SHANGHAI -- Canadian consular officials failed Tuesday to gain access to 23 Canadians forcibly quarantined in northeastern China over the swine flu scare.

In a telephone interview from the Changchun hotel where he is confined, Montrealer Martin Leroy Deslauriers said: “The consular guy came from Beijing today but he wasn’t able to see us. He stayed for about two minutes. The Chinese authorities didn’t want him to see us.

“It is very strange because in the hotel, the employees, they don’t wear masks or anything. He could have just worn a mask and seen us, but the Chinese authorities told him that if he did, he had to stay in quarantine, too.”

The students have been sequestered since last Saturday when they were immediately separated from other airline passengers on arrival in Changchun. Each had his or her temperature taken and even though all were normal, according to the students, they were told to put on face masks and led to a bus.

Asked if he thought the Chinese authorities were targeting Canadians, Mr. Deslauriers replied: “Absolutely.”

Why? “ I think it is because we have about 100 infected people in Canada ... The [Chinese] government must have their reasons, but honestly, I think it is mostly symbolic.”

That said, Mr. Deslauriers, 26, is quick to joke: “We’re having a nice quarantine.”

“We can go in the yard, we can go outside, we have a ping-pong table, pool, and our teacher is giving us classes.”

He added: “The food is very, very good. I don’t always know what it is, but there is pork, vegetables, rice, noodles, soup, a lot of choices.”

The students, mostly from the Universite de Montreal with a few from Laval, in Quebec City, are still jet-lagged from their flight to China and still getting up bright and early, so it makes for long days with only exercise, one class and an ultra-slow Internet connection to break the tedium.

But Mr. Deslauriers says they are getting by fine, so far. “They have beer here, so it is easy to pass time with beer.”

He admits: “One or two people are very frustrated, but the atmosphere is good for now. But who knows, maybe in a few days it is going to be different.”

So far, all of the “health checks” during the quarantine have been self-administered. No doctor has come to the hotel and the students are being asked to take their own temperatures three times a day. They are supposed to report only if it is elevated, which no one has admitted to so far.

If everyone continues to remain healthy, the quarantine should end this Saturday and the students can begin their classes in earnest.

They are all in East Asian Studies and were supposed to spend 10-weeks doing an intensive Mandarin language course at a university in Changchun.

Since the students were quarantined, the Department of Foreign Affairs has added a new caution to its website, warning Canadians: “Travellers entering or exiting [China] may be subjected to medical examinations and, in some cases, quarantined for up to seven days for medical observation if they are believed to have come in contact with a suspected carrier of the virus.”