21 Days of Quarantine in Hong Kong

My names Matthew Baker and I’m an artist living and working in Hong Kong. Or maybe to correct this I am now again living in Hong Kong but not in my home.

I went back to the UK in November and was due to come back on a flight on the 20th of December on British Airways. Which the Hong Kong government cancelled as BA let too many people with coronavirus into Hong Kong. Fair enough, me and my partner said to ourselves we’d spend Christmas in the UK with family.

But then on the 21st of December everything changed. The Hong Kong Government overnight made it law that you must be away from the UK for 21 days before you could reenter Hong Kong. Today is the 3rd of March and I’ve been back in Hong Kong for one day.

It’s been an odyssey and the next section of this part of my life is just starting. I’ve spent 21 days in Dubai and if you would like to know some fragments of what that was like here is a link to one of my pieces on that:

https://vocal.media/photography/another-side-of-dubai-2-creek-fishnets

But now back to the journey to Hong Kong. So we were waiting in the cue at the airport in Dubai to get on the plane. A man with his family are stood getting pretty aggravated with the airline staff. It’s because the father doesn’t have the correct Corna Virus certificate. His wife leaves with their youngest child and the father is left with the older son now stuck in Dubai. It was heartbreaking to watch and I felt so sorry for them.

I suppose rules are rules. But the human aspect is often completely lost I’ve found having experienced a fair bit of international travel in the pandemic. My partner and me have had a stupid amount of Covid tests. It’s been frustrating for all of us and what is often lacking is empathy.

Anyway moving on from wallowing in self pity at the top picture are the hazmat family band. There’s usually a couple of these families on a plane. I’m unsure weather wearing hazmats are going to make a lot of difference if your sat across from someone with Covid, but maybe I’m just cynical.

Anyway we followed the band to a seemingly never ending amount of people checking the same documents over and over again. All the documents you have to show are on paper. Which seems fairly bonkers in the digital age and risk of infection. Also it’s not like they check if the paperwork is real. The global health system isn’t linked up enough. Although all our paperwork was of course real, airlines do have enough time to check if the certificate for the place you got checked is real. I’m unsure how far they go in checking if the two pieces information (the second being a printed pdf from the doctor confirming a negative test) match in terms of checking with the hospital. Also there is a 48 hour period from getting a test to travelling, the whole system is so floored.

After endlessly checking documents you the go and get a covid test in Hong Kong airport. My partner mentions the whole thing is a bit like something out of the ‘Handmaids Tale’ and she’s not wrong. A very polite woman shoves a sick up my nose and tears role from my eyes. We the cat walk along the length of terminal two.

Next we sit and wait at desks laid out like an exam hall. It’s quiet surreal to see the Lego and Calvin Klein shop closed up with railings to create cues which lead to nowhere. One of many times in the pandemic where your literally in an episode of Black Mirror. Anyway in the two hour wait I make a huge list of films to watch on Netflix. Then someone comes and says the word ‘Negative’ and the its through the airport and out to a bus to ship us to our hotel.

Bus driver

Anyway for some reason the bus driver has a picture of a cat stuck to the top of his bus and the ridiculousness of the whole situation becomes more and more evident. Also there’s nothing more Hong Kong than this I feel, someone in a full Hazmat suit driving you to 21 days in an overpriced room with a picture of his cat stuck to the top of the bus.

Last shot of Freedom

I took a final picture of the tower blocks and hills as we drove. That was two days ago now. I’ll update you all soon.

You can follow me on Instagram @artistmattbakerphotography

For an archive of my work check out www.matthewbakerphotography.wordpress.com

Or on twitter @mattbaker133