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We were so excited to return to our favorite, less-trodden Isle of Koh Chang, just five hours southeast from Bangkok, Thailand. Myron and I lived frugally as International School Teachers in the modern, coastal city of Nantong, Jiangsu Province, China in order to long fruitfully during our teaching breaks to travel. For foreigners here, that opportune time spans the Chinese Lunar New Year. While most Chinese residents make their annual migration from urban centers to hometowns, we like to head down south to the innumerable tropical oases that seem so local when you are living in central China. At a potluck feast to celebrate Lunar New Year 2020 on January 25th, Myron and I discovered that the rumor of an aggressive viral outbreak in Wuhan, Hubei province was actually a mounting national crisis. While slicing the toaster-oven baked lasagna I had brought, our graceful Philippine hostess shared the latest details from the local news. Airlines were cancelling mainland flights and refunding tickets. Her husband told us of a friend who had to wait out a three-day quarantine in Bangkok caused by a man coughing on the plane. We panicked, thinking, did we want to spend our entire holiday in quarantines? What are the odds of us catching the virus? These questions were answered in a blur of cancelled flights and accommodations. A sudden, government-imposed self-isolation erected a momentary emotional shelter around us while the blaze of a viral outbreak flared invisibly over our heads. There were long talks of going back to Canada until the crisis was over. While I decided it wasn’t worth the cost for me to do a return jaunt in time for school to start, my partner chose to resign from this life completely. Myron roused me one morning with a kiss saying he had just bought a one-way flight to Vancouver, BC. I felt like the floor had turned to cold mud, and I was suspended by uncertainty in all directions. Going home would be retreating to the complete known, comfortable, relaxing assurance of everyone understanding you by language and custom. Missing that feeling makes me savor the memory of my country and family more than I ever could while living there. Nantong is approximately 800 km from the epicenter of the outbreak, so I assumed we were safe until one fellow teacher at the Starbucks on the last day it was open relayed that the one confirmed case in our city came from the neighborhood down the street. Overnight, the exits to our residential building block were barred except one guarded by a long line of Bao An, or gentle security. We began having to check in with special cards stating our name, address and occupation. Self-isolation meant only leaving your complex to go to the few supermarkets still open every two days. Other areas had it worse, with new quarantine laws enforcing one person per household to leave every three days, and returning before five pm. Narrow tunnels and tents covered the main entrance, declaring in royal blue and China red the slogan in both Chinese and English: Come On, We Can Win! Immense posters line every supermarket entrance urging citizens to band together to win the war against the Wuhan Virus. The way the locals quietly obey new orders, wear masks at all times and politely conduct themselves in the long queues at the Supermarket and the residential gates generates a palpable patriotic pride. The collective spirit of the people rises like a Tsunami over me and my identity as a lone individual. Their intense cooperation moves me to wonder if my own nation would act so singularly for a similar communal cause. Myron left the pale, clear morning we were ordered to do on-line teaching until further notice. That was five weeks ago, and to this day we still have no idea when we might be going back to our real classrooms. Staying on in this crisis is like toiling away, a bit each day, from certainty; everything you trust and are comforted by. And, it makes me realize that a deep part of travelling is in letting the other part of you go.