All for one another

In recent days, a term trending online and high on almost everyone's mind is "let's defend Shanghai together". Infections began rising in some Chinese cities, including Shanghai, because of the emergence of the more contagious Omicron variant of the virus. To protect Shanghai, indeed the whole of China, everyone has been fighting the pandemic together, some on the front-line and others as volunteers and in other capacities.

In this critical period, I've been helping students as a dormitory assistant of the international students' dormitory on the Minhang campus of the East China Normal University in Shanghai. I'm quite busy during this closed-loop management period in Shanghai because I have had to do a lot of work with the help of the Global Education Center. My main duty is to ensure all international students take the nucleic acid test on time, and share all the information in the WeChat group in Chinese and English in a timely manner.

My daily duty also includes distributing meals to students together with the dormitory staff. Because of the closed-loop management, everything is closed in Shanghai, including courier services. Students can't order any food or other essentials by themselves. So, the school opens an emergency line to help them buy the necessary things they need.

In accordance with the notice from the university to help fulfill students' needs, I collect the lists of the essential things they need and send it to the university authorities. And after the parcels arrive at the gate, I collect and deliver them to the students.

Although the sudden increase in infections in Shanghai has disrupted academic and work life, everyone is working hard to restore normalcy in the city.

Allow me to quote from a Bengali poem by Kamini Roy (died 1933):

"We are all for one another,

Each one of us is for the other."