My travels began as planned. I said goodbye to my wonderful parents and set off on my journey. I took a flight from Charlotte to Detroit to kick off my journey. Short, sweet, and uneventful. 
Now in theory, I should’ve had a 1 hour layover in Detroit and been on the next flight to Shanghai however, this wasn’t the case. Because of delays I ended up staying FIVE hours in the Detroit concord-A section of the airport.
Now as boring as this may have seemed I actually got a good chance to get used to traveling on my own. The concord is about 2 miles long from end to end with about 80 or so gates. Not small. There were a lot of moving sidewalks and even a tram that ran on second floor to take travelers from one side of the concord to the other. All in all it was a very nice airport. Likely top three I’ve ever been to.
At about this point I realized (while decked out in sweatpant-joggers and a dirty t-shirt) that my first impressions when I got to China would be subpar. I figured “I’m in this massive airport, I’ll just buy some nice clothes.” And thus I did. I bought a fancy pair of shorts and I was ready to take on the world. The nice Indian lady who helped me find shorts that were just right also inquired about my travels. I filled her in about China, teaching, and Tru Experience (the company I am traveling with). Almost immediately she shoved a pen in my hand and “asked” for my email. Her daughter, dubbed “Sarah” (if that’s even her real name), is also interested in going to China and apparently will be in touch with me about it. I had no issue with this, as I am a beacon of infinite knowledge but the Indian lady’s attitude about it was humorous to me. She didn’t ask me for my email she told me to give it to her. And Sarah would be getting in touch. I’m sure she didn’t mean it like that and I was delighted to help but I chuckled. Chuckle chuckle.
From here, I exchanged all of the cash in my wallet to China Yuan. 1100 Chinese Yuan to be exact. It felt very weird to have these otherworldly slips of currency being the only physical money to my name but you know what they say…. “Yuan Yuan bills y’all.”
Finally it was time to board for Shanghai. Let me start by saying this plane was freakin huge. Probably the biggest commercial jet I’ve ever seen in my life. Like 3 stories tall. Like a Great Dane amongst poodles. It was big. And that was reflected inside. There were three columns of three seats totaling 9 people in each row. Which means there were two separate aisles (each aisle being manned by a separate flight crew) and about 300 total seats. Fortunately for me, I was seated at the first row of my section so infinite leg room PLUS the person I was seated next to moved to a different seat so I have the entire seat next to me to put all my stuff. It was rather glorious. But all in all, the plane ride was rather uneventful. 14 hours of bad airplane food, stomach-dropping turbulence, and tossing and turning trying to get to sleep. Not the best flight I’ve ever been on, but whatever.
I arrive in Shanghai. Because of the delay our plane doesn’t have a gate available so they take us to a “remote gate” and shuttle all 300 of us on busses back to the main airport. The entire airport is DEAD. Like we’re probably the only passengers left in the airport. We have to go through customs but first they take all the “aliens” and take us to machines and take pictures of our face and collect finger prints for all 10 of our fingers. This data is now cemented to my name via my passport, so that’s fun I guess. We’re waddled through immigration and then customs and I’m finally freeeeee-nope.
At this point an airport staff member flags me down and asks where I am going. “I have a connecting flight tomorrow, I was going to find a place to sleep in the airport.” This wasn’t the correct answer. He explains that I cannot stay in the airport and that I need to get a hotel. Fortunately, that classic Chinese hospitality kicks in and he flags down a “hotel staff” (as indicated by her name badge that she motioned towards about 3 times). Truthfully, I have no reason not to trust them but also the only thing that separates them from everyone else in the airport is a tiny badge. Whatever- adventure awaits. I follow them through the airport and the guy pulls his car around. I load my luggage in the back and the three of us take off into the city.
They are speaking Chinese about as fast as an English audiobook set to 3x speed. Now, I know very minimal Chinese so I wasn’t expecting to understand much. And yet somehow, I was disappointed at the fact that I literally knew nothing. At one point they asked me about this and I responded with ”你好，我的民资是威廉。” Hello, my name is William. They both lit up and repeated Weilian a few times in understanding. It was a cool feeling to briefly break the impossibly large language barrier, and something that I look forward to doing more and more throughout this year.
They drove through the city and eventually plopped me off at a fancy hotel. Thank the freakin lord. The entirety of the time I spent with these two employees I was on edge. I wasn’t sure if they were going pull a gun and ask for all my luggage and money or bamboozle me with an outrageous service fee for what they were doing. They seemed too generous and free willing with their services. I mean… other than a commission they weren’t getting a whole lot out of helping this dumb-looking American kid in the middle of the night. Especially because the hotel was 15 minutes out of the way from the airport. I was friendly and mostly relaxed but while they were racing Chinese back and forth my mind was racing with contingencies. What could I live without? What would appease them without ruining my trip? Could I talk them out of it? It was an honest relief to get to my hotel room with my safety and belongings.
The room was about the same as an American hotel room but with an extremely strong Chinese flair. Who would’ve thought? I made some tea, wound down, and went to sleep. Thankfully through very deliberate effort, I experienced almost zero jet lag in transitioning from the 12 hour time change (outside of natural traveling fatigue). What a long, grueling, and fantastic day it has been.
William Tate 