{Seven Stories} China: A Story of New Experiences

I was running through the crowded Shanghai airport, panting, dragging my bulging carry-on behind me, trying to keep up with the airport security man who I hoped was leading us to our airplane. Michelle was next to me, her face worried and her eyes scared. I glanced at a clock on the wall of a terminal as we passed: 12:13. Our plane was supposed to take off at 12:15. We're never going to make it, I realized. The security man was talking urgently into his walkie-talkie as we finally approached our terminal. I looked out the large windows in front of me. The sky was surprisingly blue, free of smog for once. There was the never-ending Shanghai skyline in the distance. There was our plane. And there was the retractable walkway, slowly pulling away from the closed door of the airplane. My stomach filled with a twisting, heavy fear. How ironic, I thought, that after all those weeks of dreading the thought of leaving China, I might not make it out of China at all.

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I sometimes wonder what my parents thought when I called them out of the blue during my first year of college and told them I wanted to move to China for 4 months, teaching English. I don't even remember their reactions on the phone, other than them telling me that it was basically my decision; I was an adult now. I was 19 years old and so full of anxious excitement that I hardly heard a word they said. I had already made my mind. I was going to China.

Seven long months after making the decision, I was in an airplane in the early hours of the morning, looking out the tiny window in awe at the islands of Japan, glowing spectacularly far below me. That’s when it hit me how really far away from home I was. I felt only excitement, though. We had left the Salt Lake airport on Wednesday morning (Utah time), and finally arrived at our building in Longshan late on Friday night (China time).  The beds in our little apartments were literally nothing more than some thick blankets folded on top of wooden mattresses, but I have never slept better than that first night in my new home.

I suppose it would be cliche to say that China was a whole new world to me, but it truly was. Oddly enough, I never really felt "culture shock" the way people said I would, because I expected everything to be different, so it didn't make me feel shocked or uncomfortable when it was. What did make me uncomfortable was using a squatter toilet. I do not lie when I say it was a month into my stay in China before I successfully used a squatter. Luckily our apartments had regular toilets. Also uncomfortable was sitting in a crowded bus (or train, or station, or taxi) and having cigarette smoke blown in your face for hours on end. I am so grateful for non-smoking zones in America!

 In reality, what surprised me most about China wasn't the squatters or the cigarettes, the litter or the smog, the chopsticks or the chicken head soup. What surprised me most was the people. I will always be grateful for my experience in China because I learned that people of foreign cultures and backgrounds are incredibly different, yet inherently the same. People are good, kind, friendly, and helpful. I can think of so many specific instances where we were helped by complete strangers who took compassion on us, the young American girls without a clue. Every time I heard the phrase, "Hello, I speak English, can I help?" my heart would just fill with gratitude and love.  Even the people who didn't speak English (which would be most of the people I met) were kind and eager to be friends. I made friends with people I never spoke more than four words to. Like Xiao Mei, the wonderful “noodle lady” in Longshan. And the woman who owned the trinket store, who didn't speak a single word of English but gave us a discount and a smile every time we shopped there. There were also the college students on the train to Beijing whose English was about as good as our Chinese, but still we managed to play several rounds of “Go, Fish” together to pass the time.  

And of course, there were the children. I taught about thirty kids, ages 3-6 in the kindergarten at the boarding school where we lived. The kindergartners lived in the same building as us, so we saw them every day at mealtime and play time, and class time. They adored us, and we couldn't get enough of them. I cried some tears during my time in China because I missed my family, but I cried a thousand more over my "China kids," especially the last week of teaching. On our last night in the Ningbo Guanghua School, we gave each kindergartner a good-night kiss and hug. I cried because I loved them and I knew I would never see them again. Some of the children did not understand that we wouldn't be there in the morning, but the ones who did cried right along with us. I can think of only two times in my life when I have experienced real, traumatic heartbreak, and this was one of them. It's been just over six years now since I said goodbye to those angels, and while that ache in my heart has shrunk over time, it still throbs when I think of their sweet, silly faces.

We left Longshan about two hours earlier than we had originally planned, thanks to the advice of our dear friend and coordinator Anny.  She was worried that we might not make it to the airplane on time because of the heavy fog that was moving in overnight. She was right to worry. As we neared the airport in our two school vans loaded to bursting with luggage, we could barely even see the cars directly in front of us on the busy freeway. And then suddenly, all we could see were brake lights. Everywhere.

