First couple of days in China

The flight over was very smooth. I was a little cramped on the plane to Tokyo because I kept my carryon under the seat in front of me. I wanted to have the laptop ready to go, but I ended up leaving it in the bag. I finished my book "Empire of the Sun" instead, and read the Wall Street Journal. How fitting that I read "Empire of the Sun"which is the novelized autobiography of a 14-year-old British boy who lives in Shanghai at the start of WWII and is held in a prisoner camp for ex-pats. The kid is always hungry and has a passion for military airplanes. I felt like I was in the movie because I was on an airplane listening to Japanese stewardesses and flying to Shanghai. I've got to see the movie when I get back - it's with John Malkovich. It's not really a "war movie" per se.

I also slept on the plane for 1-2 hours. The plane had movies to watch but they were all lame. The Japanese guy next to me didn't talk or say a word the entire trip. There was a family (mom, dad, 6-mo old baby) on the middle aisle and their kid was the calmest baby ever for a 10 hour flight. Not one peep until the descent.

Plane food was nice - choice of American style or Asian style dinner and breakfast. For dinner I took the Asian style: chicken, rice, Japanese salad, fruit, veggies. For breakfast, which was served at 10pm my body's time, I had American style: cheese omelet, sausages, fruit and a roll. The food was great with no residual effects we'll say.

In Narita airport in Tokyo I had just enough time to get off the plane, go through security and then board the next plane to Shanghai. I wasn't in a rush, but when I got to the gate they were boarding. As I walked around the airport I kept thinking I should have packed a lighter carryon. But then again, if I had packed my electronic equipment and they would have lost my bags I would have had regrets.

The flight to Shanghai was 3 hours, but it went by quickly because I was tired. They served dinner because it was 4:30pm local time. Then I slept because it felt like 2am. The stewardesses were mostly Japanese, with one Chinese and one American.

When I landed at Pudong Int'l Airport all the memories of my 2002 trip came back to me. The airport and all of China have lots of people standing around. Guards, workers, etc. It's not like in the U.S. where we employ the minimal amount of people to get the job done. For example, in my restaurant last night there were three servers, but they could have used only one. Most of the time the servers stood in the corner just talking among themselves. The restaurant only had 3-4 tables occupied.

I met my host Alex after going through customs and immigration. He's about my height and somewhat quiet but very confident. He grabbed my baggage cart and we walked outside to a van that had a driver. The driver took us to the hotel about 30 minutes away. The freeways were pretty empty although it was 9:30pm on Saturday night.

Alex has very good English and we talked about the hotel, teaching, etc. He lives near the university with his wife. He doesn't own a car, but he has a moped and a bike. All the roads except the back alleys have bike lanes. You could bike this place for days. I plan to.

A quick note on traffic: just as all the guidebooks and John Hough (taught for St Martins last month) explained, traffic is crazy. The painted lines on the road don't mean much. The bus I took yesterday went into oncoming traffic to pass a slow private bus. Bikes, scooters, pedetrians, cars and buses treat red lights with contempt. The street corners have green and red"walking men" lights but you have to look both ways no matter what the street light says. I saw one guy parked in the middle of a busy intersection (equivalent to Martin Way and Marvin Rd) on his scooter texting someone. Everyone texts here in China, probably not unlike the U.S. But this guy texting in the middle of the street surprised me.

Alex dropped me off at the hotel, but he went with me to the room because he was going to help me find a route to church. The hotel room is a standard hotel room with a bed, desk, closet, chairs, table with a tea set on it, and a nice curio-like shelf. The walls are thin and I can here people in the hallways and the TV from the room next to me. The hotel's not very full, though, so it's not that loud. The bed is hard as a rock, but surprisingly comfortable. The sheets are little light and I woke up at night a little chilled. Next time I'll bring pajamas. The room has a bottled water dispenser, but I need to ask Alex if it's safe to drink. I've been strict about bottled water from a sealed bottle only. The room has a nice TV with 49 channels, but about 35 of them are various versions of CCTV - the Chinese government TV. There's only one English channel, also a CCTV channel, which is pretty boring. There aren't any American channels or movie channels, so TV's not really an option. Cnn.com will give me more info than CCTV. The internet connection is good, so I'll stay plugged in to The Olympian, etc. The hotel is big with 16 stories, a conference center, restaurant, meeting rooms, etc. The lobby staff were good to give me coins so I could take the bus.

Sunday morning I woke up at 6am and read. I ate some of the snacks Breda gave me for breakfast. I showered and shaved and got in my Sunday clothes. Oh by the way, I left two important items at home: my brown and black dress clothes belts! That's OK, I solved that problem yesterday for about $8. I dressed in my brown slacks, cream colored shirt, jeans belt, gray sweater, hounds-tooth sportjacket, new brown comfy shoes and my black overcoat liner. It was the perfect ensemble for the weather. Temperature outside was about 45-50, but blue skies. Those brown walking shoes were the best investment I made because I must have walked 5-6 miles yesterday. Sidebar: this is just my type of tourism - no rest at all - visit everything you can and fill your day. Time spent resting is wasted time.

