Tuesday, November 21, 2000
Art had the idea that we should take public transportation to the airport, like we did when we went to Ireland. It was cheaper than any other option, to be sure – only $4 for both of us. But it would require a total of three bus transfers, and I remember being hot and tired before the plane even took off last time, so I negotiated. We agreed to do the public transportation on the way home from the airport after our trip, and to take a shuttle to get there.
We arrived at SeaTac at 10:10 am, over two hours before departure, but we still got assigned the last two seats available together. (Actually, this didn’t turn out to be the case. We got the last two side seats together – the five-seats-wide center section of the 777 was empty from Seattle to Tokyo.) The desk agent checked our passports and visas so carefully that I thought there might be something wrong. No suspicion, though, just intense scrutiny. The agent said they are responsible for making sure we have what we need – that they will be fined if we do not have all the required documents.
The packing we did last night, a little differently from uual. I’d made a list on the whiteboard of things other than clothes that we might forget (eg glasses, travelers checks, toilet paper, anti-diarrheal medications, an herbal supplement called No Jet Lag to be taken during our flights). Laid everything out on the bed in the guestroom. Took a look at everything and then decided which luggage to take. We ended up with the two largest rolling pieces, the two carryons and my little backpack. We actually did get all our clothes into one suitcase – but we needed a second one for raingear and shoes. As it turned out, all we forgot were Art’s wedding ring, his dress shirt and my lipstick.
A couple of weeks before we left I’d asked Grace, a Chinese-speaking colleague, to say some simple phrases for me so I could write them down in my own phonetic system. Among the phrases I requested were, "Hello", "Thank you", and “Where is the toilet?”
I understood that the spoken Mandarin Chinese language is tonal – there are four tones: flat; rising; falling; falling and then rising. The meaning of a word can change depending on the tones in its syllables. I knew, further, that the written Chinese character carries the meaning of a word or phrase, but not the pronunciation. That people in China speak various dialects that might not be understandable to each other but, if shown the character, all will know the meaning. To make spoken Chinese easier to learn, a phonetic system called pinyin was created. This system translates the spoken Chinese into syllables and the Roman alphabet, with the various tones indicated by diacritical marks.
On the way home from work the night before we left, I picked up a couple of Mandarin phrasebooks at Barnes & Noble. One of them used the pinyin and the other was in phonetic English. I looked briefly at each book. It seemed to me that the pinyin, though harder to learn, would result in more accurate pronunciation, but the phonetic English version would be easier. I wondered which book we would end up using.
Wednesday, November 22
We lost a day in travel over the International Date Line. We left Seattle at 12:30 pm on Tuesday the 21st. After a ten-hour flight, we arrived in Tokyo at 2:30 pm on Wednesday the 22nd.
We’re sitting in the Tokyo airport, watching for our friends Bob and Shari Connors, who are flying in from the East Coast, and waiting for our connection from Tokyo to Shanghai. The flight from Seattle was uneventful. The 777 was only half full, with more seat- and legroom than on the smaller planes. I watched Erin Brockovich, Autumn in New York and Frequency on a six-inch monitor on the back of the seat in front of me, also following the dynamic map as the plane flew northwest to Alaska and then around the east side of Asia and down to Tokyo. I am so accustomed to a “world globe” view of the earth that I expected us just to head west across the Pacific. It was interesting to watch the map rendering of where it was night and where it was daylight – the long oval shadow I’ve seen in maps on display in shops in downtown Seattle.
It’s 4 pm in Tokyo on Wednesday, November 22. I’m trying just to move forward to the local time rather than thinking that it’s midnight in Seattle. I see signs mostly in English and Japanese, and our American money is good here in the airport shops. The airport is new and beautiful with a sparse, non-Western, angular look to it. The musical tones that precede announcements on the public address system have just a suggestion of Asian tonality. In the restrooms, the automatic faucet water comes out in a spout – I like it! – and the soap dispenser yields up soapmousse – I like it too!
It seems to me that the Japanese concept of “personal space” is not so distant as ours. I am close to other people and it doesn’t seem to bother them, but it makes me feel jumpy to be in such close proximity to strangers when there’s other space available for the taking just a few feet away.
I commented to Art that, when we were in Ireland last year, we could “pass” as long as we didn’t open our mouths, but here it’s very apparent that we are from somewhere else. But the people, Asian or not, have a western look – clothes, luggage and demeanor. How odd that 60 years ago this country was a national enemy.
As usual, Art got stopped at the metal detector. Usually it’s a coin holder or glasses. This time, though, it was his carry-on bag, which he had to open it for the inspectors. Turned out the culprit was his Leatherman implement – a square piece of metal that unfolds into multiple small tools. It must have looked like a weapon to the Japanese security person watching the x-ray machine.
