17 days ago Daniel Evans landed in China to start work as a teacher. He knew that he would have to isolate for two weeks inside a quarantine hotel but as he came up to his 14th day he was told that he would have to stay for another week. The 33-year-old from Llwynypia in the Rhondda told WalesOnline what it is like to self-isolate in China for a long three weeks.
"A bit of adversity is character forming," he laughed. "I've got a teaching position which I start in a couple of weeks. It's my first time out here. I was living in Australia for a bit and met a girl. We lived together for a year. She's originally from China but lived in Austria for nine years. So our plan was to meet up here for a year and then maybe move back to the UK .
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"I knew that it'd be two weeks definitely. And then there was a kind of like gray area of 21 days potentially. So I knew it was a possibility but I was told that if I do 14 days here, I could do seven days in my apartment, which was the plan. But because I wasn't registered in the building I hadn't moved in officially yet. Because I wasn't registered in the building with the police department could I couldn't leave after the 14 days and do the seven days there."
Given that most of us really struggled over the lockdowns of the previous years, the idea of being in a hotel room for 21 days straight would be soul destroying to some. However Daniel has managed to keep his spirits up.
"Oh, man, it's fine," he said. "When they told me I was like I've done 14, so 'what's an extra seven days' do you know what a mean? It's kind of like a purgatory isn't it? When you get off the plane, you just go through all these weird corridors and everyone's in hazmat suits and they put you on a bus.
"Obviously I am not being able to speak Mandarin so have no idea what's going on. I get on the bus and I think the bus is just gonna go like 20 minutes to the hotel but it's got to be at least like two hours."
He has filled his time by entertaining his friends and family by posting funny videos on Instagram. He has also been quietly pleased with how good the food is.
You can see some of his videos here:
"Honestly, it's really good," he said. "Some of it doesn't look amazing. I have been here 17 days. That's like three meals a day. So they bring you three meals a day so in over 60-70 meals and I still haven't had like the same thing. I have been watching a lot of Anthony Bourdain to keep me occupied. It also gives me motivation to eat the weird s*** that appears every day on my plate. I always ask myself 'what would Anthony Bourdain do' . If he had like a headless chicken on display in China he would just eat it."
According to Daniel he has had to get creative to stay entertained. "I am locked up on my own so it's about killing time," he said. "That's partly why I shaved a moustache because I don't like getting bored of my own face and I am just doing bloody dumb videos on Instagram basically. I've got a really big TV but it's all in Mandarin so don't watch that. But it's a really nice TV. I've got my laptop so I can watch stuff on that.
"I started doing Instagram stories as a way to try to pass the time and make light of the situation. But mainly because I think I’m way funnier than I actually am, but in reality it’s pretty dumb. But at least my mam knows I’m alive."
Laughing he explains how he is maintaining his fitness while locked up: "I bought these things off Amazon [pointing to some resistant bands behind him] and luckily, the room is actually quite big. So I just jogged back and forth. So it seems like a bit of a hamster in a cage sort of situation."
He also said that his girlfriend was surprised at how chipper he was given his incarceration. He said: "She was like 'you're in a really good mood considering you're in lockdown'. I want to say I am pretty resilient but it sounds cheesy. I just get on with it. There's a light at the end of the tunnel, I've just been trying to keep productive and not really thinking about it."
Many people would likely be resentful of a system that allows them to be locked up for three weeks. Especially given that Daniel has to have daily Covid tests. However he is fairly philosophical about it all.
"I think it's just different policies," he said. "The policy back home has changed and it's adapted because they weren't handling it very well. They were just like, 'well we can't contain it so everyone needs to be vaccinated', then thought that if people get it, they get it.
"Whereas here, they still have held that zero Covid policy. They've got one of the lowest death rates in terms of percentages of people who died because when there's one case, everything locks down. It is strict, but that's the angle they've they've gone for."
As we have all seen in recent weeks, travelling abroad can be a challenge. However in a country like China, with large restrictions on civil liberties and internet it can be really hard. "So technically I have to pay for these hotels," explained Daniel. "I pay for things on my phone but it wouldn't connect to the Wi Fi. So I couldn't get any Wi Fi or reset my phone, the only way to pay because they don't take Visa cards in China. I couldn't even pay for the hotel when I got here. Luckily there was a girl in front of me in the line who spoke English. She really helped me out and she was explained the situation to them. They were all trying to get me on the Wi Fi and it just wasn't working. So I ended up staying probably about 10 to 12 days without actually paying because after all this I got locked out of my Barclays app because the were suspicious about payments in China!"
At time of writing Daniel is three days from freedom. You can follow his Instagram here. To keep up to date with news from across Rhondda, subscribe to our weekly newsletters here.
