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Going home

By Frank James (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2011-06-08 09:15

Nervousness and fear filled my first few days in China. I arrived at the Pudong airport, in Shanghai, in the middle of the night, after an almost twenty hour sleepless flight. Not knowing what to expect, I slowly made my way through customs and was greeted on the other side by Mr. Li, a representative of my new school. Since my plane arrived so late, Mr. Li said that we would spend the night in a hotel before catching a plane the next morning to another city, Wuhan.

Frank James [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Mr. Li led me from the terminal to a taxi stand. After directing a stream of unintelligible Mandarin to the driver, we made our way to the hotel. Once there, my new boss asked me what kind of room I wanted. I wasn't really sure what he meant, but I didn't have much money on me, since the money exchangers in the airport were all closed when I arrived. So, I told him anything would be fine. He asked if a double would be OK, to which I replied that as long as there was a bed and a shower, I would be fine. Apparently, what he meant to say was "Is it OK if we share a room?", because that is what we ended up doing.

Since it was already well after midnight, and our plane would depart early the next day, and since I was already prepared to accept "cultural challenges", I didn't let it bother me. I quickly took a shower and crawled into bed, excited to get some sleep. Mr. Li, it seemed, had other plans. He spent the night watching TV. When he finally did fall asleep some hours later, the emotionally charged droning of Chinese television was replaced by the raucous snoring of a man wholly intent on keeping me and half of Shanghai awake for the remainder of the night.

My eyes opened with the early morning sun streaming into the open window the next morning and I felt more tired than when I went to bed. After another shower, meant to wake my still sleeping brain more than anything else, Mr. Li took one of my bags and led me downstairs, where we checked out of the hotel and got into another taxi. He once again let out an angry sounding stream of Mandarin to the driver, but this time the conversation lasted much longer. To my ears, it sounded like the two men were fighting over something, but what that was, I could not guess. Back and forth they went, their voices rising to near hysteria, before falling to the depth of implied threats and explicit promises. The longer the conversation went on, the more unnerved I became, scared that I had somehow unwittingly caused offense to the driver. Finally, the conversation ended.

"Is everything alright?", I asked.

"It's OK, no problem. We'll be at the airport soon", said Mr. Li.

I let that go for a few minutes, before curiosity got the better of me and I once again tried to understand what I had done wrong. After all, I thought, I'm going to be in China for a year and if I don't learn now, when will I?

"Are you sure? He sounded pretty angry", I said.

Mr. Li, who was sitting in the front seat, half turned to me and gave me an odd look.

"Why would he be angry? We were just talking", he said.