Covid Control

This is the door I came in through six days ago. And I will not exit for nine more days.

These are some of the things being done to prevent the spread of Coronavirus.

Taiwan:

Taiwan required us to get a covid test before departing the US, and it had to be taken within 72 hours of our flight departure. The documentation of the result had to have our name and birthdate (for ID purposes) on it. Mine had my name but not birthdate so Eva Air did not let me on the plane. I had to spend two days in NYC to get a new test while my family flew on as scheduled. Lucky for me I have a cousin and his wife who graciously put me up in their apartment in Flushing and showed me where to get what I needed.

USA:

In NYC the taxi I took from and to JFK airport had a piece of plastic separating the driver in the front from the passenger in the back.

The flight on EVA, a Taiwan airline: 

The airline's ground staff who were in contact with the public wore a lot of PPE. 

Everyone wore masks on the airplane the whole time. It was nearly a 16-hour flight. Each passenger sat in their own row, even my husband and our daughter were seated separately on their flight.

We were not allowed to switch seats even though there weren't many people on the plane. This is so they could figure out who was near whom and contact people in case anyone came down with the virus later.

After landing in Taipei:

After exiting the plane I had buy a Taiwan SIM card for the cell phone and fill out a detailed document stating name and contact info, what countries we'd been to recently, flight info, seat number on the plane, passport number, address of where we were planning to stay during quarantine, names of who was picking us up from the airport, (or in my case, that I was taking a quarantine taxi), and more.  This document was sent to or shown to various officials on my way through the airport. There was one health official at the airport whose job it was to tell me exactly which day my quarantine would end. Although on the day of my arrival I was to go directly to my quarantine location, the period of 14 day confinement would officially start on the next day. Now that I am in quarantine, everyday I have to fill out a form about my symptoms (Luckily none so far) and record my temperature twice daily. Plus I have to answer a daily text message from the Central Epidemic Command Center asking my health condition.

I was given a hotline number to call if I develop any symptoms.

All of us passengers had our temperature taken in the airport. While walking through the airport passengers walked across a disinfecting carpet, which was to clean off the bottom of our shoes.  Passengers and our luggage got sprayed with disinfectant upon leaving the airport. 

I had to fill out another form to get a taxi. This isn't any ole taxi. This is is a special taxi that takes you directly to your quarantine location, no stops along the way.  I was informed that the maximum price for this taxi from the airport to any location in northern Taiwan is $1000 (about $34 USD). And that is what I paid. 

When I arrived at our apartment building the concierge sprayed my hands and luggage with disinfectant.

Soleil and Greg walked up the stairs to our apartment because taking the elevator was considered public transportation.

We (our family of three) are doing our two week quarantine in the apartment that our friends helped us find and set up before our arrival. But if we didn't have that we'd be in a special quarantine hotel, possibly in separate rooms for each person.

Quarantine is serious. We are not allowed to go out to exercise or work or buy food or other essential items. Our friends deliver groceries to us. If I were to leave my apartment to wander during quarantine or take public transportation my cellphone can be tracked and I could be fined up to a million NT$. That is $34,000 USD!

Is all this precaution worth it? Yes.

Total Covid-19 cases in Taiwan as of Sept 25, 2020: 510

Population of Taiwan: 24 million

Total Covid-19 cases in Maine as of Sept 25, 2020: 5235

Population of Maine: 1.3 million

Soleil's Travel Vlog #3 - A Day In The Life

As we end our first week of quarantine, we are getting a little stir crazy. These are some of the things I do in a day of my life in quarantine.

~Soleil Huang-Dale

Climate Refugees

Transitioning to life in Taiwan has been a bigger challenge than ever expected.  We knew it would be hard, just didn't know to what degree. We expected to follow protocols that have become the norm in the context of a global pandemic, yet were not fully prepared to be delayed for so long nor to encounter roadblocks that our privileged life is normally shielded from.

