Chen
Generally I don't talk about this topic lightly because I am very homesick, precisely, I miss my family very much. Looking back on the past 8 years, I have travelled to Hefei, Shanghai, Hangzhou and the UK for university, internship and work, during which time I have been away from my family a lot.
Once I thought I was a non-family person, but in the past two years I have really found out that I was wrong. When I saw some touching scenes in dramas and movies, I really couldn't help my nose from sinking and my eyes from tearing up. In fact, it is only when I am alone that I dare to let the tears spill out.
To be rational, I won't be going back right away. Although the pandemic has affected my internship, I haven't learned as much as I wanted to, so going back now would be a halfway house, therefore I can only suppress this feeling of homesickness temporarily.
Your wedding is coming soon.
I have dreamed of being your bridesmaid since I was a little girl but now I am stuck in the UK because of the pandemic.
My PHD holidays are quite short and the quarantine in China is pretty long that if I return to China I might have to fly back just as soon as the quarantine is over.
I thought I would be able to make it home to see my family and attend your wedding despite all the difficulties. Then I considered that long distance travel during a pandemic is very dangerous and I don't want to bring the risk of infection to your wedding.
So I am sorry I am going to miss your wedding. Such a pity that I won't be able to see you in person as you cross over into this new phase of your life. But still, I would like to wish you happiness and a happy wedding.
My PhD studies have just started and I am still far from graduating.The outbreak comes and goes as well as the policy keeps changing that I don't know when I will be able to go home.
By the time I go back, you'll be a married woman well enough to invite me for dinner in your own house. How I wish we could go back to the days when we could cuddle up on the sofa sharing our thoughts.
I shall study hard while we cannot be together. Wish I can see you soon and say ‘hi , it's been a long time ’.
Take care.
It has been so long since I arrived in the UK. Before I came here, I only knew three recipes, but now I know how to cook more than 40 dishes, and I cook them in different ways. Before I came to the UK I thought it was so good and so nice, but after I came to the UK I think it's just like that, it's not that different from us.
A couple weeks ago, the British went too crazy over the Euros. Oh my goodness! 50,000 cases a day! And then recently it's gotten better with over 20,000 per day.
Fortunately, I bought my return ticket before I came here, it cost me 11,000RMB and my classmates were saying that I was too hurry, but all I wanted to do in the UK was to finish my experiments and thesis and then go home. Now, my classmates are having anxiety about returning home because it's too late to buy tickets as the price has gone up to 23,000RMB, which is very expensive.
Actually, I also have slightly anxiety about returning home, as I bought a flight from London, arriving in Frankfurt for transit at 2pm, and taking off back home at 10pm. It's hard to guarantee that I can get back home on the same day during this time, as the Covid-19 Test in Frankfurt might result in a late issuance of the Health code from the Chinese Embassy, and then I might be stuck there, which I am also well-prepared for.
I saw the news about the torrential rain in Henan when I woke up today. At that time, I thought it was just an extreme weather and it might be fine in a couple days, until I read that some of the ground in Zhengzhou had collapsed and many people were trapped inside the underground, then I realised the seriousness of this issue.
I don't know what's going on at home right now, how is everybody doing, is there any water or electricity outages at home ...... I would never imagined something like this would happen in our hometown when I was about to go back.
It is still quite difficult for international students to go home this year and it is still hard to purchase a ticket.
I will go back at the end of August this year. I spent a long time waiting before I bought my ticket because I was told that after the direct flight is available, the embassy would not issue Health Code for connecting passengers and then they would not be able to go to China.
I waited until the beginning of July.At first I bought a flight on 7th September, but a week later I had to switch to 21st August because I couldn't get a seat and that was the only flight I could get for cheaper and available at that time. It cost me RMB 25,000, but at least I have the ticket to get back home.
I will be connecting in Finland with a 17 hour layover at the airport and even though I have had two vaccinations, I am not sure if I will catch the Covid. It will be a long and tough journey home, but I am happy to be back with the family in the end and I am looking forward to that day.
