How Covid-19 Tavel Bans Impact International Students
Like Many International Students, Cecilia Kwok Hasn’t Been Able to Go Home for Two Years
Like Many International Students, Cecilia Kwok Hasn’t Been Able to Go Home for Two Years
When Cecilia Kwok returned to BU from Hong Kong in January 2020, she thought she’d see her family again when the spring semester ended. Then the COVID-19 pandemic struck, leaving her stranded. When BU closed most of its dorms, she moved into a friend’s off-campus apartment.
“I was shocked at first,” Kwok (COM’22, CAS’22) recalls. She soon found herself in a cycle of studying, eating, and sleeping, unsure of when she’d next be able to return to Hong Kong, where her father works, and to the family home in Guangzhou, in mainland China, where she was raised and where her mother and maternal grandmother live.
The flights home she’d booked in May and July 2020 were canceled, and last fall, advertising and psychology major Kwok moved into another off-campus apartment, sharing with others who are also from China, and like her, haven’t been able to leave. Lonely and missing her family, Kwok found ways to adjust, she says. A lifelong lover of puzzles, she took up a new hobby—constructing miniature houses—so she could immerse herself in something other than school.
Despite the coming holiday break, Kwok says, she’ll have to wait a little longer to see her family. Because of Chinese regulations, if she went home now she’d have to quarantine in a hotel twice—first in Hong Kong, then in mainland China—meaning it would be close to a month before she could see her parents and grandmother.
In our video, Kwok talks about how she’s coped during the pandemic and her hopes for the future. She remains optimistic that her parents, who she says have sacrificed so much for her, can join her in Boston this spring for her graduation. After that, she hopes to finally fly home, where she can once again enjoy her grandmother’s home cooking.
And she reminds herself that she’s not alone, that many other international students find themselves in a similar situation. “All of us should continue to be hopeful about life and keep strong,” she says.
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