Surprises Pleasant and Frightening En Route to China

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No sooner had I cleared customs in Toronto than I heard a voice behind me say, "Hey man, I heard you say you're going to Shanghai too?" It was a guy about my age, who introduced himself as Silas, a 2009 graduate of Skidmore (my mom's alma mater!) who was returning to China, where he had studied abroad. He was going to study Chinese in Shanghai for awhile and look for work, though not of the usual English teaching variety; he actually had some sort of job working for Expo 2010 (today's version of the World's Fair, the 2010 incarnation of which will be held in Shanghai, just over an hour from Changzhou, and about which I coincidentally wrote a paper junior year at Vassar!) when he was last there. We had been chatting only a few minutes at our gate when another American, this one in his late twenties and reading a book in Chinese a few seats down, entered our conversation. His name was Max and he had lived and worked in China many times. He was heading to Nanjing (just under an hour from Changzhou) to do a Master's program in collaboration with Johns Hopkins. We all exchanged contact info, and it was quite comforting to know that these friendly, knowledgeable (and quite proficient in Chinese, at least to my untrained ears) people would not be terribly far away.

The flight to Shanghai was uneventful. Even though I only slept around four hours on the plane (despite having gotten only one hour of sleep the night before!), I managed the 14-hour flight just fine. The plane was only about half full, so leg room wasn't a problem, as I was able to put my laptop bag in the foot space of the unoccupied seat next to me . As some of my more aviatorily* knowledgeable friends predicted, we flew over the northern Arctic, which made for some incredible views and some disbelief that I actually was where I was. We landed right on time...I decided to put on a dress shirt over my turquoise Big Sibs 2003 t-shirt in order to look more presentable to the administrator, Monica, who was picking me up...I cleared customs without incident...I began looking for my bags on the baggage claim belt...and then panic struck.

I no longer had my laptop bag.

I realized that I must have left it on the plane, in the adjacent unoccupied seat's unoccupied foot space. I looked around in vain for someone in Air Canada attire, and I didn't see Silas or Max, so I rushed over to a desk where two airport employees were stationed. I asked if they spoke English ("Yīngwén?") and they said, hesitantly, that they spoke a little, so I told them I had left my laptop carry-on bag on the plane. They sent me to desk on the other side of the huge area, where they told me to go back to my baggage claim belt and find an Air Canada employee. None was to be found, so I asked another airport official, this one leaning onto the ridge overlooking our belt. He pointed me to a desk identical to the one I had just come from, this one on the opposite side of the area. By now a human sauna inside a dirty t-shirt bunched up under a polyester button-down and with my Vassar sweatshirt tied around my waist, I rushed over to this desk, where I was relieved to see the Air Canada logo among the many on the wall behind the employees. I explained my situation, and this time they responded swiftly and confidently, telling me to wait there while one of them went to retrieve my bag from the plane. Whew. They even let me go back to the baggage belt, where I picked up my bags and told Silas and Max of my misfortune. They both responded with that "Wow" that is at once sympathetic to the gravity of the situation but reassuring in its confidence that the problem will be resolved. I had been considering asking one of them to stay with me until the bag was returned in case I needed translating (in fact, I had long before the laptop incident already considered asking if one would stay with me until I had met up with Monica), but I decided against it.

Back at the desk, my bag hadn't arrived yet (it had been less than five minutes), so I waited and finally caught my breath. As I saw the last passengers from my plane leave the baggage claim area, I decided I should call Monica to let her know that I was here and that she shouldn't leave without me. I looked around and saw no payphones. So I pulled out my Verizon phone and made what will probably be the most expensive 45-second call of my life. I only had to wait about 10 minutes before I saw an airport official carrying my bag toward the desk -- enough time to start thinking about how easy it would have been for anyone to have taken the bag on their way off the plane, but not enough time for those thoughts to turn into worries. They made me sign some sort of form entirely in Chinese, whose previous signees seemed also to have left items on their planes. I finally left baggage claim and met Monica, though it took another phone call since she happened to be in the bathroom when I emerged into the sea of people holding signs, none of which bore my name.


*Grammatical consultation courtesy of Jesse Rosenthal ("not a chance").

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Photos

North Pole?
Couldn't quite see Santa

First photo in China
Driving from Shanghai to Changzhou