My name is Lily Foster (pseudonym). I have been living and working in Shanghai, China, for five years. I moved to Shanghai in the middle of COVID-19, when it was nearly impossible to get into the country as a foreigner. I’d studied Mandarin on and off through high school and college and had a chance to visit Shanghai through a summer school program after my sophomore year of college. I fell in love with the city and loved getting to practice my Chinese and experience the culture I’d been learning so much about. Before the trip was even over, I knew I would be back and one day would call Shanghai my home.
The Road Back to Shanghai
In 2020, COVID-19 disrupted lives all around the world. I had just graduated from college and was actively searching for ways to make it back to Shanghai. I came across a recruiting agency through some Instagram Reels ads. They helped fresh college graduates find placements teaching ESL in Asia. I reached out and, by January 2021, agreed to move forward with finding a job teaching English in Shanghai.
I was definitely naive when I started. I had no idea that the Chinese border was basically closed and the number of foreigners getting into the country was minute. It definitely helped that the recruiter was overly optimistic. As I started getting into the process and researching what needed to be done, I quickly realized that, due to the borders being closed, many people who already called China home were stuck and couldn’t get back in. Many families were separated.
The visa was the first hurdle. The process for getting a visa was long and nearly impossible. The Chinese consulates/embassies in the US were processing everything very slowly. The estimated time to have my degree authenticated was over six months. Once I had my authenticated degree, background check, and teaching certificate, I could apply for a visa. But a new rule was in place because of COVID-19, and to apply for the visa, you needed a PU letter, which was essentially an invitation letter from the government. These were incredibly hard to get, and obtaining one was where most people got stuck in the process.
Despite all of this, I was not deterred. I prayed that if God wanted me to go, he would make the path clear, and if he didn’t want me to go, that would also be clear. Looking back, it’s incredible to see how God answered those prayers. I was able to find a company that got my degree authenticated and back to me in six weeks! Somehow the recruiting company I had signed with worked with schools that had guanxi (关系, good connections) with the government, and they were able to secure PU letters without a problem. I started the process in April 2021, and by August, I had my visa in hand and was ready to book my flight for the next week.
And yet, I still wasn’t guaranteed to make it to China. I booked my flight from Detroit to Shanghai. I needed to book a direct flight to avoid complications and the risk of getting Covid. I needed to fly into Detroit and go to one of the few approved testing laboratories to get a Covid test within 48 hours of boarding my flight. This test didn’t just determine wheter I currently had COVID-19; it also tested for antibodies to determine if I had previously had COVID-19 within the past six or so months.
I didn’t really know much about these testing requirements until around the time I was applying for my PU letter, which was around May or June. In March of that year, my entire family came down with COVID-19. I wasn’t too concerned for myself, and since we were all stuck at home together, I thought I might as well get it over with and build up some immunity. I was actively trying to get it. Every single person in my house came down with COVID-19 except for me, and I was the only one trying to get it! At the time, I was exasperated. How in the world was I incapable of getting it? Months later, I learned this was all God. Had I gotten COVID-19 in March with my family, I would’ve failed the COVID-19 tests right before my flight and would not have been allowed to board my flight or try again for at least another six months (and by then all my documents would have expired and I would need to start the process from scratch). Twenty-four hours before my flight, I received my green QR code telling me I was cleared to fly to Shanghai.
I flew to Shanghai, arrived at PVG, which was a ghost town, and was shuttled off to a quarantine hotel for the next two weeks, during which I wasn’t allowed to leave my hotel room for fourteen days after entering. Three meals were delivered to me morning, noon, and night, and on days one, four, seven, and thirteen I took COVID-19 tests to ensure I had passed the virus incubation time and truly was negative. After that, I was allowed to leave the quarantine hotel but required to quarantine another seven days at a regular hotel. Even there I was still only allowed to leave twice—both times to get COVID-19 tests. However, once my seven days there were up, I was off to my school and starting life in Shanghai.
