School’s over, but so is fun: summer holidays ruined amidst pandemic
By Megan Chan
Thought your summer would be fun? Think again.
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the summer holiday experience across all students has become markedly different from previous years. Gone are the carefree days of summer camps and hanging out with friends — nowadays, everyone remains secluded in their rooms, shut off from the outside world.
This has been especially felt in Hong Kong, which experienced a third wave of coronavirus cases over the summer, resulting in the implementation of strict restrictions — these included the closing down of public venues and restaurants, as well a limit of two people in public gatherings.
For Year 11 students Cedric Poon and Esha Bijani, the beginning of their summer holidays vastly differed from the end, leading to the downfall of a highly anticipated summer.
“It was actually quite fun for the first three weeks as the corona restrictions had been lifted from quarantine. I had quite a fun time meeting and going out with friends,” explained Poon, detailing experiences of going to the movies and playing basketball with peers. The effects of COVID were felt even back then, however, with the group taking necessary precautions such as keeping to smaller gatherings of four to five people and using public facilities early or late at night, thereby avoiding large crowds.
Those, however, were minor in comparison to the latter half of his summer holiday, with added restrictions drastically changing his day to day schedule, making group plans a thing of the past. But the disruption of his summer didn’t just end there. “I don’t think I left the house for a whole month, I just stayed indoors,” Poon claimed. “The schedule basically went: waking up, eating, then spending a majority of the time in front of the computer; then if my friends were available, we’d hop on a video game or something.”
That wasn’t the only downside, however. “My sister came back home, so I had to share a room with her again. That was quite annoying,” he lamented.
Cedric Poon: ““My sister came back home, so I had to share a room with her again. That was quite annoying.”
Bijani shared similar thoughts and felt disappointed at the outcome of their holidays. Prior to the restrictions, she frequently spent time with friends at beaches, on sleepovers, and at various restaurants around the city. As the restrictions began to roll in, her social interactions diminished over time. “I was looking forward to just meeting my friends after a while because we had planned a lot of stuff to do over the summer, and the fact that we couldn’t do them and have to push plans back to the Christmas holidays is quite sad.”
“It got very isolating and sad towards the end of summer as we had to do our personal project and catch up with everything, like we were in school but with a little more free time.” She later elaborated that she spent most of her time at home, and only ever left the house for essentials such as grocery shopping. “The most exciting thing that happened during my summer was playing board games with my brother, which is also pretty disappointing.”
Despite the grumbles and distaste, Poon did find a silver lining. With all his time spent at home, his focus shifted to work — more specifically, the MYP personal project. The restrictions came at a convenient time as Poon had to restart his project over the summer, allowing him to catch up by utilising his now free weeks.
Bijani, on the other hand, found the experience to be far more lacklustre, citing the lack of fun activities to be a huge demotivator, causing her to “not feel like working anymore.” The day-to-day monotony of her summer also dampened her experience: “It’s a different environment when you’re at school. When you come home, you can say “oh, I have a break now, I can rest.” But we were spending everyday at home before the summer anyway, so spending everyday at home again doesn’t really feel like a holiday to us.”
Overall, Poon and Bijani found their overall summer holiday “unsatisfactory”.
Poon acknowledged the potential long-term benefits, but still wished to have had spent more time with his friends: “I think, overall, it was pretty negative, because, after Year 11, we only have two years left of high school, and those summers we spend studying for the IB, so there isn’t much time to have fun.”
Bijani agreed: “This summer was supposed to be quite fun and interesting because this is our last one before DP, and the fact that we have to stay at home for most of it was quite disheartening.” She disagreed with the idea that the summer holidays boosted her work morale, explaining that “a lack of things to look forward to” ultimately disrupted her mood, and that she would’ve been more productive had the summer holiday gone as planned.
Their sentiments are shared by millions of students across the world, with the pandemic impacting everyone to different extents. In Hong Kong, school reopenings remain unknown, but many predict physical school will resume later this month.
Despite this, the transition to normalcy will continue to be slow-paced and frustratingly long, likely rife with unpredictability and setbacks. Only time will tell how the situation pans out, and whether next year’s summer will be stolen away in a similar fashion.