It’s Day 8 now. We’ve been in centralized quarantine in Shanghai for a full week and I’m ready to share some insights we’ve gleaned from this trying time where we’ve had plenty of meltdowns (from adults too), lots of confusion, some fun, and precious few rewarding moments.
You can find very helpful packing lists for centralized quarantine with a quick online search. Sadly, I didn’t remember to follow those lists in preparation, but we made do with what we had! The following items were indispensable to our daily quarantine lives:
The spork save lives!
1. Travel cutlery and mugs: Since they only supply adult-sized chopsticks, the spoon and fork (or spork!) is crucial for little ones. The knife was also especially useful in cutting fruits like mangoes, which we were lucky to get. Our YETI mugs also kept our tea hot, and let us store leftover canned food in the mini fridge which we were also lucky to have.
2. Cleaning cloth / antibacterial wipes: There’s absolutely no housekeeping services and I only managed to beg for a loan of a vacuum cleaner for a couple hours once. So we have been mopping by hand with a micro fibre cloth we had gotten free from a car wash during the vacation. What’s gross is I’m still finding hair that doesn’t belong to any of us every single time.
Even with daily cleaning…
3. Snacks, canned food, and freeze-dried food: Beefaroni and granola bars saved the kid’s stomach on the many occasions when the supplied meal was unacceptable to young palates. A special treat, like a piece of chocolate every day, can also help lift spirits. We even brought cans of tuna, but we forgot to bring a can opener, so that should totally go on the list! (Or get those cans that open without one.)
Always baos for breakfast…
Insert special mention about waimai, because I promised to share everything I learned: At our hotel, we failed to convince the staff to let us order waimai, even with the possibility of the kid going hungry and starving (yes I did threaten that might happen). However, a mom at another centralized quarantine facility in Beijing told us that she was allowed to receive foodstuffs via kuaidi as long as they were packed inside clear containers.
The kid’s corner…
4. Games and toys: A Ziploc bag of K’NEX (Oh Ziploc bags are super useful!), NERF football, Battleship, Yahtzee, puzzles, and we totally should have brought a deck of cards! Also crafts and drawing pads or just a notepad for creative scribbling.
5. Enough clothes to avoid laundry, or laundry soap: Trust me, washing underwear worn by an active kid in summer with hand soap just doesn’t cut it. Bring a small thing of detergent. Quarantine hack: Dri-FIT clothing or swimwear dries faster and doesn’t smell as bad as cotton clothes! Oh, and use hangers to dry the clothes!
Now that you know what to pack, here’s a family-friendly routine that worked for us to survive centralized quarantine with our 7-year-old.
Cosmic Kids yoga in the morning
7.30am Morning Stretches
8am Breakfast (Fruits first!)
9am Parents work online/kid gets unstructured playtime (K’NEX and books play a big part here)
10am Snack + family game
11am Back to work/kid studies (Online classes like BrainPOP Jr. or a grade-appropriate workbook)
12pm Lunch
1pm Reading
1.30pm Reading discussion
2pm Parents work/kid studies
3pm Device time (We are Nintendo fans so the Switch is our choice)
4pm Game/activity time (Can you say NERF football? And sometimes we clean or do laundry.)
5.30pm Shower
6pm Dinner
7pm Family movie!
8.30pm Wind down and sleep by 9pm!
Want to see this routine in action? Check out the video below for our typical day in centralized quarantine!
Tonya Ramsburg, who was in quarantine at the same time as us, had the fantastic idea to do themed days – from Star Wars to 4th of July to Christmas (in August no less!) – where the family did crafts and even dressed around the theme (i.e. red, white and blue PJs). They also prepared a new and exciting activity for each day, such as tie-dye, scrapbooking, water beads, diamond painting, science kits and more. FYI, her family also packed two camping stoves and enough food for a small army. After all, it was their second time going through this centralized quarantine process, so they knew what they were in for.
Tie dye fun in quarantine!
Watch out for my final article once we are released from quarantine, to find out what exactly happens in that process!
KEEP READING: A True Quarantine Story in 2022: What It’s Really Like
Images: Vivienne Tseng-Rush, Tonya Ramsburg
