Changzhou encountered a sudden “coldness back in the late spring" in the originally warm March, . It’s our honor to contact Ms. TK（Nico's mother of CBS Grade 8A）, to share her story during the anti-epidemic period and feel the warmth of Changzhou.

Introduction of Ms. TK

TK is currently finishing up my master’s degree in journalism at New York University. She used to run SupCZ which was Changzhou's first English and then bilingual magazine. She also started the SupCZ foreign language library a few years ago with over a thousand books in many different languages and the only source of Bulgarian books outside of the Bulgarian embassy in Beijing.In addition to that, I spend a lot of time these days helping foreigners solve problems related to living in Changzhou.

How many years have you been to Changzhou? What is your impression of Changzhou?

My family has lived in Changzhou for a little over eight years now. Changzhou is a peaceful city. Generally, it’s been a pleasant place to raise a family.

What are you currently working on? Would you mind introducing your family members?

I have one final photojournalism class to go before I graduate from master’s degree in journalism at New York University in May, so I’m always on the hunt for photography subjects right now. There are three other people in my family. Nico, age 14, goes to CBS’s middle school. Serafina, age 10, goes to one school in wujing. Christian, my husband, runs a plant for a fortune 500 company out near the airport.

We have noticed that "Changzhou release" ( The official media of the Changzhou government) reported that your family helped other foreigners with nucleic acid testing. Could you please share the specific situation at that time?

I spent much of the first two days of Changzhou’s COVID-19 outbreak helping foreigners solve issues related to getting tested under the new and sudden COVID-19 policies. The city of Changzhou rolled out a new code this year that people need to use to register for mass testing and to get access to public places. Many foreigners were having trouble getting tested, and now that Changzhou has a star, many are having trouble entering public spaces and using public transportation. I was happy on Monday, though, that my community in Xinbei District had figured out how to register foreigners when my family went to get tested. I was able to learn from their process and used that information to help others whose communities were not as ready to test foreign residents.

Regarding epidemic prevention and control, what else have you and your family done? Due to the sudden outbreak of the epidemic, classes has been changed to online classes. Is your child used to this pattern?

I would love to help volunteer with the volunteers manning checkpoints and testing points (Their hard work should all be applauded!), but I think my Chinese still isn’t quite ready for this. Also, many of the volunteer requirements require that you have not left the city in the past two weeks. Changzhou is being very careful about screening volunteers. But they do accept foreign volunteers if your Chinese is good, so I recommend signing up if you have the time.The kids and I are spending a lot of time at home while they do online school and I help solve problems for foreigners online.This is the third time classes have gone online since the beginning of 2020, so my kids are pretty used to online classes by now.

As a foreigner in Changzhou, we realized that you are often eager to help other expats all time. Is there any typical questions you have been facing during the epidemic?

Now, the most frequent questions I get are related to entering public places and code enforcement. Again because foreigners are not able to sign up for the MyChangzhou app, we cannot scan the “place” code. Also, because of the manual entry into the system that was needed during mass testing, the test results are not showing up in foreigners’ Alipay accounts (one typo means you will never get to see your negative result, and there are several other problems in the system that frequently stop foreigners’ results from showing up). So workers enforcing epidemic prevention and control need to be educated about these issues. Showing a green code and a travel code needs to allow foreigners access to places. This city is going to get very difficult to live in if we can’t go anywhere, and it’s dangerous for us if health-related places like pharmacies and hospitals start banning us because we cannot scan a “place” code.

During the epidemic, what other suggestions and reminders do you have for CBS and foreigners living here?

During this period of time when Changzhou is under special controls, everyone is going to need to reach deep down inside and bring out their most empathetic, patient selves. Things are universally difficult right now, but the hope is if we all make some sacrifices now, this situation will clear up quickly. Two or three weeks is not a very long time in the scheme of things if we can manage this outbreak.