By some miracle, both drivers managed to steer our vans around several out of control vehicles until we came to a stop--without hitting a single car. The van I was in was completely unscathed, but the other van was rear-ended by a truck. Luckily the truck managed to slow down and swerve before hitting them, and the accident was very minor; just a dent on the far right of the back bumper.  On the other side of the road was a particularly bad 7 or 8 car pile-up. I can only attribute our safety to God, because we never would have avoided that wreck without a miracle. We were unhurt, but we were stranded on the freeway for over an hour. As the fog lifted, we realized that we could actually see the airport from our position, and it was extremely frustrating realizing that we were so close, but couldn't go anywhere.

We finally made it to the airport with about an hour to spare before our plane was supposed to leave. We thought we would be fine and told the assistant coordinator, who had been traveling with us, that she could go home. As it turns out, we were very much not fine. Due to some mix-up, we had all packed carry-ons that were way over the weight and size limit of the airline. We tried to re-arrange our luggage to fit more things in our checked bags, but we had so much stuff already that there was no way to cram any more things into our giant bags. We realized that we would have to pay a hefty sum to check the bags we thought we would be carrying on, but some of the girls had no way to do this.  

The airline employees seemed indifferent to our plight. They either didn't realized or didn't care that we were supposed to be leaving the country in less than half an hour and had no way to get all our luggage on board. I guess they thought we were just more snobby, demanding American tourists.

We were becoming quite frantic as the minutes ticked away. I don't remember quite what happened at this point, but Michelle and I left the rest of the group and went ahead. I think we had our luggage situation figured out, and so we volunteered to go through customs and security to see how long it would take. After standing in the customs line for probably twenty minutes, we realized that we were never going to get all of us through customs and security in time. We ran back to the lobby where we had left the other nine girls and.....they were gone.

Michelle and I both started to panic at that point. We had no idea where the other girls were. Michelle started saying, "What do we do? What do we do? What do we do?!"  She was totally freaking out. I was freaking out too, but I realized something at that point. I am not usually the leader, take-charge type. I am content to let others take the lead and give directions. However, looking at Michelle I realized that she is not the take-charge type either. Well, one of us had to be if we were ever going to get home. So, I did the only thing I could. I made a decision.

"Michelle," I said, "we need to get to the airplane. If the other girls are there, great. If not, we can wait for them there. At least we'll know we're not being left behind."

We ran back to customs and begged a security guard to let us go to the front of the line. He sort of rolled his eyes at us until we showed him our tickets and he realized we literally had minutes until our plane left. Thankfully, he became our advocate from then on, and spoke the magic words into his walkie-talkie to hustle us through customs and security.

We made it to our terminal just in time to see the walkway pulling away from our plane. Luckily, security guard with us was able to contact the workers at the terminal, and as we ran up they put the walkway back up to the plane and ushered us on. At that point I wasn't feeling any better, because we still had no idea what had happened to the rest of our group. As they opened the door to the plane, however, and pushed us in, I saw our tearful head teacher Nicole and a few other girls from our group, including my cousin, standing there anxiously waiting for us. I was so overwhelmed that I didn't even have time to react before we were all hugging in relief and gratitude. It wasn't till later in the flight that they were able to tell Michelle and me the story of how an airport worker had seen them and taken them through some sort of off-limits shortcut to the terminal.

The flight attendants quickly directed us to our seats, as we were already late for take-off. An attendant kindly brought me a cup of orange juice because she thought I must be pretty upset. I was grateful for her kindness, and I sipped the orange juice as I looked out the window. I happened to have a row all to myself, and took the window seat so I could watch the Middle Kingdom shrink beneath me as we ascended. I was in a lot of emotional turmoil, and I needed a minute to sort through my feelings. Half of me was extremely relieved that we had, in fact, made it out of China. The other half of me was devastated because, well, I was leaving China! It was a lot to process.

I was glad to have those few minutes during take-off to just be by myself. Once we were in the air, we all got together and recounted our stories and our relief that we had all made it, and our sadness that our adventure was ending. The many hours home on the airplane seemed so short this time, and before long I was once again in the arms of my family.

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A few days after coming home, I was out with several good friends at a church activity at the bowling alley. Everyone around me was having a good time; talking, laughing, playing like average young adult Americans. Sitting in the dimly-lit room, with the music loud and the neon lights bright, surrounded by friends, I suddenly felt tears in my eyes. I felt completely alienated from these people. Completely alone. It dawned on me that I was finally experiencing “culture shock.” It was at that moment that I realized how much my time in China had changed me. And while I quickly became accustomed to life at home, I still missed it all: the hard bed, the questionable food, the other teachers, and the smiling faces of my students. I may never go back to China, but I hope to someday bring my family over to experience the wonderful land and people. Maybe it will change them for the better. Maybe they will fall in love.