There had been so many road bumps and hurdles to get through—none of which worked out because of me. Sitting in my quarantine hotel allowed for a lot of reflection time, and all I felt was gratefulness to God for getting me there. Each hurdle seemed so impossible, and for many people, it proved to be so. But each step of the way, God provided, and sitting there in that quarantine hotel, I had never been so sure that I was exactly where God wanted me to be.
The process to get there was crazy, but once it was done, life resumed normally … for the next five months.
When Shanghai Shut Down
After my quarantine process was finished, I began my life in Shanghai pretty normally. COVID-19 was almost nonexistent due to the Zero-COVID policy being enforced at the time. A city was considered “high risk” for having five to ten positive cases. It was quite effective until Omicron hit. Once it arrived, it couldn’t be stopped. The enforcement of the Zero-COVID policy got stricter and stricter. Other cities were going into full lockdowns. Everyone said Shanghai wouldn’t do that. It’s a separate and distinct city from the rest of China.
And yet, on March 27, the city announced that starting the following morning, all of Pudong (the east side of Shanghai) would go into lockdown for five days. On the fifth day, before they would be released, all of Puxi (west side of Shanghai) would begin their lockdown for five days. They gave about eight hours’ warning. As a result, half of Shanghai’s 26 million people went out and panic shopped, as most buy groceries daily and many didn’t have enough food to last them for the week. This, in turn, resulted in a spike in positive cases, and a lockdown that lasted much longer than five days.
So many people contracted COVID-19 that the hospitals and quarantine hotels couldn’t hold them. And so, they opened up the “COVID camps” as the foreigners called them. For most, the fear was not getting COVID-19. For most, the fear was getting taken away to these “COVID camps”. Basically, they were big warehouses with thousands of cots set up. They had shared living spaces and bathrooms. Many were not hygienic. Everyone who tested positive would go there, even those who were asymptomatic. They would remain there until they tested negative.
No two people in Shanghai have the same experience of lockdown, and yet, whenever I meet someone who lived through it, we form an immediate bond that can’t be explained.
Alone in the Lockdown
At the time, I lived on my own, quite far from my church community, which of course was irrelevant since no one was allowed to leave their homes. I didn’t know anyone in my xiaoqu (小区, living community), as I had just moved there two months earlier—that’s its own story in itself. My Chinese was not great, and I assumed there was no one in the building who spoke English.
It turns out there were a few people who spoke English, as well as several other foreigners in the building. The Chinese people who spoke English created a group chat for us foreigners to help us and make sure that we had everything we needed and were up to date with the news or when we needed to go take a COVID-19 test. They were so kind.
For the first two weeks, we could not step outside our apartment door, unless it was to go downstairs and get in line for a COVID-19 test. After two weeks, we hadn’t had any more positive cases pop up, and so we were allowed to go walk around in the courtyard within our xiaoqu, but we could not leave the xiaoqu. I would go and walk around there, sometimes calling friends, sometimes listening to music, sometimes just walking and praying. I would try and smile at neighbors as they walked by, but more often than not my foreign face was a reminder for people to social distance and wear their masks. The news often reported COVID-19 cases as coming from foreigners, so people generally associated foreigners with COVID019 and kept their distance. It was a bit dehumanizing and lonely, but at the same time, I was used to it. My thought was, “Well, at least, if you’re all keeping away from me I won’t get COVID-19—haha.”
About two to three weeks into the lockdown, many foreigners were fleeing the country. They couldn’t take being locked up—basically on house arrest. Around the exact same time, I heard that all of my Christian friends I was close with would leave the country as soon as they got the opportunity. I had never felt lonelier. I cried non-stop for days. And yet, I never even considered leaving. I had arrived in China only half a year earlier, and God had made it so clear that this was where he wanted me. If he wanted me to leave, he would have to make that clear. And he hadn’t done so yet. The end of April was a hard time for me.
