Chinese eatery offers free food to foreigners stranded in Nepal amid COVID-19 lockdown

One week ago, 63-year-old Carole Poulin, who comes from Quebec, Canada, started working for a Chinese restaurant called Chinese Mee at Thamel.

The restaurant is a popular tourist hub for foreigners in Nepal's capital Kathmandu.

Cutting vegetables, scooping rice out of cookers and food from tubs into meal boxes for distribution, are her main duties in the restaurant that has been providing meals for stranded tourists like Carole herself free of cost since March 24, the day Nepal went into a nationwide lockdown to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

For foreigners, this complete lockdown, which will last till April 27, means they can't leave this Himalayan nation. All commercial passenger flights have been suspended until April 30.

At the same time, securing three meals a day has become difficult. Most shops and eateries remain closed, in compliance with an eightpoint order issued by a high-level committee of the government for the prevention and control of COVID-19.

Carole, a restaurateur before her retirement, takes great pride in helping out. "It's nice to do something for other people during the lockdown. Since I have no other choice but stay here, I like to be with people in this place."

Unluckily, Carole and her husband had to cancel their flight five times, owing to the continued extension of bans on international flights. Following this, Carole said that frankly they couldn't afford the expensive costs of the air tickets being offered by her embassy to be repatriated.

On April 11, a Qatar Airways flight departed the Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu, carrying 141 Canadians and 63 Australians aboard. After ten charted flights, more than one thousand travelers successfully returned to their home countries in a similar way.

Like Carole, around ten foreigners from France, Italy, Japan, Vietnam, among other countries, joined the Chinese Mee as volunteers while enjoying free meals there.

Some worked as cooks, others as cleaners, some as dishwashers, together making a contribution to the 100 square meter restaurant now seemingly serving the world.

The number of coronavirus cases in Nepal has topped 30. The strictly implemented lockdown has made the once bustling streets at Thamel deserted, but during the allotted time everyday, the lane where Chinese Mee is located, is full of people from the four corners of the globe, standing in one or two lines waiting for their turn to be served.

Pan Bei, another volunteer who hails from China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, is presently responsible for maintaining order at the restaurant. Dressed in white protective clothing and holding a packet of masks, she is extremely busy when on duty.

She frequently calls those queuing to order, instructing them to stand in two lines while keeping physical space between them. When someone is found not wearing a face mask, she will take out one from the packet and help him or her put it on. If some people smoke in the line, she swiftly tells them to stop.

Li Liang, the Chinese operator and his followers usually prepare three hot dishes and two side dishes, and classify them into three types. One for pure vegetarians, one for semi-vegetarians with eggs and one for meat-eating people.

Pan traveled to Nepal for sightseeing in March. The lockdown was issued on March 24 and the hotel she was staying at stopped serving food suddenly. Aimlessly she searched everywhere and stumbled into the Chinese Mee restaurant nearby.

"I have never done odd jobs in a restaurant before and I do not know how to cook for myself. But so many foreigners like me now want to do something that is meaningful," Pan said, adding that not idling away her time makes her happy.

Some Russian travelers learned about the free meal supplied by the Chinese restaurant through social media, so they decided to come together.

Among them, one young girl said that she had since visited many times, remarking with a smile, "Chinese food is yummy!"

During the past two weeks, the Chinese Mee restaurant has served more than 6,000 people in need, though Li said this is nothing to boast of and he has done so willingly and happily, and he has been receiving help from other locals and businesses.

"It is a great pandemic. It is the right time to show love in its broad sense," Li told Xinhua.

(This feature was released by Xinhua on April 21, 2020)