fbpx

Tell Your Story – California during the time of COVID-19

Tell Your Story - Ziyang, Santa Cruz
Empty LAX and closed stores. This is a picture I took casually at Los Angeles airport, on my way to China. It was filmed at 2 p.m. on April 8. I pass through here every year when I go home. There are many luxury stores. Sometimes I go in and around. In the afternoon when the traffic is the heaviest, these sofas are all filled with people. LAX, under the epidemic, one of the largest airports in the United States or even the world, with the largest passenger flow, was actually empty. It was a shock.

Ziyang, Santa Cruz

“COVID-19 has a great influence on me because it first broke out in China. My parents, family, and friends all live in China. I knew through the internet that a new virus was spreading,  so I was worried about them. It happened to be Chinese New Year, the most important festival for Chinese people. In the past, people would walk around the streets, visit friends, go to parties, and travel. Now people can only stay at home—no carnival, no party—with fear. Later, China slowly controlled the epidemic, but it broke out all over the world.

“In March, I lived alone in Santa Cruz. No roommate, no car, so it was not convenient to buy food. I wanted to go back to China because the school had replaced the course online, but the strict flight policy meant I bought five tickets, and they were all canceled. I could only keep browsing the ticket website and buying tickets. Fortunately, finally on April 8 I bought a ticket at 6 a.m. for a plane at 10 p.m. to South Korea and then to China. So I had to find a way to get from Santa Cruz to San Francisco and then to Los Angeles in half a day. Because of the outbreak, the number of people flying is very small, and many flights in the United States have been canceled. So I packed and took a taxi to San Francisco airport in an hour. Fortunately, my flight was not cancelled. I arrived in Los Angeles at about ten in the morning. After that, I arrived in Shanghai, China, on April 10, where I was quarantined for fourteen days.”

Ziyang, 21
Santa Cruz
6/5/2020

 

< Previous Story | Exhibition Home | Next Story >

 

X