Introduction — 21 Days That Changed Everything
The first morning I noticed the silence, Tokyo still sounded like Tokyo—trains murmuring, distant shop announcements, the soft tick of bicycles at intersections—but there was a new quality to it: a cautious hush, like a city holding its breath. I had arrived at Waseda University the previous autumn, wide-eyed and stubbornly optimistic. The campus felt familiar: crimson brick, neat hedges, and students scurrying between classes. By late winter, the world had narrowed to headlines about a virus in Wuhan. By the time my own life pivoted into a 21-day quarantine, the headlines had begun to read like an approaching tide.
This is the story of those 21 days: the shock, the daily routines, the small human gestures that mattered more than any headline, and how being an international student made every ordinary moment feel more fragile—and more profound. I share this not to dramatize, but to document how a young woman far from home navigated fear, learned to adapt, and discovered unexpected reservoirs of strength.
Chapter 1 — The First Signs of Trouble
Late February in Tokyo is still vestigial winter—cold mornings warming into bright afternoons. In the classroom, a professor cleared his throat and said what we already suspected: lectures might move online. At first it sounded like precaution, a line item on an agenda. We joked about it in the cafeteria—“Zoom university,” someone laughed—but the laughter had a thin edge.
The whispers grew faster than I expected. A friend messaged that her flight home was cancelled; another said she’d heard of a case in a nearby ward. The campus, which had been comfortable in its rhythm, began to change in subtle ways: staff wearing masks walked with more purpose, hand sanitizer bottles multiplied like tiny sentinels in building foyers, posters appeared with instructions we’d never needed before.
For me—an international student whose family lived several time zones away—those first days felt like standing on a platform as a train in the distance sped up. I made a mental list: passport, phone charger, emergency contacts. I copied important documents to my cloud drive. I told myself, again and again, that this was temporary. That thought would be tested.
Chapter 2 — Lockdown Announcement & The Shockwave
When Waseda University announced the temporary suspension of in-person classes, the shock was starker than the emails and notices ever were. There was an official tone—calm, authoritative—but the tone couldn’t fully inoculate us against panic.
Dormitory managers sent instructions: stay inside unless necessary, do not gather in groups, report any symptoms. A handful of international students were advised to move into designated quarantine housing after one of the dorm floors reported close contact with a confirmed case. I volunteered to be among those who moved—partly out of fear, partly out of wanting to help keep others safe.
Packing for quarantine was surreal. I folded clothes with an odd deliberation, packed a tattered notebook I’d been writing in since high school, and put aside a handful of instant soups and tea bags. I took my laptop, headphones, and three slim novels. At the door, a dorm staff member, masked and gloved, handed each of us a packet of instructions: temperature checks twice a day, no visitors, designated meal drop times. We were given an emergency contact number and the promise that campus health would check on us regularly.
The move felt like closing a door on normal life. Outside, the city continued—delivery trucks, the distant whoosh of trains—but my little world contracted from a campus to a single room with a window.
Chapter 3 — The Quarantine Room
My quarantine room was small but clean: a single bed, a desk, a compact kitchenette, and a window overlooking a quiet courtyard. It was practical, impersonal in the way institutional spaces often are, and yet in that emptiness there was an odd calm.
There were rules, and they read like a contract between us and the university. We were to measure our temperature twice daily and log it into an online form. Trash was to be sealed and left outside the door at specific times. Meals arrived in brown paper bags, slid under the door by volunteers in protective gear. Staff reminded us that any symptom had to be reported immediately—no matter how small.
The first night, the room felt like a cell. I turned on the TV but the news—the same footage, the same breathless interviews—seemed to come from a different lifetime. I called my parents; my mother’s voice trembled but she tried to be matter-of-fact. “We are okay,” she said. “You stay there. We’ll talk every day.”
It struck me how simple that reassurance was, and how necessary: the human voice is a tether when the world rearranges itself. That night I wrote in my notebook: I am here. I am safe. I am alone in a room full of strangers.
Chapter 4 — Life in Isolation
Once the initial shock passed, life in quarantine found a rhythm. The days were carved into small, repetitive units—temperature check, breakfast, study, short walk at the window, lunch, online classes, homework, dinner, reading, sleep. It was a liturgy of mundane tasks, and it was precisely what kept panic at bay.
Meals were consistently understated: a bowl of rice, a simple meat or vegetable plate, and fruit. Sometimes the food was surprisingly good; other times it was comfortingly bland. Each meal bag had a small handwritten note—“Ganbatte”—from a volunteer. Those little notes became a ritual. I kept them on my desk like talismans.
