A Post From The Wooden Bed

There is a light mist of toxic rain falling outside, and my plans for this Saturday have subsequently been...dampened. There will be no going into town, and the East Coast has succumbed to slumber. It's 4pm here, and there's not much to do but eat some Chinese Ramen and drink State Banquet Beverage Coconut Juice with my iTunes on shuffle. Kanye and Coldplay have done a lot to lighten my mood, and I feel like I might turn this whole day around before it's all said and done. I unfortunately missed the lunch portion of White Weekends, but my anticipation is already mounting for dinner. From Friday evening to Monday morning, our boarding school is devoid of Asians, and the cooks prepare our dishes accordingly. They dispense with the pig's blood soup and fish-with-all-the-bones, and bring out the ham-fried rice, dumplings, and fried chicken. This, of course, is glorious news. Teaching is over for the week too; even Chinese kids don't have school on Saturday. Cleaning my apartment is always a good idea. Daily life in China can dirty up a place pretty quickly. Couple that with my psychologically fascinating laziness, and it's quite a mess. It's just a hideous menagerie of pirated DVDs, H&M bags, and empty Coke cans. I've been pretty prolific lately about keeping in touch with my family and friends. Once I discovered I could text through email, the wifi room has been my second home. I love the technology, but I just hope my friends are as on board with it as I am. Derek Overload is a very real possibility. I came here to travel, and my payment for that opportunity is that I must teach. What's it like for me to teach groups of tiny Asian nuggets? Just as you think it would be: stressful, rewarding, and hilarious. Anyone who knows me well might be alarmed that I'm entrusted with anything, let alone a child. Certainly my legendary impatience, biting sarcasm, and occasional lapses in judgment would be the more negative points on my teaching resume. But anyone who knows me really well knows that I actually like little kids. They're like tiny sources of constant amusement with their crazy worldviews and adorable little faces. And until they reach a certain age, there's really not much they can do that bothers me. Most of the time. It's just really awesome to watch them learn and grow, and to know that they have so many great years ahead of them. As a teacher, I want to make their lives easier and more rewarding. I feel like learning English helps them do that. And if all goes to pot and they end up working at Tesco for the rest of their lives, at least there will be someone who can tell me where the incense is, instead of staring at me until I give up on trying to ask. My desire to help these kids is what gets me out of my terrible wooden bed every weekday. And believe it or not, it's really not all hard work. I'm the Kitchen teacher here for the next few weeks, which means I really just have to come up with things for these nuggets to eat. Every time I pour water into Jell-o or spread peanut butter for Ants On A Log and watch their faces light up and little brown eyes widen with amazement, it really does validate all my efforts. Most of my kids are so great and attentive, and the ones that aren't are easily disciplined. In fact, being a Kitchen teacher is nothing more than a constant exercise in bribery. "Be good or you don't get food!" It works literally every time. Thursday, though, was a ridiculous disaster. I had been sick the day before, and didn't get the chance to buy my supplies for the day's lesson. This meant that as the Kitchen teacher, I had no food. I don't feel like I need to explain to anyone that this lack of preparedness resulted in a colossal failure. I walked into my first class with my palms sweating and my eyes visibly displaying fear. Several of the kids had already voiced their anticipation earlier in the day about what they thought what was their upcoming meal. "Teacha Derek! Eat-a! Nood-ur-les! Jell-o!" I tried to walk away before any commitments were made on my behalf. I knew I had to come up with something to say to these children, and even more importantly, something to do. I wanted to walk in and tell just tell it like it is. "Teacher Derek was shaking with fever last night and could therefore not go into town to buy yogurt and apples for your fruit dip. So instead, he decided to come into class empty handed and is obviously screwed. Now, please allow me to get through this day without anyone falling out of one of my third story classroom windows. And more importantly, without Teacher Derek violating his ILP contract by grabbing you by the shoulders and shaking you until you stop shouting in Chinese and hitting each other. Your cooperation and forgiveness are much appreciated." Unfortunately, their grasp of the English language does not enable them to understand hopeless pleading, so the monologue went more like this. "Today, we're going to play Musical Chairs. Do you know what that is?" Most of the kids were on board. I was patient with the ones that weren't; why pay attention to an unprepared teacher? I asked for song suggestions, as my laziness and fear had effectively jammed my brain's creative center. All of the kids began shouting "LADY GAGA" in unison. They were perplexed when I proceeded to roll with laughter. I