How a Shanghai Mama Survived Coming Back to China and Quarantine

Wondering what it’s like to come back to China these days with kids in tow? Read this article to learn what to expect from someone who’s experienced it first-hand: Shanghai Mama Lisa Renstroem, who recently returned to Shanghai from abroad with her husband and two boys (aged 2 and 8).

On March 28th, 2022 my family and I headed to the Pudong International Airport for the first time in 2 years. The last 24 hours had been hectic. We had only just decided to leave, finalizing our flight tickets the morning of our flight and packing our luggage in 25 minutes. The whole process was especially rushed because we had been told there was a positive case in our Jing’an compound and they would soon be locking down, even ahead of the city-wide lockdown that had just been announced the night before. 

Our car and driver weren’t allowed to drive us to Pudong, nor were other Didis and taxis, but the airport bus was apparently driving there, so we rushed from our apartment to the bus stop 3 hours before the bus was due to leave and waited until we finally got on the bus towards the airport. As stressful and uncertain as leaving was, I remember sitting in that plane headed towards San Francisco already thinking about an even more daunting challenge up ahead- getting back into China and surviving the mandatory 14-day hotel quarantine.

Fast forward to three months later, and we had traveled around to six different countries and had spent the last month at my parents lake house in Switzerland. California, Mexico, Sweden, Paris, Copenhagen, Germany… as much fun as we had had these past three months, all we wanted to do was to get back to our home in Shanghai.

If only it were as straightforward as booking a flight and rocking up to the airport. Unfortunately, however, the stress that goes into planning a flight back to China these days is something that can only be understood by others who are doing it or have experienced it. 

There are ever changing rules about where you can fly from and transit through, where you are allowed to do pre-flight tests and how many times in & before each flight. Moreover, flights are constantly getting rerouted or cancelled, a phenomenon that's, made all the more fun by the fact that you have very few flight options and none of them are reasonably priced. Oh, and add in the unexpected thrill of getting COVID too soon before a flight and remnants of the virus still being in your system when you test.

For those who don’t know the process for getting back to China, this was our experience:

Here are some tips for this part of the journey:

• Join the WeChat groups for your route(s) and read them! (Fun fact - I used no less than six different European WeChat groups to help me plan our trip back.) This real-time information from people traveling on these routes is much more helpful than the embassy website or waiting on email responses, as you’ll find out changes to regulations before it’s too late

• Some flights will include an unofficial layover in Korea of 1-2 hours. This is not a real layover, in the sense that passengers will not disembark, only the crew and pilots will change (to avoid China quarantine) so you don’t need to make plans to test in Korea

  
  

• When searching for you flights you may find that there are flights available but it doesn’t necessarily mean you are able to take them if you are not a citizen of the country or countries you'll be transiting through (i.e. Taiwan, Japan, etc.) Make sure to do your research before booking flights 

   

• Expect the testing at China approved labs to be more sensitive. If you have recently recovered from COVID or are worried you may be positive, it’s worth taking a PCR on your own time before the official testing (try to find a lab that will test on more sensitive criteria CT40 instead of the CT 33-35 which is the international standard). It’s better to test positive before you start your journey. The “China packages” are also much more expensive than standard PCR tests elsewhere (this is due to them doing two different reagents, processed by two different labs with expedited results and because they know people don’t have a choice)

   

• Be organized

• Don’t panic if your code turns red at first, they will usually specify what the issue is and you can modify the application and re-submit 

• Prepare your hand luggage with essentials you may need for 1-2 days without your check-in luggage, including an extra set of clothes, snacks, medicine, etc. You may have a long transit and once you arrive in Shanghai, nothing is available at the airport. Make sure you grab bottles of water from the flight before landing in China and extra snacks at your departure airport. Flight services may be modified coming into China (our KLM flight did not offer blankets or pillows)

• Splurge for lounge access (if you can), especially on long layovers. It may be worth flying business class on short haul to your transit destination to be able to use the business lounge

• Make sure everyone uses the bathroom right before leaving the plane to save time on lines during the post-landing process

  
  

• Be mentally ready for changes- circuit breakers (when a certain route and airline brings a certain number of positive cases (5) into China, this route is banned for a certain number of weeks), flight cancellations, flight diversions to another destination in China and positive COVID test results are all very possible, even mid-travel. 

Landing in China brought a mix of emotions for me: relief that we had made it so far, but also definitely anxiety about what was to come. After hearing about so many horror stories of people who tried to return but were unsuccessful, landing in China felt like a huge victory, yet I also knew that the hardest part was just about to start.

We were extremely lucky, however, that a few days before the start of our journey it was announced that China’s new national quarantine policy for people from abroad would change from 14 + 7 (14 days in a hotel and 7 at home) to 7 + 3. This was certainly a bonus, but I had already been planning for the maximum amount of time in the worst conditions (no air conditioning, no deliveries allowed, dirty sheets and damp carpets from disinfectant) and had been gaming out every possible scenario I could imagine for our family of two kids aged 8 and 2.

