I was thankful to leave Shanghai when we did. I was tired of the smog, tired of the zooming scooters and beeping horns, and tired of the concrete jungle. I longed to see flowing water that wasn’t slime green and looked like your skin might melt if you touched it; I am certainly not made for big cities. We had been told that the people of Chengdu live life at a slower pace and that its cleaner out there. With that in mind as I awoke on Saturday, I was excited to make the taxi journey (which is always an adventure, more in a sec) to the airport. First, taxi caveat: taxis drive like there are no road laws in China. One night on a drive from Shanghai to Jiading, the taxi driver would slow a little as he approached a red light, look both ways, lay on his horn, and drive through the intersection. We stopped at 2 lights in an hour and most every intersection we went through was red. The driver to the airport exuded particular dominance of the roadway in a maneuver that almost made me pee my pants. Needing to turn left at an upcoming intersection that was red with traffic filling all the lanes oncoming and with us, he swerved into the oncoming lane as the light changed and split the oncoming traffic, somehow darting in a small opening. He didn’t even flinch, but I sure did in a major way. On the drive I was once again struck by how big everything is here. The overpasses we went under are mind-numbingly tall and wide, the power lines are stacked taller than the ones feeding Las Vegas, and it just keeps going and going and going. We got to the airport alive, whew, and got the run around with the airlines.
Looking back on it, airlines in China are not used to people with lots of baggage. Standing in line to check in, I was amazed with how little people were checking. Even families of 3 only had a bag the size of a carry-on to check, and here I was with two bags to check and two carry-ons. At the desk, the lady looked at my passport, my ticket, and at the two bags on the scale and said, “you are overweight, sir.” (I’m sorry, its all that delicious food around the campus we were at, its not my fault, really, its just that I haven’t been able to run in awhile and and and…. Oh, that’s not what she means) Thus began the Chinese airlines run-around. I had to go to another desk which sent me to a supervisor desk because my middle name was wrong on my boarding pass, to which to supervisor just crossed it out on the boarding pass and wrote it right. Then I had to go back to the original desk and give them a piece of paper from the first desk that said how overweight my bags were. Then I had to pay them 25 RMB per kilo they were overweight, amounting to 500 RMB (~85 USD). Oh, but before all of this I had to go to a special bag screening room where they opened one bag and exclaimed when they found my computer battery in it and said I had to carry that on. And finally, with the receipt in hand, back to the first desk to get my boarding pass back, which had been held hostage while I paid. If the overpriced fee didn’t dissuade you, the runaround at the airport is enough to keep you from packing heavy in China.
The airplane plowed through a fog as thick as a blizzard; indeed, I could barley make out the hangers on the side of the runway as we took off. I had looked forward to a glimpse of Shanghai as we left the city behind us, but the smog and clouds were in too deep of an embrace of the city. Up and up through the gray we climbed, emerging into a world of rich blue sky that stretched from horizon to horizon. I smiled. I think the only windows that were open on that flight were the ones with Americans next to them- the Chinese keep them closed for all of the flight and glare at you in annoyance if you do not comply with the same rules (more to come on this). It was a beautiful sight (I realized that in two weeks I had forgotten how blue the sky is) and I couldn’t get enough of this world that extended as far as you could see, the ground a rolling and billowing gray devoid of high rises, overpasses, highways, overflowing trash cans, fresh puke puddles, underpasses, and endless shops selling the same bottled drinks. For three hours, this new world was everything to me. It gave no indication of what was below us, what urbanization of the Chinese lowlands we were passing over, what geography or geology we were missing, except for one. Near the end of hour three, one solitary piece of black broke through the ground of grey of the blue world. It seemed daring, strong, resilient- it was the triangle of a mountain peak breaking the clouds, symbolizing the ground far below. What I view, I thought, to be a lone figure standing on that peak right then, to look around and see no other land as far as you could see. Passing over, I couldn’t tell if there was anyone standing on top of that mountain. It symbolized the west we were coming to, a ruggedness that I recognized, adventures to come, and it awoke excitement in my heart. After the mountain, we began our descent.
The sight that met the airplane window on the other side of the cloud bank almost made me cry. Green. Sichuan province was made of rolling hills covered in green. The fog was eerily the same as out east, but that green was enough to make me forget about such trifling matters. And that green seemed to continue all the way up to the runway. I left Shanghai peering out a window with a frown. I landed peering out with a smile.
Landing in Chengdu in a group of 6 was very comforting and fun- it felt like we were on some big mission together. (One small side note was that Luke couldn’t put down his book as we landed and when he finally finished his chapter as people were getting off, I saw the faint glimmer of tears on the corner of his eyes- an indication that what is to come in the books were are reading isn’t easy. He wouldn’t tell me and when I found out weeks later, I definitely shed a tear) We got our bags and passed through the gates of Chengdu to meet Dr. Zhou. She is a sweet lady- short and in her late 50’s, she speaks is if there isn’t any rush to the world. He English is great and carries on conversations with a laugh. She met us with a big smile and handshake, as well as an assistant named Nicole and a school bus. Awesome. We rode the next hour into Pengshan talking with Dr. Zhou about the school and our apartments and our classes and what we were going to do for the next week since we didn’t teach for a week and about our classes and about our….. She was a champ. In Pengshan, her second but main helper named Emily was waiting at a fancy hotpot restaurant for us (the staff had stayed late past closing waiting for us) and they treated us to an amazing dinner of hotpot mushrooms, one of the best meals in Pengshan I think, and maybe Sichuan. The server (fu yuen) said that there were 14 types of mushrooms in the soup, as well as dofu (tofu) and chicken. And there were amazing dishes on the side that I’ve forgotten about, but I can’t forget how happy and full I was that night. We didn’t talk too much once we got there, just ate and reveled in the thought that we were now home, at least for the next year. Emily took us to our rooms on the campus that night, and after a very short look around and exclamation that “this is incredible!” I passed out. First night at Sichuan University Jinjiang College and in my new home.
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