was laughing so hard that I was afraid I might have to trot over to the squatter. I told them if we were going to do Lady Gaga, I would need a volunteer singer. Then I stood by and supervised as a half dozen Chinese children sang "Bad Romance" and walked in a circle, fighting over plastic chairs. It was a YouTube quality laugh riot. The next class didn't want to do musical chairs, so we played a game of structured, English-rich catch. This obviously devolved in about 4 seconds, and the class ended with a little boy named Caesar accidentally throwing the ball out of the window just as we were learning how to say "Don't throw the ball so high!" The other kids in the class ran to the windows, and I followed, frantically grabbing at them as they leaned out to see where the ball had gone. And poor Caesar, with all the blame- "Et tu, Teacha Derek?" I quickly lined them up for the next class and cast my eyes upward, thanking Government that the classes were only 25 minutes long. My final class proved to be the most difficult of all. My voice was hoarse from singing, and I was exhausted. Of course, this class contained my worst students. I ushered them in, flustered and spent. I attempted to line them up, and my eyes fell on one girl in particular, blathering away in animated Chinese to the girl standing next to her. "TINA! No Chinese!" It's Rule #1 of ILP. She continued her ceaseless drivel until I had to physically angle her chin skyward to my face. "Tina, no Chinese." She opened her mouth and laughed loudly in mockery, revealing her 8 tiny, rotten teeth. And thus started my lesson. "Okay class, we're going to play musical chairs." My response was a fart sound from one of the boys and another smattering of Chinese from that fool Tina. I instructed them in the rules, and asked them to pick a song. They all looked at me as if I had just asked them to recite the Pirate's Code backwards and continued their previous shenanigans. "How about '5 Little Ducks'?" It was a quick little rhyming song one of the good kids had taught me earlier in the day. I put the chairs in a circle and the kids began to trudge around, unimpressed. Then the boys started sitting in the chairs prematurely, determined not to lose. "No! You only sit down when Teacher Derek stops the song! FIVE LITTLE DUCKS WENT OUT TO PLAY, OVER..." My lesson was rapidly deteriorating into a terrible educational abyss. This was about the exact moment that my head teacher, Sam, walked in to evaluate me for the week. He came in as I was screaming "Five Little Ducks" at the top of my lungs, peppered here and there with "NO CHINESE!" I stuffed Tina into a chair with one hand as I grabbed King by the collar of his sweater with the other, my throat getting raw all the while. The kids were running and screaming, undeterred by Sam's presence. I watched him out of the corner of my eye as he wrote what had to be the worst teacher evaluation in history on his clipboard. After his time was complete, he gave me a sympathetic chuckle and left the room. I knew the damage was done, and spent the last few minutes of class trying to keep the kids in some semblance of order, while also restraining myself from smacking their ridiculous little faces. When class was over, I opened the door and released my little hellions out into the world. I collapsed, feeling pretty ashamed. I knew it was the lowest point of my teaching so far. Fortunately, my week was over. I shrugged off my teacher's apron and took a minute to collect myself. Fortunately, when I was presented with my pitiful evaluation, Sam understood. He told me he knew I wasn't at my best, and that he would re-evaluate on Monday when all my foodstuffs were in line. I decided I needed a trip into town, where I bought a 6 Yuan McDouble and a few 5 Yuan DVDs and tried to end the day on a high note. Thankfully, most of my days aren't as pitted with setbacks and stumbling blocks- very few of my days are "Thursdays." People always get really corny when they teach- "the kids teach me," they say. And while I did learn a pretty catchy new nursery rhyme from one of the kids, I know that I never go in to class expecting to learn anything. I'm here to teach, I go to college to learn. Plus, I'm the one who knows all the Engrish already. I already know how to share, how to make Jell-o, how to play Red Rover. But as I crawl into my wooden bed each night, bathed in the subtle orange glow of my $4 heater, I realize I learned something every day too. The well-behaved children don't ever teach me anything; they just make my teaching experience worthwhile. It's Tina who teaches me patience, Roofio who teaches me that sometimes kids just act out because they aren't being challenged enough. And every day I can't help but reflect on those little inadvertent lessons. And while I'm pretty sure that teaching isn't in the career cards for me, these children are preparing me to be a better husband and father someday. These kids help me have fun and help me to see the good in everyone, even when it's really, really hard. They might have a whole other language to learn, and it just so happens to be the hardest one on Earth, but I'm the one who needs to grow.
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On a completely unrelated note, people have been asking me for pictures. Here I am, obliging.