Online classes were a new frontier. Professors adjusted with admirable speed: synchronous discussions replaced in-person seminars, recorded lectures allowed for different time zones, and office hours moved to chat rooms. For an international student, time zones can be a cruel arithmetic, but Waseda’s instructors were flexible. Still, the absence of physical classrooms made learning feel less communal. I missed the small exchanges—the joke before class, the shared groan over a tough assignment. Zoom couldn’t replicate the human geometry of a classroom; it could only approximate it.
In the isolation of my room, communication became essential. Video calls with friends and family filled the gaps. We made virtual dinners, eating at the same time across screens. We compared quarantine meal bags and laughed about the shortage of certain snacks. In the absence of touch, conversations took on a weight they hadn’t held before; small details—how someone said a word, the pause they left—felt like proofs of life.
Chapter 5 — The Cultural Adjustment Layer
Being in Japan during the early pandemic months exposed me to cultural practices that became unexpectedly comforting. Japan’s etiquette around hygiene was already strict—hand washing, mask wearing in situations of even mild sickness—but in a time of panic, it felt stabilizing.
Volunteers and nurses approached their tasks with the quiet professionalism I’d come to expect from Japanese public services. They were polite, precise, and unusually human beneath their masks. One nurse, when she took my temperature, told me in carefully enunciated English how proud she was of the students for following instructions. Her kindness, delivered in measured sentences, was balm.
The mask etiquette also helped. I’d arrived in Japan months earlier and was used to seeing masks in public; here, mask wearing felt ordinary, not theatrical. That ordinaryness made the extraordinary restrictions feel less alien. It was easier to accept a world where one kept distance because distancing was, in a small way, a cultural script people already knew how to perform.
Language was another layer. I had taken some Japanese, but the pandemic showed me how crucial simple phrases could be—arigatou (thank you), onegaishimasu (please), daijoubu desu ka? (are you okay?). Saying them, fumbling through grammar, felt like offering a handshake when hands weren’t allowed—an attempt at shared humanity.
Chapter 6 — Moments of Fear and Hope
There were days when the fear crested without warning. A notification of a new confirmed case in my building would send a shiver through the quarantine group chat. A cough near me in the hallway. A volunteer mentioning a colleague who had tested positive. For someone far from home, everything feels magnified.
Yet those same days also held hope. A classmate’s recovery story was shared with genuine joy. A volunteer found extra snacks for an elderly student. An email from the university announcing that support services would extend counseling hours felt like a warm hand on the shoulder. Such gestures were modest, but in a time of uncertainty they became the scaffolding of hope.
I learned to sit with both feelings at once. Fear was a fact—reasonable, hardwired—and hope was a practice. I watched videos from physicians explaining viral transmission; I read scientific articles with a hunger for clarity. Knowledge did not erase anxiety, but it helped contain it.
Chapter 7 — Social Media as a Lifeline
Social media during quarantine was a double-edged sword. It provided connection, information, and distraction, but it could also amplify anxiety. I learned to curate my feeds carefully. Certain channels—university updates, reputable news outlets, and a few medical briefings—stayed on my list. Less reliable sources were muted.
We started a private WeChat group for international students in quarantine. It became our message board: meal reviews, meme chains, study schedules, and sometimes confessions. Someone posted a playlist they’d made for late-night studying; another posted photos of the sunrise over the courtyard to remind us daylight existed outside our rooms. The group offered companionship, and that company was essential.
At times, social media stung. A viral clip of crowded supermarkets or of people mocking precautions would make anger flare up—why do some people refuse to change? But then another post would appear: a video of volunteers delivering supplies to an elderly neighborhood, a neighborhood group organizing to sew masks. The internet is many things; in quarantine, it was mostly a mirror reflecting both the worst and best of us.
Chapter 8 — Coping Mechanisms That Worked
Isolation makes habits matter more than theory. I developed rituals that were small but steady aids to sanity.
Journaling. I wrote every day. Not always something profound—sometimes just a list of what I’d eaten, the number of pages read, the names of songs I’d listened to—but the act of recording anchored time. When days blur, a journal provides landmarks.
Exercise. My quarantine room was small, but I found a corner for yoga stretches and bodyweight workouts. There are many small ways to move; a 20-minute routine could reset mood and energy.
Meditation. I used short guided meditations—ten minutes before a study block—to sharpen focus. They didn’t erase fear, but they reduced the tendency to spiral into worst-case scenarios.
Language practice. I used apps to learn short phrases and practiced them with volunteers. It made me feel more connected to the place I was in.
Entertainment with meaning. I watched Japanese dramas and documentaries about resilience. Sometimes entertainment wasn’t mere distraction; it was an education in staying human when circumstances demanded adaptation.
These practices created a structure that supported me, little by little, through the long hours.
