Student looks back on fond memories

For Zeng Yuting and many other young people around China, this year's Mid-Autumn Festival celebration would be unlike any year before－it would be the first time they celebrated the festival without their families.

As her father drove her to the airport in Shanghai bound for her university in Beijing, Zeng reminded herself of the fond memories of her family buying mooncakes and decorations and preparing a fancy dinner for the festival celebration. Zeng's father, who is an aficionado of calligraphy, would write poems about the moon and hang them on the wall.

"I've never seen the sky at 4:30 am before, with the colors changing from orange to blue and finally to white when we arrived at the airport," she said. "The changing colors made it sink in that I was leaving Shanghai."

Zeng said as she waved goodbye she didn't look at her father. "I didn't want him to see my tears in case it made him worry about whether I could take good care of myself."

"When I landed in Beijing, it became clear that this was truly farewell to my dear family and the familiarity of Shanghai," she said. "On one hand, I was very much looking forward to my future life, in which I would be the one in control. On the other hand, I was worried or even in a bit of a panic over whether I could handle different hardships alone as a young adult."

Lying on the unfamiliar bed on her first night in Beijing, it hit home to Zeng just how much she was going to miss her parents. It was very clear there would be fewer family reunions. Now, she and her new roommates and friends from across the country would have to create a new kind of gathering for the holidays.

Due to COVID-19 prevention measures, Zeng and some of the new students have been quarantined for a week or more since their arrival in Beijing. Some were unable to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival this year with their new friends and roommates, and had to remain alone in a single room instead.

The quarantine didn't phase Zeng however as she'd already endured a two-month lockdown in Shanghai early this year.

"The COVID-19 situation has brought some inconvenience to our lives, such as the absence of reunions," she said. "Personally, I learned from the COVID outbreak that our families' health is very precious, and that we should cherish them and the times we are together."

Zeng said she sees the moon as the best symbol of missing a family with whom you cannot reunite during the Mid-Autumn Festival.

She is touched by a modern Chinese poem that describes the sentiment of missing someone, saying it is like them "being round" themselves, given that the moon at the time of the festival is the brightest and roundest. "On the Mid-Autumn Festival this year, what appeared in my heart was definitely be the faces and figures of my family members when I look up at the full moon," she said.