                                          (some of ) The Nuggets

                                          Shanghai Skyline

                                          Changzhou Street

                                          Me and Kylee

                                           Behold, my toilet! That other drain by my shoes is for the shower. Yeah.

                                          My Apartment

                                          The Awesome Bullet Train!!!!

                                          The Sketchy Shanghai Street Market

                                          Shanghai Traffic

                                         Me, Jennifer and Carlie

                                          My wooden bed and little heater.

Shanghai(ed)

Well, I've found my Washington, D.C. of China. It's called Shanghai. At only a 45 minute bullet train ride away, it is the unsurpassed weekend destination for Changzhouians. I suppose that's what we're called. Oh, and yes, I did ride a bullet train. Zipping along past apartment block after apartment block at 397 km/h (whatever that means), I was only one turtleneck and baguette away from feeling like a full fledged European. I must admit that the high speed train is one area in which the Land of the F**e and the Home of the B***e really needs to catch up. However, they do have toilet paper and soap.... So... I guess it's a tie. Except that it's not. But I digress. This bullet train eventually dropped my fellow teachers and I off in the hustling Asian bustle of Shanghai. At 16 million people, it is by far the largest city I have ever been to. When we did some sightseeing across the bay from the Bund, (that funky building that looks like the Sunsphere in Knoxville except Chinese-size) I felt like I was on that planet in Star Wars that is just one giant city. There were multiple skylines, just like L.A. Except Shanghai has even more smog. And fewer douchebags. The streets were much less crowded than I expected, which is a good thing for sure. I definitely didn't need anyone stealing my trillions of Yuan out of the knock-off Louis Vuitton wallet I had just gotten from that ancient, senile street-peddler. There was a lot of that there. And all of us White folk have a lot of financial clout in the Orient. Nothing warms the hearts of crafty Asian merchants quite like a crowd of naive college aged Americans. One glimpse at a lock of blonde hair or a pair of sunglasses and the sidewalks of Shanghai would burst with the off-key siren song that would lure us all to our financial demise- "YOU WAN BUY JEANS?!!?" "PURSES, BAGS, VEWWY GOOD PWICE!!" "SUNGRASSES, JUST YO STYLE! GOOD QUARITY!!" The best approach was to just keep walking; any sign of weakness or even the slightest interest would result in a 25 minute bartering session with a person who is trained in nothing more than the art of constantly ripping people off. The bartering was exhausting, and we all walked away knowing that we had been screwed. No matter how low the price got after incessant haggling, I was still perfectly aware that the man selling me those "True Religion" jeans was turning a handsome little profit. This is bad news to me, as China has a reputation for being the metaphorical Filene's Basement of the retail world. Or at least its TJ Maxx. The first day's shopping was exhausting and fruitless. I walked around some dimly lit hovel of a market at the request of the 5 girls I had split off with. They decided to leave after we watched an enormous rat crawl out of a shirt and up a pipe. This was, unfortunately, AFTER we had browsed that market for the better part of 4 hours. When we met up at Papa John's with the rest of the group, we were bombarded with details of their grand retail shenanigans at the Science & Technology market. Apparently, their market was rat-free. But what really piqued my interest was that they actually sold stuff for dudes. I knew where I was headed the next day. After paying 108 Yuan for pizza and Coke (which was more than the train ride to Shanghai, mind you) I decided I needed a massage. We went back to the hostel for recommendations, giving our sole stipulation- that the massage parlour NOT be a front for human trafficking, and set off to the specified