in a previous post that it would actually be cheaper for me to stay here in China rather than to leave. Sure, I could go live with family again but the flights there and back aren’t free. Besides, what would I do back in Canada? Not sure if there’s much work on the farms just yet.
So, will I leave?
I told my company no, I don’t need to be evac’d and I’ve been pretty clear about my intention to stay put. It does mean that I will no longer go to Japan as planned and it also suggests that we won’t be getting back to work any time soon. We’re still hoping for a March start but that looks questionable. As far as I know, the government has given February 17th as the potential start date for schools, which follows the February 10th date for the resumption of work.
And how about those Japanese studies?
Well, I’m almost actually a little bit glad that any pressure I put on myself to learn Japanese is taken off. I’ve hit a point in my Japanese studies where it is getting a bit more difficult and requires more time to complete a fewer amount of lessons. I guess this is to be expected as one progresses.
On the other hand, I’ve managed to work my studies into my daily routine a little bit so unless I find something else that I can do in that time, there’s really no reason to stop just yet.
Finally, it’s not like I’m never going to go to Japan again so it’s not unreasonable to continue on with my studies, even if I do scale back a bit. I am aware that if there’s no pressure to learn and if I take the lazy approach to learning the language, then I probably won’t progress as fast or as much. So this does require some consideration.
I can say that, as a side benefit, learning even the basics of Japanese has kind of helped my Chinese character learning. So I don’t think it’s been time wasted.
So, for the mean time, I think I’ll continue with my Japanese studies.
To help quell my sorrows, I did buy some Sakura-flavoured mouth wash, which I hope doesn’t taste too bad.
And yes, we’ll be able to get our money back for the airplane tickets to Japan. So that’s some good news.
Overall, I can’t say that things have really changed all that much, except for the fact that I’m no longer going to Japan. I guess that’ll give me some time to get some other things done in the meantime. (Such as upload some old photos! Have you seen my Instagram feed of late? I’ve finally started uploading my photos from Taiwan!)
Oh, and one last thing, it snowed in Beijing! This is probably the strangest thing to happen since it practically never snows here. It snowed for a good day and a half and dumped some two or two and a half inches of the white powder! I know what you’re thinking, but keep in mind this is up from the typical two centimetre annual average!