It's been a year since I've seen you all. I wonder if the younger siblings have grown, and I hope that Henan can get through the hard times quickly, and then I can see you all as soon as possible.
My year in the UK is coming to an end and although I've been talking to you guys every day, here are some things I never mentioned to you ......
I don't know how to describe this year and the UK is not quite what I thought it would be.
Before I came here, I saw many videos and photos of Britain on the social media and I thought that life here would be very nice and interesting，but I felt cheated immediately after arriving.
My daily activities over here are just online classes, shopping, cooking and assignments, barely any entertainment. Especially under the restrictions of the pandemic, I feel even more depressed. All I can do is drawing, listening to music and watching movies in my room.
The most embarrassing thing is that I was the only one living in the 4-room flat I was in, and I lived here for whole year, I can't even imagine how I make it.
Most of the time I was very homesick for my family and friends and food, and I missed the good times I used to have when I can hang out with friends .
I really, really want to go home every single day here, and now it's time to Pack Up as the room I'm currently staying in is also going to expire, yet I still haven't managed to book a flight home. I don't know when I'll be able to get the right ticket and I'm particularly worried about being infected and failing to apply for the health code to return.
I wish I could say this to my mum ......
I haven't been home or back to China for the past two years in the UK.
I feel homesick when I encounter difficulties because I had no friends and no one else I knew, I was all alone and scared.
I also have concerns about how Mum and Dad are getting on in China after all I haven't been with them for two years. In fact, I was planning to go back to China to see mum and dad and also have a look at how things are going back in the hometown.
However, the airfares are too expensive and there are no direct flights back to China at the moment, so I've given up. I decided to stay in the UK and look for a job after graduation.
It has been over two years since I met my family.
I was preparing for my final year in Australia at the beginning of covid-19. At that time, my family said it was lucky that I didn't return home because if I did I wouldn't know when I could go back to Australia.
At first I felt kinda lucky too, but then it slowly dawned on me that ......Oh no! So when can I go home?
It seems like the pandemic never ends, sometimes with a big outbreak in Australia, sometimes with a rebound in China, so I really don't know when I'll be able to go back.
I miss my family, I miss my grandma. There is no way I can go back to see them for quite long time, nor it's hard to predict how well the older generation will be ......
Anyway, I've got a job in Australia now and since I have no option, I'll work hard for money so that whenever I can go back I can buy lots of gifts for my family and stay home longer.
The day mum and dad sent me to the airport abroad was the most heartwarming and heartbreaking day for me ever since I was born .The last moment when mum and dad walked me off made a deep impression on me because I could see the sadness and worries and indescribable feelings in their eyes, especially my mum's.
I felt that the queue was particularly long and tough, I didn't dare to look at them but kept my emotions bottled up because I didn't want them to find me crying or upset, yet I was actually scared as going abroad I have to deal with a brand new world.In the end, I burst into tears after leaving with complicated feelings I don't know why ......
Mum, you should have seen the recent news that the infection rate here has gone up again.
I was planning to return home in September after finishing my thesis, but now it seems as if the pandemic will break out again and there may be another lockdown. I've just checked that airfares are still extremely expensive and I don't know when I'll be able to go home, as there are no direct flights and the tickets are so pricey. So now I can't go home even though I want to.
China's policies, flight meltdowns, health code applications and all these things are really making it harder for us international students to go home.
I know you want me to go back home early, but it's getting really difficult now, not only do I have to apply for a health code , but I also have to do all sorts of tests and I'm worried about whether I'll be able to go through them in time, it's really challenging.
Hopefully the general situation will get better again so that I can go home soon.
The last time I was home must be the summer of 2019. It had been almost two years since I left, and I was one year away from my Bachelor's degree and preparing postgraduate studies in the US, so I didn't expect to be home very soon.
Despite the pandemic outbreak last year, things have generally been going well for me over the past two years. However, my family was supposed to come over to celebrate with me at my undergraduate and postgraduate graduations, so now it's a shame.