Perhaps the biggest challenges we experienced stem from the significant differences between how Taiwan and the US are confronting the pandemic.  When Jenny's mother came from California to Maine last May she flew on a full plane of people who were asked to wear masks, but were certainly not 6 feet apart.  She was not required to test before flying and only encouraged by Maine's CDC to quarantine for 14 days after arriving in Maine.  In contrast, the plane we took from New York to Taipei had one person per row of 10 seats.  We were expected to wear masks for the entire trip, and stay in our assigned seats for the sake of future contact tracing. Should someone become a positive case, the airline records could identify any other passengers that may have been close enough to be infected as well.

Our biggest hurdle as it turned out was not a willingness to follow the behavioral expectations, but a simple omission of a birthdate on the Covid19 test results.  

In order to board the plane at New York's JFK airport we were required to show a negative test result from a test within 72 hours of our flight. Jenny scheduled our nasal swab test at our local hospital / clinic and received the results a few hours before we left Maine for New York city by car.  Jenny and I were able to get our results from Maine Med's new "My Chart" online records system.  I printed off our results, then called Soleil's doctor to pick up a hard copy of her results not posted on My Chart due to privacy laws.  Driving to her doctor's clinic added about 30 minutes to our travel time, but we had built in a good cushion for such delays.

A rental car turned out to be the best choice for traveling to New York, a 6-7 hour drive.  We were able to stop at Jenny's cousin's place in Orange, CT for dinner and some lovely catching up.  Another cousin on Jenny's Chinese side called to invite us to stop in Flushing, NY as well, but we were too short of time to stop that late in the day.  We wanted to be at the airport early in case of any other unforeseen obstacles. 

We arrived at JFK airport around 10:30pm and dropped off the rental, hefted our luggage onto the Airtrain to the international terminal. Our flight was scheduled to depart at 1:30am so we were still within the 3 hour window.  The airport was eerily empty even considering the late time.  Only a few counters were open for departures as we pushed our lives down the hall to the very last desk - Eva Airlines, a Taiwanese company with direct flights to Taipei.  Though not all the local security were wearing masks, the Eva staff were fully protected, some even in head-to-toe hospital garb with masks and facial shields or goggles.  Of course there were more documents to fill out that we had not been aware of, so we sat on a bench to complete them.  The agent asked immediately for our Covid19 test results and we handed them over.  Jenny's and mine, identical print-offs from our web records on My Chart and Soleil's in an envelope from her doctor.

A few minutes later the agent returned with a question. Does Jenny have a copy of her results with her birthdate on them? We looked at the printout and there was nothing other than her name, her doctor's name and the results "Negative", with a long explanation of how this might not be a true result as time had elapsed since the test and she might have been exposed since then.  Blah, blah... Then, they handed back Soleil's saying this was more what they were looking for.  It was a full page record of medical data with little or no commoner explanation.  How could these have been so different?  

They handed my results back last.  Mine, like Jenny's had no birthdate and no real medical data.  However, we were not treated equally. They explained that due to my "employment" visa, I was not required to take the Covid test prior to travel.  I would be allowed to board with Soleil, but unless Taiwan CDC approved an exception for Jenny in the next few minutes she would not be allowed to join us. My heart sank.  It was late at night, the airport was empty, we were hanging on the hope that CDC would look past this detail.  Time ticked and we finished our paperwork.  Then time ran out.  

The agent asked if Soleil and I would like to board without Jenny we should do it immediately.  Jenny agreed that we should go, but we did not have a plan for her.  I handed Jenny the laptop computer since I knew that I would need the cell phone when we got to Taiwan.  Then we remembered, Cousin Ming in Flushing!  It was past midnight, can he pick her up?  Can Jenny catch a cab?  How much will that cost at this late hour. Soleil found Ming's phone number on our contacts and Jenny scribbled the number into a little notebook. I held out hope all the way to the boarding ramp that she would appear on the plane just before the doors closed.  Then the lights went dark and the plane began to roll away.  Soleil sat directly behind me in row 57.  I reached back to hold her hand as we both sobbed from exhaustion and separation.