address. Conveniently located behind the Kentucky Fried Chicken (which is about the most high class joint in town over here, for some reason) was by far the fanciest massage parlour I have ever seen. There were all sorts of funky Asian chandeliers, marble floors, and European-looking paintings. When my appointment time rolled around, I was told to remove my shoes and was given sandals and a weird wristband and led down the hallway. I was either about to get a massage, or be initiated into some sort of Chinese cult. Luckily for me, I was shown to a room with a velvet covered massage table and given a set of pajamas that were for some reason covered with tiny renderings of what looked like the Mitsubishi logo. My masseuse arrived, and thereby commenced the greatest 60 minutes of my life thus far. I floated to the counter and gave the clerk the equivalent of $7 USD. Now THAT is more like it. After that, it was back to the hostel. Now, seeing as this is my first time abroad, I had never had the hostel experience. I knew that hostels were typically frequented by people around my age, and they have that whole "I go backpacking in Europe" stereotype. When I saw the lounge of our hostel, I immediately made one of my trademark Snap Judgements, and wrote the entire place off as nothing more than a petri dish of petulance and pretension. Fortunately for me, I was forced to give everyone a second chance. Later in the night, I talked to some girls from Moscow and Kiev and a guy from Denmark. Everyone was just as alone and eager to meet people as I was. People were friendly and the conversation never lagged. Before I knew it, it was 2 am. People started trickling off to bed. I was just about to do the same when 4 women came up behind me and started talking. They were heavily made up, but not pretty, and enveloped in an almost visible cloud of perfume. When I asked them where they were from, they said "Vhtruisrtjin." When I informed them that I wasn't familiar with that city, one girl made an incredulous face and proceeded to mock me. "Vhat" she said "You ave never heard of Russia?!" My mistake. By your accent, I just assumed you were gargling stones. It wasn't until after they disappeared into the Shanghai streets at 3 in the morning with their miniskirts and thigh length boots that I realized I had just met my first gaggle of prostitutes. My suspicions were confirmed when I saw one of these women leave the room of a redheaded man the next morning, and walk right back out on the street. Work that corner, Olga. The next day was spent with me haggling until my throat was raw, saying the only Chinese phrases I have learned so far- "too expensive" and "don't want." As the weekend progressed, I remembered how much I loathed traveling with groups. Everyone has his or her own agenda, and this particular bunch of people is disgustingly inflexible. Also, 3 or 4 of them happened to be "Shanghai Experts" even though no one in the entire group has ever set foot in mainland China. It was nothing more than the arrogant blind leading the pissed off blind. A couple of people in particular really creamed my corn (to keep it PG) and if I was told "what we should do next" or led to the wrong subway transfer one more time, I was gonna backhand some people. Look, fool, you are from Podunk, Utah. You wouldn't know a subway if you were run over by one. When this same girl admitted 5 minutes later to never having ridden a subway, I could feel my hairs fraying. I suddenly pined for home, where I hand selected my traveling companions based on their excellent personalities, agreeability, and hilariousness. Traveling was always a breeze. I could count on my buddies to put up with my quirks, and we all had an air of mutual flexibility. DC groups, I'm talking to you. Hold your heads high, knowing you passed a series of rigorous tests with flying colors. Yes, I am that insane. But I figure if I'm going to be spending a few days in a Residence Inn with people, they had better be awesome. Too bad I didn't get to pre-screen my Chinese traveling companions... I had many Shanghai Shenanigans nonetheless. And my time in the hostel especially cemented my addiction to traveling. Couple that with the massage and I think I could really get used to this.