I was going to attend the Shanghai congregation at 8am, but I underestimated the time to get places. John Hough had told me about the bus so I took the #85 bus on the road in front of the hotel which takes me to the nearest Metro station. The bus costs 2 yuan, about 30 cents. The only problem was I took it on the wrong side of the street so it took me farther away from town. I finally found the Metro, but stations aren't as frequent as say Paris where they're on every street corner. Shanghai: population 21 million, only 9 metro lines.

By the time I got on the Metro it was 8:30am so I had already missed the Shanghai congregation. The Pudong congregation meets in the same building at 11:30am so I decided to stroll around the city center -People's Park - which was on the way to the church any way. Very few crowds on Sunday morning, but a few people doing morning exercises. I found several museums that I will come back to when they are open.

In short, I strolled around town for about 2 hours and then took the Metro again toward the West end of downtown where the church building is located. Funny thing happened on the Metro. An older gentlemen signaled for me to take the empty seat next to him so I sat down. He then tried to tell me I had a bad haircut and there was a hole in my head on the backside. He made a circle with his thumb and forefinger to show me the size of the patch of hair that is missing. He was really trying to be helpful telling me that some barber had done me wrong. I tried to explain my radiation by showing him the "tan" lines on my face, but he didn't really get it. My Chinese isn't good enough to explain radiation. Luckily I was getting off the train at the next station.

The church is a 30-minute walk (1 1/2 miles) from the nearest Metro station. Next week I'll figure out the buss chedule and get there quicker. I had an English character address, but Alex wasn't able to pinpoint on a map where the building was so I decided not to pay a taxi. Besides, the best way to see things is to walk. The Chinese are very polite and I feel much safer here than in New York, Paris or Amsterdam. Knock on wood. I should add that in the real touristy area of The Bund, the old banking houses from the early 1900s, there are plenty of people who ask "Where you from?" (sic) and then want to sell you DVDs or Rolexes. They see a lone American guy wearning a suit and tie and assume I'm made of money. I just ignore them and they eventually go away.

In the tourist trap Nanjing Road area I found a 7-story bookshop. They only had a limited selection of English titles at costs comparable to the U.S. so I didn't buy anything and won't be going back.

I found out there's a better English bookstore on Fuzhou Road, near Nanjing Road. If I run out of reading material, I'll head there. I heard it has really good maps.

Church is located in a building of villas, large homes in a complex surrounded by barbed wire and guards. The barbed wire isn't military style, but it adds some security. As I approached the backside of the complex to ask if I was in the right place, two guys standing guard (but not in guard uniforms) saw me and the first guy said with a laugh: "Let me guess you're here for 1720 Mira Lane Villa". OK, I don't speak perfect Chinese, but I understood 1-7-2-0 and body language told me the rest. Is it that obvious I'm American?!

The villas are a very fancy gated community with no lawns. I suspect they cater to foreigners. The church has no parking lot, but it was announced in the meeting as a reminder that all drop offs and pick ups should be made either on the road outside the villa near the Starbucks Coffee or in the parking garage that is shared by the whole villa. He said "please repeat this to your drivers" which leads me to believe everyone has a chauffeur or takes a taxi.

The church is not labeled on the outside because of the government policy of no proselyting. I arrived at 11am just in time to see the Shanghai congregation leaving. At 11:30am the Pudong congregation started. Church services were crowded in the first floor of the 4-story building. Typical group of ex-pats, mostly American, but at least one South American family, and several Chinese from Taiwan. I'd say there were 75-100 people in attendance. A couple of large families and then a hodge podge of young couples, middle aged couples and student aged young adults.

After Church I wanted to see The Bund. I walked back to the Metro and on my way saw a wine shop "Trader Zhou's" - pronounced Trader Zoe's - I took a picture because Liz would get a kick out of it. I also just about texted my brother Vaughn right away when I saw a Giant Bicycles bike shop. That was on my list of places to see, but I had no idea how to find one. The shop was a little storefront similar to all shops on the street level. The shopkeeper and his assistant were smoking and working on some guy's motorized bike. They generally ignored me after saying "Ni hao". The shop didn't sell anything for more than $200. No racing bikes, mostly the small fold-up style and cruisers. I found out I can pick up a cruiser bike for $35 at Carrefour, the French-owned "Wal-Mart" of Shanghai. Alex promised to take me to Carrefour this week. I might buy a bike, but I'll have to find out the shipping costs first. The guy at the bike shop said he doesn't sell racing bikes (I used my handy Mandarin phrase book to converse,which amazingly has a whole page about bikes). "Tai gui le" (too expensive) is what he said. I pointed to a poster of a racing bike on the wall and he said it would cost at least $1,000. The same bike would cost about $5,000 in the U.S. so my interest was piqued in the cost of a bike that would sell in the U.S. for $1,500 - perhaps 1/5 the price?! The bike shop guy gave me an address of another shop that sells racing bikes. I'll have the lobby people show me where it's at on the map.