I’m glad I packed all the food that I did since the hotel food was pretty awful. Even I did not eat a bite of it (other than the rice), to say nothing of my picky 8-year-old. Our hotel (Shanghai Hotel in Jing’an district) was not allowing deliveries of any kind (no Waimai, no delivery and no drop off from family/friends), so the most important thing ended up being the food. Something we learned was that the meals (ramen, beef jerky, canned food) ended up being more important than the snacks we brought.

Before we found out we would be separated into two rooms (see below for details on this practice), I was planning on bringing a small electric cooking pot or cooker and pot to make pasta in but we ended up keeping to things that could be heated with the water boiler (this seems to be the minimum appliance that every quarantine hotel will give, other hotels have given microwaves and fridges as well).

Our family knew before landing in China that we were likely to be split up, with each adult accompanied by one child. Thus, we had already decided who was going with who. Make sure to pack your bags by person as there isn’t any time to open bags and divide things up after arrival. Clothing, toys, food, snacks, and activities for my 8-year-old son were put in with my husband's things while the items for my 2-year-old toddler were in my luggage. We were also given the option for both kids to go with one adult, but we decided to split up this way instead. 

Truthfully, a family of four in a standard sized room would not be comfortable for 7 to 10 days, especially if one or both adults have to work. Having enough space to let the kids run around and make noise in a small space was super important, so consider agreeing to be separated, as this will also give everyone more space.

*At the moment, children 14 and over are considered adults and are put in their own rooms. There aren’t many successful cases of families staying together at the moment, but having a medical note about why you may need to stay together may work. In the past months, there have been hotels that offered family rooms based on availability but that was no longer an option at our time of travel.

Here is a general list of items I packed for the kids (two boys aged 2 and 8):

As is the case for most boys, cars were a big hit on holiday and continued to be so during our quarantine. We set up car tracks all along our room floor using car track tape. We had also brought a few pieces of car ramps and tracks to make car slides from the furniture. I brought packs of new cars and gave a few new ones to my son every day.

This was really a panic buy after hearing that people in Shanghai were going through quarantine without the air conditioning being on, but it ended up being pretty useful. We used it for playing even without water, as a place for my son to lie in and play, a pit for cars to launch into, a target for throwing balls into and generally to tidy up all our toys into at the end of the day. If you have the space for it, I definitely would recommend this.

Every day, I gave each of the kids a little present. For my toddler, these were Mystery Eggs with his current favorite Cocomelon toys in them. He knew that once he woke up he would get to open a new one and was always excited for his new egg every day. For my older son, I gave him Pokémon cards, soccer card packs, Lego mystery packs and things.

A few weeks before our flight back to China, I quietly collected a third of my son’s toys and hid them away. I made sure not to take any of his favorite things though, and a few days into quarantine, I surprised him with them. He honestly acted like they were new toys and was thrilled to see them again! Score!

One of the best purchases I made from Amazon was a roll of whiteboard paper which you can stick to walls, the floor or a table. The coffee table therefore turned into a drawing table and provided the backdrop for many different activities such as car tracks, random scribbling, shapes and number sorting, play dough, etc.

We spent a lot of time with stickers, crayons and mess-free paints and markers. This especially helped my little one spend some time focusing while providing a little quiet time for mom. For my 8-year-old, doodling books, advanced coloring books and sticker books were a nice break for him from his device time.

For both the boys, I had brought one of our favorite on-the-go building toys, Plus Plus. They have two sizes, the normal small one, which isn’t really suitable for kids under 3, and then the larger size. We were able to build lots of things to incorporate with his other toys. We also had a small selection of Duplo and Magnatiles which were fun to build up as well. 

I used both fitted and flat sheets to cover the sofa and armchairs, as well as towels on the ground to create floor space he could fully lie down on. My older son developed some eye irritation (bring drops) as well as a sneeze that lasted throughout the quarantine period due to this and even my husband, who didn’t wear slippers or socks, said he could feel some irritation on his feet.

Our quarantine (which was supposed to be 7+3 but in reality turned out to be 10+0 for us) went surprisingly fast. We tried to stick to a routine and despite being woken up for COVID tests at 6am on most days, we tried to go back to sleep afterwards. We also tried to tidy up stray toys and stay organized, change clothes (every few days) and keep good habits. My older son still did his dishes (in the bathroom sink). For those who are worried about it, it was completely doable and you almost get used to it after the first three days.

It was almost nice in some ways to not have the pressure to unpack and start life, and be forced to relax and get over jet lag without any hassle. 10 days still felt like a blessing compared to 14 days and then 7 at home, but it helped a lot to mentally prepare for the worst and hope for the best. 

We were released from quarantine and drove directly home to our apartment where our compound was under a 7 day lockdown for a positive case, so we haven’t yet been able to experience Shanghai’s streets, but after our experience, we are happy to stay home surrounded by our own things and in our own beds and be able to accept all the waimai and delivery that we can!