Squatter's Rights

I have only been in China for 10 days. And people, it has grown on me. I've already adjusted to the 13 hour time change, a feat I never thought I'd overcome, and I am fitting right in. Well, as much as a 6'5" White American who speaks no Chinese possibly can. I don't even know where to begin. So I will start with my apartment. I was given a key shaped like a Phillips-head screwdriver and led down the hall to my unheated room. The living space is pretty large, but smaller than all the rooms in my house. Then there is a sink area with a window and a shower/"squatter" combo that I will discuss later. The decor of the room is what I would call "Communist chic." Whitewashed walls, an exposed flourescent lightbulb, and a tabletop fan mounted to the ceiling. It came pre-furnished with an armoire and broken television, and of course a bed. I took a table and some chairs from an empty apartment and ta da! Home. The heater is controlled by some outside force or entity (I think the Government) and will cease to function whenever it pleases. Once it decides to stop providing me with heat, it cannot be turned on again unless I go outside and reset the electricity for my entire apartment. This happens multiple times per day. And I'm the lucky one. Other teachers report non-functioning heaters, no electrcity, and missing lightbulbs. In addition, my apartment came equipped with a microfridge, microwave, and nugget sized washer. I am therefore King of the People's Republic of China. My most reliable heat source is a space heater I bought from Tesco yesterday. It cost me 28 Yuan (about $4.50) and does a very good job heating the 3 feet around my head. I keep it right next to my face at night while I sleep. I think that's why I woke up to the smell of burnt hair this morning. My surroundings are squalid, but I couldn't be happier. I roll with a pretty peppy bunch here at ILP. I get along with almost everyone here; it's in my nature to be social. My happiness comes not from the people I am with, but mostly from all the foreign experiences I am having. Even though some things about China are strange, and even depressing, I'm enjoying everything. Every day, I eat 2 meals out of a tin bowl with tin chopsticks. I don't know what the food is. I don't ask. I just eat. It doesn't taste good, and it looks even worse, but I still get seconds. I would never do that in America. I bought some food at Tesco. Western-ish stuff. For example, I got a bag of what I though was beef jerky. It had a picture of meat and a campfire. Pretty self explanatory. This was a terrible falsehood. When I opened the pack, I was assaulted by a smelly brown substance that had never been anything even resembling meat. It was sitting in a broth. Further investigation informed me that the substance was "100% (Chinese characters). Obviously, I have no idea what that means. It could be 100% Angus Beef or 100% cat poop and I would be none the wiser. Part of the appeal of beef jerky is its versatility. Meaning that I can eat with my hand, directly from the bag, in my bed. My bed, which appears deceptively comfortable, literally has no mattress. It is actually a raised platform made of wooden boards. Yet every night, I pull a blanket up to my chin, and let the Tesco heater do the rest. My toilet is a hole in the ground. In the same area where I shower. My shower is filthy, yet I bathe in it every day. I brought Irish Spring, a strong-scented soap, fully prepared for the stankiness I would encounter in China. Little did I know, the water stinks too. I could shower in Chanel No. 5 and when I rinse, I will smell like the Yellow River, just like everyone else. I brush my teeth with bottled water. There are no garbage cans in the entire People's Republic. Also, there is not a great deal of soap. The filthiness of it all would make my mother perpetually vomit. The people? They're actually great. I am a celebrity here, finally. My height and Whiteness make me quite the public figure. I want to subtly convince the Chinese that I am in the NBA. In the event I am challenged to show my basketball skillz, I will politely decline, pointing out that my ankles aren't insured in the Pacific Rim. People stared at me while I shopped yesterday. An older man even followed me around for a few minutes. People peered into my cart, wondering what foreigners required for sustenance. The coolest part is that they will often buy the exact same thing as me. This level of emulation is undeserved, unprecedented, and perfectly awesome. Everyone is friendly. As I was browsing the milk tea section, a woman advertising Lipton came up to me and gave me her schpiel. In Chinese. "Rfbgoodafbjn-ednboldknsl sldvnkljnfb. Anhgvosfnbofhb owsofbosfn bjsfbondojbnso spdknspng. UJiosfnbgnlskns sdoijngonsobg." This continued for about 2 or 3 minutes. Apparently at no point did she see or understand that my pallid face and English stammerings that I don't speak annny Chinese. I eventually picked up her box, said "xia xia" (or however you spell "thank you" in Chinese) and sped away ashamed. 1.25 liters of vodka, at 5.80 Yuan (about 75 cents) was cheaper than juice (9.90 Yuan or about $1.50). Milk is about $10 (65 Yuan) and comes in small boxes. There is basically no cheese. And driving? Fugged about it. It's a disaster. One girl in our group got hit by a couple of dudes on a motorcycle on our first day. (She's fine, of course) Drivers honk to remind people they are on the road, that's it. And there are a surprising amount of expensive, foreign cars here. It's odd to me to see a Mercedes at a stoplight while on the other side of the street, a toothless man is urinating on the sidewalk. But I guess that how it goes here. And I am both impressed and horrified by the lack of "pansification" here in China. For example, there are no wet floor signs, no smoke detectors, no health codes, minimal indoor heating (you can even see your breath in Tesco) and no FDA. It's nice that the government here actually believes people have common sense, but I am used to being warned- the coffee with steam billowing from it may be hot. A recently mopped floor is wet, and so on. I've actually adapted to some of the nuances of Asian culture I once considered ridiculous. The best example is the slipper. In Tennessee I go barefoot (shocker) and only put shoes on outside. In China? I have a ridiculous circus of shoes. Immediately after stepping into my apartment, off go the shoes, and straight into slippers. A trip to the bathroom requries a seperate pair (I'm not about to track squatter water all over my house) and the only time I am barefoot is in bed. I used to laugh internally at the slipper, thinking it was a ridiculous, complicated and outmoded tradition. Now I understand that people just don't want poopy water on the floor of their home. This seems reasonable. Shanghai is a grand ol place too. Twice the size of New York, and still no one will take my American Express. Really, China? Really? Pull it together soon, please. I want to like you, I really do.