The flight from Tokyo to Shanghai was on a full 747, cramped and noisy. A group of several families traveling to Shanghai chattered across the aisle from me for nearly the entire two-hour flight. One of the women was sitting there, and the others came over to talk. By this time I was very tired, and I was tempted to say something nasty like, “Ladies, can you hold your chat until we land? This is not pressing business you’re doing, and I, the center of the known universe, need some quiet.” But that would have required that I make amends of some sort, and I don’t like making amends. So I kept my mouth shut instead and managed to get about an hour’s sleep.
We landed at the year-old Pudong airport in Shanghai. It is a beautiful, cavernous, stylish airport with very shiny floors, high ceilings and striking, angular tubular lighting. At 8:30 pm there was not a soul in that airport except the workers and the passengers from our plane. A hundred and fifty of us shuffled around until we finally formed quiet lines for passport checks. The checkers wore military uniforms and they did not smile. The lines moved slowly. For some reason I didn’t feel impatient at the pace. Maybe it was because I was exhausted by this time, or maybe it was just that I was very aware that we were in a non-Western country and things are done differently in other places. I was willing to wait.
Once through the passport area, we found our luggage. As we emerged from the baggage carousel area, we saw two men carrying “Best Tours” signs. That was the name of the travel agency that had made the arrangements for our trip, so I figured they were there to pick us up. Eventually, about 40 tired-looking Americans had gathered. By now it was 8:30 pm Shanghai time.
One of the sign carriers instructed us, in broken English, to remember, “You are bus number two.” We were led outside, where we waited for several minutes for shuttle buses to arrive. I heard muttered complaints from several people in the group. “My God, this is so disorganized….I would expect a tour agency to be more efficient…. These people barely speak English.” Personally, I was glad to have been met and to be following behind a person with a sign who spoke both Chinese and English. Again, for some reason, I was in no hurry and was fairly relaxed. I had acquired a vacation attitude. Art always acquires his vacation attitude the minute we pull out of the driveway and head for the Seattle airport, so he was okay with the confusion as well.
Eventually we were herded onto bus number two and started off for Shanghai, about a 40-minute drive from the airport. Our guide’s English name was David. His English was hard for me to understand – he sounded like Kathy, the travel agent. I found that if I stayed quiet and listened carefully, I could make out most of what he was saying. David talked about the new airport and gave a us a general description of Shanghai and some of its history.
The city of Shanghai has a population of 14 million, and today it is as sophisticated and cosmopolitan as Hong Kong. It has a colorful, decadent history, but since World War II it fell into a state of deterioration. It’s only been in the last ten years that the city has been revitalized. One of my reference books says:
Since 1992 the city has experienced a frenzy of activity reminiscent of the heady speculative years of the 1930s, when the “Paris of the East” came of age. Shanghai is again in the throes of a physical, economic and social revolution destined to restore the city’s former status as an international centre of trade, finance and culture.
We drove through the city at night. The neon lights were impressive, as was the traffic. Buses and autos competed for road space, honking and moving aggressively from lane to lane. By this time I was so tired I wasn’t worried about our bus having an accident. The old phrase, “If it’s my time, it’s my time” came to mind again.
We arrived, finally at the Shanghai Hotel. One of my reference books describes this hotel as follows:
551 rooms….Operated by the Shanghai Tourism Bureau, this is a hotel which has to make little effort in order to compete for business. Tour groups are its specialty. Centrally located.
In other words, a government-run hotel.
So here we are, dozens of exhausted Americans, most of them well over 60, accompanied by their Chinese tour guide, converging on the desk of the hotel at nearly 10pm. Naturally, a few of the group members had reservations for the next night rather than the current one. They were, of course, denied a room.
The outcome was a display of American temper, threats and loud insults to the desk staff. One woman in particular, a heavyset Californian, was particularly belligerent. In a strident voice she commented on the inefficiency of the hotel, the travel agency and the Chinese in general. She compared the chaotic scene to other, more sophisticated places she had been around the world, and Shanghai definitely came out on the short end of it. Meanwhile, most of the rest of us waited patiently to register. And, of course, the tour guide did some fast talking and got the complainer a room – without receiving thanks or gratitude.
As he did his work, another tour member informed the group loudly that she had stayed in this hotel before and it was “a dump – I’ve stayed in other three-star hotels in this city and they were lovely.”
Sometimes I’m grateful to work in a cubicle!
Our room was on the 16th floor, a nonsmoking floor. It was a little worn but it was clean and the beds were firm and comfortable. That was all we needed. We were asleep within ten minutes of arriving in our room.