It's been three months since I finished my post-graduation and recently I've been looking for a job here, if it goes well, I might stay here for another year or two probably, so it might be a long time before I go home again. I hope I can get the chance to go back soon.
In the UK, one thing you can't do is enjoy really tasty hot pots, skewers, bullfrogs, pickled fish and Yam pasta ...... Oh my! It's really driving me crazy thinking about those dishes!
If I go back to China, the first thing I want to do is to find my best friend in Chengdu, and then we will travel to Xi'an together, and also to Tibet, which I have not been to yet.
I've been living in the UK for 16 years and I haven't been able to go back to Hong Kong for 2-3 years because of the pandemic.
I mainly want to go back for the food and have a look at my dad and siblings ...... as well as visit my friends.
It's a difficult time to be stuck here, there' s no way to spend the money, as we all know, there's really nowhere to go in the UK and we can't go out during the pandemic.
Hopefully things will get better soon and everyone will be safe and sound.
I had already decided to stay here after graduation before I came here. I still get a bit homesick when I'm on my own, but in general it's not very serious, after all I graduated and worked for a few years, and my parents are still healthy . I just get a bit worried about my parents during the pandemic and previously when there were floods and other natural disasters in some places. I talk to them regularly, and now my partner has come over with me, so overall it's fine.
Everything we're doing here is to benefit the whole family and eventually we' ll be able to bring our parents with us. So I think everything will be fine and will be on the right direction.
To be honest I don't really miss home that much.
Before I left, my dad said I should buy a return ticket advance because it might be difficult to purchase during the pandemic. At the time, I didn't think it was urgent, but now I couldn't afford a ticket even if I sold myself.
What I'm anxious about is that I don't have enough money to support me here any more, nor can I come up with that much money to go home at once.
Actually, all I miss the most is my cat, not so much my parents, who have remained the same since I left.
So I don't miss anyone in particula.
All I want to do now is to scrape up enough money for a flight back. Although I will struggle with my dissertation in China and I really don't want to face it, it's better than being stuck here all the time and wondering how to solve the financial problems.
About home, I think ......
As long as one is clear about what the goal is and works towards it, one will feel that wherever one is, home will be there .
Many people might believe that they need to meet in person and have dinner together, that they need companionship and communication or warmth, and that they need to have someone around to take care of them when they are sick, and there is nothing wrong with that.
When it comes to make a choice, and you know that choice will be better for the future, the entire family is actually on the same side. There are pros and cons here. Maybe if you choose to be abroad and your parents are in China like I am now, they might be worried, but nowadays the internet does as much as it can to make up for the care of not being able to see each other.
What I want to do now is to settle down here as soon as possible and bring my parents over if I can, and then I think that's the ideal thing to do.
When it comes to the topic of home ......
After all these years in society, for me, home is the warmest and softest place in my heart.
The warmth of home provides me with courage and strength when I am struggling out there, because I know that I can always go home and enjoy the love of my parents anytime. However, home is also my only weakness as the health and safety of my family is my greatest comfort and support.
It has been almost a year since I came to the UK and my biggest concern right now, apart from my dissertation, is my plans for going home, which is unsure due to the pandemic.
Personally, I am not in a hurry that I can wait for the situation to get better and for international flights to get regular again.
The only factor I have to go back for is my parents. In China, if they were in any trouble, I could get back to them as fast as I could within the same day, no matter which city I was in. Currently I am 12,000 kilometres away from home, and for the first time under the various policies in place during the pandemic, being back with my parents immediately has become such an impossibility.
Therefore, no matter how difficult it is, I will go back as soon as possible, and only when I return to China will I feel secure.
It's been a long time since I've been home, a year I guess, and it' s inevitable that I I miss home, my parents and family, the delicious food at home.
However, my parents don't expect me to be back home in recent years, well ...... been away for quite a while ...... eh, what can I say? I enjoy the freedom and unrestrictedness.
I can study online. I prefer a solitary life and hopefully I can work from home in the future,so it's the same for me wherever I am and the pandemic doesn't affect me that much. Although it might be lonely, I am willing to enjoy the ideal condition that being alone brings me.