Noon came, and with it the sound of plastic rustling outside my door. I waited for the footsteps to grow faint as they padded down the hallway, followed by the ding of the elevator, then silence. I stuck my head out just beyond the threshold of the doorframe—and no further. We’d all heard the story, by then, of the woman who was fined $3,500 for walking down the hall in her quarantine hotel to retrieve boiling water for instant noodles. At my feet lay the telltale plastic bag, striped pink and white like a candy cane. And inside it, the squat, horizontal box that would be my resilient companion for the next fourteen days.

The Nokia 1110 can barely do more than send texts (it doesn't even have a flashlight). But in 2009, it was my only lifeline to the people of northern China, where I taught English in the small rural town of Taigu. Over a decade later—with US-China relations at a historic low—the Nokia 1110, for all its technological deficiencies, represents something aspirational: the renewed promise of cross-cultural friendship.

Read more at The China Project.