An encouraging news for local expats was announced at the end of March, which allowed foreigners in Shanghai apply for covid-19 vaccination with only 100RMB per dose. Recently four foreign teachers from ABIE English shared their experience in China, shown expat workers living experience and feelings since the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic.

Andrew is a south African born, American raised teacher who is working with ABIE for two years. As he said, it is great to stay in China these years after he traveled around the world, and he felt lucky enough to be taken care of by the country as an expat worker in Shanghai.

According to Andrew, “China has a very special place in my heart as I have been all over the world and seen so many things first-hand. I can safely say that China is exceptional at taking care of its citizens! ABIE has mirrored this in their approach to the company and its employees. I have had some of the warmest moments in China with my colleagues in ABIE as a whole and not just within my center... all the way from the headquarter down to the school which I teach, and I really feel a sense of family here.”

Arlene from South Africa working for ABIE’s direct center in Shanghai for almost 5 months and she called it’s “the best decision” she has ever made. She was scared at the beginning of Covid-19 outbreak. “It was scary at the beginning, but after being here and seeing how well the government handled the breakout of the virus and managing to continue to live a healthy and safe life here, I am 100% sure I'm in the safest country in the world.”

“Living in China since the outbreak hasn’t been that different to living in China before”, commented by Branden, a British teacher of ABIE English Baoyang Baolong Center. “While we had a few months of stringent conditions and regulations to keep people safe life has largely been back to normal since last summer. Actually, I’ve been more worried about my friends and relatives in Europe and Canada.”

Living in China for almost four year, Cleo has a love for teaching. She enjoys helping the next generation to learn new things and would love to teach them how to broaden their minds in all aspects. Talking about Covid-19, she said, “I feel safe even with the outbreak of covid in 2020 because China had everything under control. During this time, I took all necessary precautions to stay safe and kept my distance from people and we couldn’t have classes so what we did was we started having online classes to prevent the spread of Covid.”

It hasn’t exactly been a glorious year for countries around the world. However, here in China we can consider ourselves very lucky with entertainments, public transports, art and friendship mostly staying open and happening throughout these testing times.