Up in the (Korean) Air

You were promised a tale of my journey from the rolling foothills of Northeastern Tennessee to the smog-filled streets of China; well, here it is. Tuesday night, my last night at home, was spent packing. My family room became a metaphorical deli counter for suticases. Scales and piles of clothes
littered the floor. The weighing and re-weighing was seemingly endless- each checked bag had to weigh less than 50 pounds. Anyone who knows me knows that with the sheer amount of clothes I have, this was certainly an ordeal. It was an endeavor that required a lot of undignified stomping on my luggage
and straddling my bags just to close a zipper. When the last bag had surrendered to my desperation, I went to my temporary bedroom for a few hours sleep. The next morning, I woke up in eager anticipation of my last American shower. I couldn't wait for the blistering, lava-hot water and the jet stream of water pressure. Who knew if China could provide the same showering satisfaction? The water was freezing. However, my tiny morning rampage fell on deaf ears; it's kind of hard to feel sorry for someone who was about to set off on the journey of a lifetime. After several false starts, we finally left the house. We sped along through Virginia listening to Colin Cowherd on ESPN Radio, with DC getting closer by the mile. The next step for me was dinner at my favorite restaraunt- Filomena Ristorante in Georgetown. It has the best Italian food I have eaten thus far in my entire life. And at $40 an entree, it's just the kind of awesome Western gluttony I needed before my long trip. Once we hit Reagan Airport, my mood darkened a little.. I came to the realization that I had never traveled alone. And here I was with 3 flights ahead of me and not a second of international
traveling experience. Of course, we all know how friendly airport workers are. So that definitely made things easier for me. Thanks, TSA, for doing your job with a smile. By the time I had boarded the plane in DC, I had pretty much lost faith in the decency of mankind. As a product of the American South, I expected smiles and kindness, and was met everywhere with cold indifference. Clueless expressions and a complete lack of knowledge about the minutiae of traveling didn't help matters too much either. By the time I was in my seat, I was forlorn. An exhausted flight attendant mumbled the safety procedures and we took off. Country fried hillbilly that I am, my face was plastered to the window as that awesome, sinking stomach feeling of takeoff spread through me and the plane sped upward. Once we leveled, I took a second to look around the plane. It was like a cigarette with wings. It was, without a doubt, the tiniest form of air travel I had ever seen. I half expected the flight attendant to give us instructions on how to prepare for the upcoming parachute jump.
But it never happened. Approximately 45 minutes later, all dozen of us were on the ground at JFK. My time in New York was spent trudging from terminal to terminal- endless lines and luggage mishaps contributed to my exhaustion. When I had reached the Korean Air counter for the second time, I was a sweaty disaster. I handed my passport to the woman at the counter (who I thoughtfully nicknamed Jersey Shore) and I was informed that I could pick up my "luggages" in Shanghai. I quickly realized that this flight was going to be different. The gate was full to the brim- mostly with Koreans. Their chanting, sing-song language filled my soul with horror. I looked around and found some White dudes, and they were even right around my age. But they were less than welcoming. After some eavesdropping, I realized they were military men of some sort. They took one look at my Kindle and Sperrys and decided I wouldn't really be much use in a conversation. Even though I was 4 feet away, and the only other English speaker in the vicinity. For 2 hours. Thanks, guys. Semper Fi, or whatever. I lugged by broken duffel bag up the ramp an onto the most giant plane I have ever seen in my life. There were 2 aisles and 7 seats per row. And over 100 rows. I didn't really have time to take it all in; I was too busy attempting to shove my 7,600 pound duffel bag into the overhead compartment. It didn't work. I was being glared at by scores of pissed off Koreans, until a 90 pound flight attendant whisked my bag away to a larger compartment. After firmly establishing myself as the village idiot of the entire plane, I took my seat. By this point, I had literally never felt more alone in my entire life. I missed my parents and my friends.I knew there was no turning back, but I didn't want to go home. I just wanted someone to have a conversation with me. Fortunately, an English speaking Korean businessman seated right next to me did just that, and thus restored my faith in people. Over the course of the 15 hour flight, he told me what in-flight meals were best, and how to eat the Korean foods I was being given by the incredibly hot
 Korean Air stewardesses. The conversation periodically lagged, and I watched a few movies in my complimentary in fight slippers. Now this was the life. I fell into fitful sleep, not knowing or caring what time it was. When I woke up, my flight companion informed me that we had just flown over the North Pole. It was the coolest thing I had ever done. After I had been given some advice and wished good luck by my new friend, I "de-planed." As in all other flight-length comeraderies, I never learned the man's name. But he had done me a lot of good, being helpful and friendly when I needed it most. I will never forget the feeling I had when I took my first steps into the Incheon Airport. I looked out the windows, wide-eyed at the unfamiliarity of it all. The tiny, foreign cars. The Korean scribblings on every sign. The roof of my mouth was dry as my mind tried to take it all in. It was my first time outside the Continental United States. I was bewildered, excited, and scared. For a lifelong travel fanatic, it was the bizzare and amazing realization of a long held dream. I floated through Incheon, by this time a far more seasoned and confident traveler. I found my gate quickly, and scoured the airport for a Starbucks, with no avail. I then waited for my group to arrive from LAX. They came, and we left for Shanghai. We quickly formed bonds over bean curd, and my mind was finally at ease. We had all touched down in Shanghai, most of us for the very first time,
preapred for adventure.

