Home sweet home!

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Well, we made it back!

We'll be doing back-blogs to cover the last week of our vacation, so keep an eye out for those to be posted soon. 😊

Our flight landed in Shenzhen at 10:40pm last night. It went smoothly, but we were quickly reminded that we were headed back to CHINA as we sat in the Bangkok Airport waiting to board our flight. One kid was let loose from his family every five minutes and ran around the waiting area like crazy, causing the Air Asia workers some serious distress. One of them actually threw up her hands and made a loud whining noise when the parent tried to run out of the security area to go get his kid. Across from us sat a young Chinese couple, shoving Burger King in their mouths. Every few minutes, the guy would not-so-discreetly lift his leg and let out a fairly loud, long fart. Um, what? Really, buddy? I MIGHT feel bad for you if you were having stomach issues or something, but you're sitting there munching on a hamburger, chicken strips and tons of fries...and we're right here! Does no one else hear this? His girlfriend seemed unfazed by it all. For a culture so concerned with 'losing face', it seemed a little strange..clearly he would have only lost face if someone had called him out on it. When it became too much for me to handle (ie I was dying of laughter), we stood up and moved away from the sitting area.

We boarded late, of course. While everyone was still sitting down, some girls came down the ramp, checked in and proceeded straight to the closed door to the plane, pulling on it numerous times before looking around and realizing- yes, EVERYONE ELSE IS WAITING STILL. This happens pretty much anytime you're anywhere in China. Maybe it's just a factor of there being so many people everywhere, I don't know. It's definitely weird. Then we went to finally board, and a woman deliberately cut me off, pushing her and her husband's boarding pass on top of mine. Lucky for me, the flight attendant gave the woman a stern look and punched mine first, letting me go ahead.

After all the announcements, given in English, Thai and Mandarin (although this language was pre-recorded, and it was clear the workers didn't speak much Mandarin), the flight attendants were doing their final cabin check and the guy behind Martin and I was ON HIS CELLPHONE. Just chatting, you know, like you do as your plane is pulling away from the gate. The male flight attendant had to tell the guy another 2 times to turn his phone off. The first time, the guy nodded and said "okay." Flight Attendant: "NOW!!!!" Martin and I sat, just shaking our heads and laughing.

Now, don't let these things give you a negative impression of China in general. These are things coming from two people who have lived in China for six months and spent time observing cultural differences first-hand. I know far too many people that say things like "Ugh, I would never want to travel to China!" Well, congratulations to you, you sound like one big fat snob. Give it a try someday, and THEN tell me your opinions. Americans can be just as ridiculous, if not more so.

We landed, got through customs fairly quickly, claimed our 1 bag and headed outside in the freezing cold air to be swarmed by taxi drivers. We'd previously had our contact teacher send us an email with the school's information in Chinese so that we could negotiate with the drivers at a late hour a little easier. They usually are reluctant to take us, as it's really only about a 5 minute drive and they wouldn't have a return passenger. This time, we had about 10 guys vying for our attention. One guy gave us an absurdly high price, assuming we were tourists and getting a shock when I told him no way and suggested a lower price in Chinese. We still paid a lot more than we normally would have, but we probably would have given someone $100USD to deliver us to our front school gate- it was cold, raining, and spending the night at the Shenzhen Airport doesn't sound too appealing.

Arriving at our locked front gate, I trudged up to the guard house and exclaimed "Nihao!", causing the guard on duty to give a HUGE smile and hurry around to let us in. It was adorable. We told him "Xin Nian Kuai Le!" to which he replied "HAPPY NEW YEAR!" back. 😊

And, we're back. It feels amazing. Sad to have the vacation over, but so good to be home in a familiar place. Both of us were shocked at how much we'd missed our campus and dorm. It's going to be hard to leave here in 4 months...

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Comments

[Mom/MD]

welcome back...glad you have some time to recoup from your fantastic vacation before you start back to work! Love you both!

[Elyse]

ahh
Pete and I laughed out loud at your blog as we are sitting in our hostel in HK right now. We experienced some familiar things with the plane and Chinese passengers. We are excited to be so close to home and to be able to relax. See you soon.