After the bike shop I took the metro to The Bund, which is along the Huangpu waterfront. I strolled around the downtown and found a belt - I also found some neck tie shops I might come back to. Ties are $1.65 - can you believe it. I'm looking for a little higher quality though. I might have to pay upwards of $3 for the ties. I wish Liz or one of the ladies at the office could help me choose scarves. I'm lost when it comes to scarves. Scarf shops in Shanghai are as ubiquitous as chocolate and lace shops in Belgium.

A couple of other observations:
1) the one-child policy is very evident. I see very few kids, but the ones I do see are doted on by their parents. The kids are dressed to the nines and parents treat the child like a fragile porcelain doll;
2) it isn't uncommon to see young girls and young women walking arm in arm around town. Boys and men don't hold arms, but girls do just as friends.

When it started to get dark I took the Metro back to Pudong, the east side of the river where my hotel and the University are located. I ate dinner in the hotel restaurant. They allow smoking in the restaurant, which drove me crazy. I'm not sure how often I'll eat there. There are no "non-smoking" rooms in this hotel.

When I came back to the hotel room, I found a gift of apples, plastic wrapped pastries, and breakfast meal tickets to the restaurant from Helen (who works for the University) with a note stating that if I need anything to contact her or Alex and that Madam Jia (she's sort of the head of the business professor exchange program) will invite me to dinner.

Last night I reviewed my lesson plans and PowerPoint slides so I felt very comfortable with the program.

This morning I had fruit and pastries for breakfast. Alex met me at the hotel and walked with me to the University. The campus is small like a high school because it the business school of a larger university located many kilometers away. The campus has an interior courtyard with trees and statues. Four-story buildings encircle a dusty courtyard, which only has one entrance to the main street and has an iron gate and guards. This isn't surprising since every business in China has an iron gate and guards. The buildings on campus are very nice inside with tiled floors, offices for staff and teachers, a break room for the foreign teachers, and bottled water dispensers.

The business school has about 900 students, with the larger campus housing 20,000. Nearly all the students live in dorms on campus. I was introduced to the Dean of the school and my two TAs. I taught four classes today from 8:20 to 4:45pm with two 15-minute breaks and a 1 1/2 hour break for lunch. The classes are taught in an auditorium and have about 200 students. I showed the class a PowerPoint with photos of me and the family. The class oohed and aahed when I showed a picture of Liz and me. Then the class burst out laughing when I showed them a picture of the whole family. For the Chinese, a family of six must be like seeing an alien. I used my laser pointer to tell the students each child's name and age. I started with Hannah - 10, Zach - 8, Claire - 6. The chitchat got louder as I said the names and ages. Then when it came to Rhett I asked the students to guess his age. Almost everyone said "4" and I said yes which started another round of laughter. I explained that I was a finance major in college and every thing I do is very calculated.

Teaching class is tough. The room has no heating and in the morning it was colder inside than out. I think it was about 45 degrees, not kidding, in the auditorium. I taught with my suit coat and overcoat on but my hands were very cold by the end of the first hour. The teaching is done from a podium with no way to walk around. The class warmed up by the afternoon and I was fine.

All classes went well, but it's hard to guage student learning. One TA told me 20% of the students will understand a lot of what I say and 80% will understand only a little. The students have one hour of lab time in Chinese with the TA for every 3 hours of lecture. The lab time is where they learn the majority of the course, but listening to an American professor gives them the feel for business vocabulary.

Lunch between classes was in the cantine, a student cafeteria. Lunch costs $1. The menu today was choice of four items plus soup and rice. The menu items were tomato/egg casserole, pork balls, chicken strips (at least I think it was chicken), boiled wax-gourd cooked with carrots and celery (maybe?), spicy kelp, and two other dishes that I couldn't figure out. The kelp tasted great and the wax-gourd tasted like potato-leak soup. The food was very delicious. Chinese etiquette is different than American. In China it's polite to become one with your soup bowl and plate. Slurping is acceptable and even encouraged. No water or other drink was served with the meal. If you want a beverage, you have to buy a liter of bottled water for 1 yuan ($0.15) or a soda at the student store.

One of the TAs is a big bike rider, and he has a Giant bicycle. He rode his bike 1,000 kms from his hometown in Central China to Shanghai as part of a group of riders. He offered to take me to the Giant bike shop where they sell racing bikes.

After class Alex took me to his apartment and let me borrow a few DVDs - I hope they have English subtitles. He also let me borrow his mountain bike. I wish I had a picture of me in my sport coat and laptop bag slung over my shoulder riding through crazy Shanghai traffic in the dark with no headlights.

Alex warned me to stay away from the barbershops which are a front for nefarious activities. The haircut I got before I left will be OK for three weeks.

Now back at the apartment I just killed my first cockroach. It was small. At first I thought it was a crane fly. I probably won't sleep so well tonight and I'm starting to itch already thinking about what lives under my bed.

All in all, this is a FANTASTIC experience. Trip of a lifetime.

Tom