A Puppy Named Naicha
Then came God’s grace in my life. A friend posted in a group chat that her neighbor had found a puppy in their xiaoqu but couldn’t keep it. They were trying to find a home for it. I jumped at the opportunity. I had already been thinking of getting a dog that summer anyway. The logistics of getting the puppy to me were quite complicated, but eventually it all worked out. I paid 800 RMB for a driver to transport him on the hour-long drive to me.
On May 1, my puppy, Naicha (奶茶, “milk tea”) arrived. Now, as I walked through my xiaoqu, everyone wanted to stop and talk to me. “Hǎo kě’ài! Hǎo xiǎo!” (“好可爱！ 好小!” So cute! So small!) They all wanted to stop and pet Naicha. After he arrived, I met so many of the neighbors, who before, wouldn’t even look at me. Now I would stay in the courtyard and talk with them for hours. My Chinese wasn’t great, but the neighbors were so nice. They would often tell me not to worry about making mistakes. They encouraged me to speak the best I could. We were all locked in there anyway, so it was time to make mistakes and they would help me to correct them. By the time the lockdown ended, my Chinese had improved in leaps and bounds from the constant exposure and immersion.
Finding Church Again
Lockdown finally came to an end on June 1. Life still remained under strict controls and constant COVID-19 testing, and the borders were still closed, but we could finally leave our buildings, neighborhoods and try to resume life as normal again.
Someone I had met once before was attending a church and invited me to join them one Sunday and so, I went. I hadn’t realized how much lockdown had affected me. Any trace of extroversion in me was gone and I was so shy. I began attending this church and tried to get involved as best as I could, but I was still struggling a lot with loneliness. I had to remind myself that within my first five months of being in Shanghai, God had provided me with such a wonderful church community and close friendships. He’d done it once, and I had to trust that he would do it again.
Back in Quarantine
On Thanksgiving 2022, I was taken to a quarantine hotel because someone in my building tested positive for COVID-19. At the same time, protests were starting to break out all across China in response to the Zero-COVID policy and a related tragedy in northwest China. The PTSD from lockdown hit hard, and even though I was only in the quarantine hotel for two to three days, it felt like an eternity. I’d never used the word anxious before to describe myself, but that week I went to bed with a racing heart and woke with a racing heart. I was stuck inside and all I could see on social media was bad news—the protests and consequences of it.
I reached out to someone from my church, who hosted a Bible study I had started attending. I didn’t know her very well, but she seemed very approachable and wise, and I was so desperate for someone to talk to, pray with and cry with. And we did just that. I shared with her all I was struggling with and how lonely I felt. She listened, let me cry, and prayed with me.
About a week later, COVID-19 was announced to be just a minor cold, nothing to worry about. No more “Zero-COVID”. No more COVID-19 tests. Travel was now okay. The borders weren’t open quite yet, but travel within China was back to normal. The sudden change was like whiplash.
When Shanghai Became Home
Over the next few months, I continued to attend that church, along with the Bible study. I got a chance to go on a trip within China with the couple that hosted the study, along with some other friends. It was on that trip that I fell in love with the man who would one day become my husband.
Months later, I was reflecting with my friend—the one who hosted the Bible study and who I reached out to during my anxious time in quarantine. We had become pretty good friends by that point. I had just told her of my crush (my now husband). She, in turn, had told me she suspected his interest but wasn’t sure of mine. She then reflected on how much life had changed since our meeting the previous fall. At that time, I was feeling so lonely and struggling to connect with people. Now, I had an incredible community surrounding me and some of the closest friendships I’d ever had.
Fast forward a few years later to our wedding. It was the happiest day, surrounded by the best community. My sisters were able to come to our wedding in Shanghai and couldn’t get over the incredible community that we have built here. The community here truly is special. There’s nothing like it. People who were far from family became each other’s family. I can’t help but feel this is how the church is supposed to be.
Way back when I moved to China, I had no idea what would happen or where God would lead me. All I knew was that he had clearly led me to Shanghai. He provided me with what I needed every step of the way, taught me to trust him, and surrounded me with the best community and church family.