Chapter 9 — Academic Struggles and Breakthroughs
Academically, the shift to remote learning altered everything: assessment methods changed, group projects required new coordination, and professors experimented with formats. Some adaptations were clumsy at first—broken audio, students accidentally unmuted—but over time the community adjusted.
One breakthrough was how collaborative learning shifted from hallway whispers to thoughtful online forums. Students who were shy in class found their voices in chat. Professors learned to be more explicit with expectations, and that clarity helped many of us who were juggling mental load and technical issues.
Time zones posed real challenges. My family’s schedule was twelve hours away, so keeping regular contact meant late nights and early mornings. For synchronous seminars scheduled at 8 a.m., I’d sometimes still be awake from calls with my parents. The balancing act felt precarious, but professors showed flexibility, allowing recorded submissions and considering extenuating circumstances.
I also learned new academic skills—editing videos for presentations, navigating collaborative documents in real time, and delivering concise arguments on camera. These digital literacies became unexpectedly valuable.
Chapter 10 — The Last Days of Quarantine
As the 21st day approached, excitement braided with unease. Would I be healthy? Would stepping outside feel different? What if the outside world had changed while I’d been indoors?
The health clearance process felt ceremonial. Nurses checked temperatures, administered a screening questionnaire, and finally gave me a stamped note: cleared. Opening the door after weeks felt like entering a novel’s new chapter. The courtyard smelled faintly of soil after a rain. Students were scattered, masks on, voices low, but there was a tentative joy that was almost tangible.
Seeing friends in person again was a complicated joy. We hugged in public ways that were careful—elbow bumps, awkward waves, laughter that felt like a relief valve. We compared our experiences, swapped small stories, and—quietly—grieved the simplicity of the pre-pandemic routine.
Leaving quarantine did not mean a return to the old normal. It meant integrating what I’d learned into an altered life. I was more cautious, more grateful, and strangely more confident. Surviving those 21 days had taught me that I could endure uncertainty and that small acts—writing an email to a friend, stretching in the morning, saying “thank you” to a volunteer—exactly those small acts—keep you human.
Chapter 11 — Lessons Learned from the 21 Days
If I had to compress the experience into lessons, they would be practical and human:
- Structure saves sanity. Creating a daily routine—however flexible—was essential in preserving mental health.
- Community matters. Even from a distance, people caring for each other—volunteers, counselors, classmates—made the difference.
- Adaptability is a skill. Learning how to study, communicate, and live in a new format is a portable skill that will be useful long after graduation.
- Small kindnesses are huge. A handwritten note on a meal bag, a quick text asking “are you okay?”, made the darkest days lighter.
- Language bridges fear. Simple phrases in the local language created small crosses between cultures and anchored me in place.
- You are more resilient than you think. Endurance is often accumulated from small acts rather than grand displays.
These lessons felt less like moralizing and more like practical wisdom accrued from living through something disruptive and unexpected.
Chapter 12 — The Broader Picture: International Students & COVID-19 in Japan
My experience at Waseda was individual, but it echoed a broader narrative for international students in Japan and elsewhere. Universities scrambled to provide support—quarantine housing, counseling services, multilingual updates—and governments attempted to coordinate travel restrictions and health protocols. The challenges were systemic: visa uncertainties, travel disruptions, and financial strains weighed on many students.
Yet there were also successes. The rapid deployment of support services, the creation of multilingual information portals, and the volunteer networks that mobilized to deliver food and supplies showed a capacity for organized care. Waseda’s staff were transparent and communicative, an approach that should be a model for institutions anywhere hosting international students in times of crisis.
Conclusion — A Story of Survival and Growth
When I think back on those 21 days, the feeling is mixed: there is a thread of grief—for the simplicity lost—but also a strong sense of gratitude. I learned how to be alone without being lonely. I learned the mechanics of quarantine, the value of clear communication, and how kindness—often anonymous and small—became the scaffolding of daily life.
If you are an international student now facing uncertainty—about travel, health, or study—know this: logistical problems have solutions, but emotional resilience comes from habits and human connections. Keep a journal. Reach out. Learn a few words in the local language. Volunteer to help when you can, even from afar. Those small actions accumulate.
My 21 days at Waseda University were thrilling not because they were dramatic, but because they were transformative. They stripped life down to essentials and revealed what matters most: human connection, steady routines, and the courage to continue even when certainty dissolves. I returned to regular life different—more cautious, perhaps, but also more capable. The world was changed, but so was I, and that change has been, in its way, a gift.
Featured image suggestion: A quiet red-brick pathway on Waseda’s campus, with one masked student walking under gray winter light.
Alt text: Masked student walking on Waseda University campus during early pandemic.
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