Mountain Sunrise Doorknob

As my departure to China creeps closer and closer, I'm getting a little less confident and a little more- well, petrified.. Of course, there are a lot of things to be afraid of.  The way people talk, Communism must be the bedside reading material of Satan himself.. I suppose it's not really the Marxism, but the implications- no free speech, no internet, a decrease in the emphasis on personal liberty and the value of human life blah blah. Trust me, people, I have been sufficiently warned. But even the totalitarianism doesn't scare me too much. It's just a giant nuisance, a metaphorical thorn in my freedom loving side. Nor am I scared of traveling by plane, large cities, or being tricked repeatedly by crafty Asian merchants. As naive as I may be, I feel pretty prepared in all those aspects. No, the thing that has me running scared isn't dangerous at all. It's the Chinese language. Every time I see Chinese characters- on my work visa, in my address- even on a pack of takeout chopsticks- my palms start sweating. Since my subtle arrogance knows no bounds, I consider myself something of a linguist. I picked up Spanish pretty quickly (retention is another matter entirely) and I enjoy learning about the subtle nuances of foreign language. I feel like if I traveled to Europe, I would know that a pastecceria would be a place to get bread and little desserts and that I could probably use a telefono to call people. But Chinese? Really? All I think of when I see those characters is those little stick figures hanging from the trees on The Blair Witch Project. They literally mean nothing to me. I could see a sign on a building and not know whether it meant "This is where you buy fish!" or "This is where a person comes to be disemboweled and thrown to the hounds." This lack of knowledge could cause some problems.. I do plan on speaking some Easy Chinese- the Easy version of any foreign language being shouting what one wants in English at the top of one's lungs- until I learn a few useful words. Some apropos examples for me include "PLEASE REMOVE THE BEAK AND FEATHERS FROM THAT CHICKEN BEFORE YOU SERVE IT TO ME." Or "IF YOU THINK I AM PAYING OVER $3 FOR THAT JADE LION, FEEL FREE TO THINK AGAIN." I'm sure my behavior won't do much to help eradicate the stereotype of Americans as pushy, obnoxious people who refuse to adapt to or respect the cultures of others, even when they are guests in that nation. But I never said I was out to change the world. I think I can get a handle on the speaking, the various chings and chongs will hopefully roll right off my Anglo-Saxon tongue. But I don't think I'll ever grasp those pesky characters. I did get a useful suggestion from a friend, however. She told me instead of attempting to learn a 5,000 character lexicon, why not just see what the characters look like and say that instead? It is, after all, a language of pictures. I started with my work visa. Let's see... "houseboat, lantern, toaster oven, stool." My friend then pointed out that if I said these words in rapid succession with a Ms. Swan kind of voice, it sounded something like Chinese. So, until Wednesday, a good Treesubwoofersmallchildeatinganapplewindowpane to you all.