Arrival To China

January 4^th or 5^th?

After almost 20 hours of traveling, I was finally arriving to Shanghai Airport. My back ached, but my nervous excitement was enough of an anesthetic.

The girl from Macau sitting next to me had written down some essentials in Chinese characters for me: ‘How do I get here?’, ‘How much does that cost?’, and ‘Taiguile!’ (too expensive)…  It was going to be a mission to communicate, and to get ripped off a little less than the other foreigners did. I was surrounded by mostly Chinese, but was surprised to see the many Western faces—speckling the crowd like salt in the Asian Pacific.

 

My plan was to stay the night in Shanghai at a hotel with some fellow GEPers. Maybe we’d party, and then catch the bus arranged by Zhejiang University the next day to take us to our new home, Hangzhou.

I finally landed at the Shanghai airport… it was massive, but I certainly didn’t get that ‘I’m in China’ feeling yet... I was expecting to be overwhelmed by so many bodies—like my mom had described her first experience of India (times .25). But nothing like that happened….a few lion statues, some Chinese characters in the hallway…a monosyllabic conversation with the customs lady (xie xie)…I collected bags, exchanged money, and went out through the arrivals gate toward my Chinese destiny.

Suddenly, that ‘I’m in China’ feeling finally crept up on me...  There were a lot of people: staring, holding signs, yelling into phones, smiling, mumbling…a deafening buzz of Mandarin that I didn’t understand at all. I just kept pushing my suitcase-piled cart through the mob…trying to commandeer my way towards the metro, catch all the right trains, and make it somehow to the heart of Shanghai—People’s Square. From there I would recite the written lines to direct the cab to my friends’ hotel. Despite the comfort of having my trusty Frommer’s Guide to Shanghai (complete with a list of walking tours)—I’ll admit, I was a bit fearful of getting lost. I swerved my cart, looking for that universal ‘Metro’ symbol when—“Seb!”

How the hell does anyone know my name? I clumsily swung myself around to see...Nezar!—the picture-taking, Mac-loving Bahraini of the GEP—exchanging his Euros for Yuan. It was good to see him and all, but my class wasn’t supposed to arrive until tomorrow. What the hell is going on? My greeting back wasn’t so gooey and warm: “What are you doing here man? Why are you a day early?” Nezar just laughed—“Dude what? Our whole class is here, they’re all waiting at KFC.” What? “Wait, but that’s on the 5^th, today is the 4^th right? The 4^th?” Nezar kept laughing and shook his head—“Nah man, it’s the 5^th!” 

Shit. What the hell had happened here? It was some Twilight Zone freakiness…I was trippin’, disoriented, very confused... My itinerary had said that I left Washington DC at 7:30 am on the 4^th, and that I arrived the same day in Shanghai at 3pm. There was no change in date, god damn you. I was supposed to party with my friends at their hotel in Shanghai tonight… then calmly meet the rest of the GEP class tomorrow…???!

After calming down and talking it over with Nezar, it seemed that I had unintentionally crossed a little something called the International Dateline. I had lost a day of my life somewhere over Russian Siberia... Damn it. Oh well. I was just happy that Nezar had spotted me, or else I would have been lost somewhere deep inside those maze-like tunnels of that mammoth of a metropolis that is Shanghai…

Anyways, I was reunited with my GEP classmates in the KFC a day early. We’d taken over most of the place with our suitcases and carts. There were exchanges of hugs, smiles, and snide remarks over my near-disastrous arrival…we quickly eased back into our familiar groove. At KFCs in China, shrimp chicken is wrapped in noodles, and you can also get your wings with miso soup or tea… Things were somewhat familiar but drastically different—as would become a recurring theme. Eventually our amazing Chinese classmates came to our rescue (another recurring theme), and escorted us all to the bus which would take us to Hangzhou.

    

We left the airport parking lot, GEP together once again, staring out of our bus windows. This is going to be something big, another one of those pivotal moments… The streets of Shanghai were dark and shapeless…we quickly came out onto a highway… billboards flashed in Chinese and English, industrial complexes loomed…in the distance of the countryside, specs of light flashed in the blackness. Many of us fell asleep on the 2.5 hour journey. We stopped to eat rice balls with bits of pork inside. I liked it, but almost gagged when I bit into a piece of pure fat.

Eventually we arrived in Hangzhou, to the gate of our new home: Xixi Campus, one of 5 campuses that are part of Zhejiang University. I stepped off the bus onto a busy street with tall buildings, sputtering bicycles and cars, smokey stalls and flashing electric signs…not quite the scenic beauty I’d envisioned when Hangzhou was described to me. We went into our small concrete city of a campus—suitcase wheels tumbling over cracks…many stray cats scavenging for food and clothes hung out to dry in the winter wind.

After some brief paperwork and passport copying in the lobby, we were finally able to get into our rooms. Rob—my saucy South African roommate—was already there waiting for me. We embraced and observed. Our new home looked pretty comfortable…softer beds and warmer showers than we’d ever had in Lyon.

   

Of course, someone from the GEP cohort had acquired celebratory beer and whisky. Soon enough the echo of screams reverberated throughout the hallway, and the partying in the rooms began. An unfortunate Chinese student asked if we could keep it down (hopefully not another recurring theme).

Eventually we tired ourselves out; everyone crashed. I was still feeling excited before drifting off to sleep. Unexpectedly, it was the night of the 5^th of January.

I was in finally in Hangzhou, and tomorrow was my Chinese birthday.

-Seb