Penn Pandemic Diary Penn Pandemic Diary, Entry #20: 10,000 Miles from Home

Mae Mouritsen is a sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania studying Health and Societies in the College of Arts and Sciences.

While I was planning a spring break trip to Spain with friends, my parents were navigating a Singapore entirely different from the one they had moved to less than a year before. The small country had seen its first COVID-19 case in late January, and face mask shortages, panic buying, and cancelled travel soon followed. However, by mid-February, the island nation still only fewer than 100 cases overall and no deaths. The panic for the most part subsided. By the time that I arrived on March 7, a few days after cancelling my trip to Spain, Singapore seemed the same as it had over winter break.

While friends and family in the United States began racing to secure their next roll of toilet paper and self-isolating, I was going to the gym and dining out, though with strict social distancing measures. Throughout most of March, Singapore reveled in its coronavirus-fighting success, enjoying praise from the United Nations, Forbes, and more. It felt as if Singapore was simply a few months ahead of the rest of the world, and I was optimistic that the US would follow.

But by April, the second wave of the virus hit, and the Singaporean government instituted a circuit breaker until May 4. All non-essential businesses are closed and masks are required anywhere outside one’s home. Borders are closed to foreigners, including the Straits of Johor that connects us to the Malaysian city of Johor Bahru. As such, many Malaysian commuters, who have not already lost their jobs, are faced with a tough decision: to leave the island and lose their jobs, or leave their families to stay and make a living with Singapore.

As life halts around us, I am grateful to be able to weather the storm with my parents and sister. But I also feel an unnerving sense of displacement. I still consider Austin, Texas, where I grew up, to be my home. I barely know Singapore. I am often up until 3:00 or 4:00am watching my online lectures.

Some days, if I still haven’t fallen asleep by dawn, I will drink coffee with my dad and dog on our balcony. We watch the sun rise, I head to bed, and he begins his work day. Many days I have an overwhelming feeling of gratitude for small moments like these that I get to share with my family. Other days, I am overcome with loneliness, feeling isolated in my own makeshift time zone, neither living in stride with my family here nor with my friends back in the United States.

Recently, my family and I sat down to watch Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Hoon address the public. He announced what we were all hoping he would not: that the circuit breaker would be extended four more weeks, scheduled to end on the first of June. My parents are here on work visas, but I am not a legal resident of the country. As I write this, I am almost two months into my three-month tourist visa, and I face uncertainty as to where I will go once it expires.

I don’t know if I want to go back to the United States and risk not being able to see my family for some time. But I also don’t know how long I can legally stay in Singapore. Like the rest of the world, I am overwhelmed with uncertainty. I crave planning. I want to know where I will be, who I will be with, and what I will be doing this summer. But I can’t know how or when this will end. I can only take a deep breath and try, against every instinct, to enjoy the stillness.

The views expressed in the Penn Pandemic Diary are solely the author’s and not those of Penn or Perry World House.