Arriving

THE PLANE RIDE

We arrived in China around 9pm, Chinese time after about 30hrs of travel (plane and layovers). It’s very hot and humid here. We got to the hotel round midnight. Some people actually went out in the city after we checked in (psychos?)

The plane ride was long but I met some nice new people I’ll be spending lots of time with. The reality of teaching set in. At first this had me feeling excited and then soon after very nervous. I originally looked at this trip as a means to explore China and “having to teach” to do so. But all the talk on the plane about teaching has me looking at this experience in a new light before it has even begun. Some part of me thinks I will value the teaching experience even more than the traveling…but I think it will be a good balance.

After we went through customs there was a huge group of Chinese people on the other end holding up signs for their expected parties, and blatantly staring at us. We were a group of roughly 50, as were they. There was definitely an awkward, yet innocent moment had. The reality that we were in China and there would be Chinese people everywhere set in and had me feeling giggly.

PINYIN/ THE WESTERN ALPHABET
We arrived at the hotel around midnight, which was about 45 min from the airport. I saw a lot of English signs along the way which were semi-comforting, but also made me disappointed as I hoped it would be less Americanized here. Actually the “English” isn’t so much English, but Pinyin (Google it) which consists of the same western alphabet but some letters sound different (x sounds like sh and q sounds like ch etc.). I don’t really understand its origins but I guess it’s a way for many western countries to translate Chinese into letters they can read. I think its Latin based (?).

POLLUTION
Stepping off the bus into Shanghai air was painful. The pollution was very heavy (especially mixed with the humidity). It smelled exactly the way downtown Manhattan and the Seaport area smelled during and after Sept. 11. This surfaced mixed emotions and associations I didn’t necessarily want to make with this new place. Aside from the pollution (or maybe it is the pollution?) there are some crazy funky smells all over this city, and when I say funky I mean bad.

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