As the plane ascended I turned my mind toward gratefulness. She's got a cousin who will surely welcome her.  She's got technology for communication even if she doesn't have a phone.  She's got money. She's got plenty of travel experience, even on her own.  She's survive and probably return to the airport in a couple days ready to pass the test of travel. 

Then I thought of family separation for others.  For refugees who travel without all the privileges of our family.  Without wealth, without technology, without experience, without education, without white skin.  Parents who make decisions to send their children alone ahead of them.  People who know for certain they don't  have the documentation required to pass the innumerable hurdles of human migration.  I thought of them and for a moment I felt their struggle.  

We are climate refugees.  We are fleeing a climate of fear and mistrust in our country hoping for an opportunity to thrive in a place with "freedom" to belong to a whole society.  It is not an easy journey to leave a home we love and a community full of connections, but we also seek something that we can send home, remittances of hope and love.  Thank you all for holding us in your thoughts as we transition.  We are also here for you.

--- Greg

Soleil's Travel Vlog #2 - Miscellaneous Clips

Here is the second video in my "Taiwan Travel" vlog series. These are a bunch of clips on my camera roll in no particular order. 

~Soleil Huang-Dale

Soleil's Travel Vlog #1 - Road Trip to New York

Durning our trip I kept myself busy by filming and editing short vlogs. Here's a little insight on what our trip was like:

~Soleil Huang-Dale

From the Pine Tree state to New Bamboo

 We have waited patiently for a chance to return to our beloved community in Taiwan.  Zhubei, Hsinchu to be precise.  Our friends and colleagues have kept us connected and eager to return and now we are making our way back!  

Our extended summer at Grandma Jane's home in Sweden, Maine has included many of our beloved New England activities.  During the warmest days we swam and kayaked in Keyes Pond at the end of the path through Cathedral Pines planted by Grandpa Ray Gibbons and family back in the 1930s when they arrived here.  Some of those pines were cut last winter to cover costs of updates to the farmhouse that we've been making over the past year or two - solar panels, a heat exchange unit, the new front walk and this fall an emergency generator.  So our summer has also included chainsaw work on the slash left by the loggers.  We've put away quite a lot of fireplace wood for Grandma's winter stay in Maine.

Soleil went to camp with Concordia Language Villages again this year, but it wasn't in Minnesota.  She spent 6-8 hours a day upstairs at the farmhouse online with friends and counselors learning a lot of Mandarin Chinese to get ready for grade 9 in Taiwan.  She also refined her cooking skills with several favorite Asian recipes - scallion pancakes, tomato eggs, and the beloved bubble tea (milk tea with tapioca balls).  Following camp she went on to bake raspberry and apple pies and apple crumble in partnership with Jenny.  Mmmmm.  We are lucky that she likes the kitchen!

Jenny was the only one to spend the summer working as she completed her job at the Fryeburg Library at the end of August and her work on an online Reading Music course for Mountain Top Music Center in early September.  On our shared "off days" we got in several regional hikes that included Grandma at 84 and Kathryn Krupa, a second cousin enjoying her retirement from teaching art in Michigan. Kathryn was also a willing participant in our family games which happened whenever nothing else was planned.

Greg spent much of his time at the Fryeburg Academy gardens, in online meetings or binge watching our family Netflix subscription.  He also took an online American History course with FA colleagues that kept his mind off the wait.  There were also many things to do to prepare for a year abroad and thanks to friends at home and in Taiwan it got done.

We don't have to tell you that 2020 has been an unpredictable, dizzying and anxiety filled year.  We don't expect history to pause while we are away, but we hope a more distant view of the turmoil in our country will help us rest for the future while doing what we can with friends and colleagues in New Bamboo to build a better world for us all.

Thank you Grandma Jane.  Thank you cousin Kathryn.  Thank you Fryeburg friends.  Thank you neighbors, new and old, around the world.  We are on our way.