Shanghai'd - First Impressions

First impression as my plane was landing and I was looking out the window? Why can I see the air? It looks ... thick.

So my luggage and I made it to Shanghai, China safely. The airport was pretty quiet when we got in (6:15pm China time, 3:15am USA time). I had to go through the “Foreigners” line (go USA!). My plan was to just to smile nicely and not speak Chinese. Play the clueless American card. Went through everything pretty quickly, claimed my luggage, x-rayed my luggage again (If I can get on the plane with it, why can’t I leave the airport with it? Oh yeah, it’s China) and went through the exit. They had told me that there would be someone holding up a sign for me, but I saw no one. I decided to circle and look again and that’s when I saw this Chinese girl run over to the area and I was able to catch a glimpse of my name on it. Woot, my ride!

First impression as I stepped outside into Chinese air? Omgosh ... why is my body wet? The humidity!

Grace (the girl picking me up) was relieved to hear that I knew Mandarin. She knows English but she said my Mandarin was better than her English. We’ll see. We got in the van shuttle and drove somewhere. I was assuming that I was heading into Shanghai/my hotel/meeting place. There wasn’t much to see yet because it was getting dark and we were on the freeway. There’s a lot of Beijing Olympics advertisements everywhere though. The mascots are everywhere. Shanghai is one of the co-host cities for the games.

We arrived at the hotel, dropped off my luggage and then went over to the hotpot restaurant where I would meet the rest of the teachers as well as my manager. We got treated to very good service because we were a table of a bunch of foreigners. The funny thing is that because I look Chinese, (real) Chinese people automatically assume that I know Mandarin and that I’m the one taking the white people around the city.

First impression of me being a foreigner-Chinese in China? This can probably work to my advantage as well as my disadvantage.

But according to some people, natives are able to tell that we’re foreigners (even if we look Chinese) because of the way we walk and carry ourselves. Having a white person in your walking group also means that service is faster but it can also mean that all the attention is on the white person and the Asians get neglected ... except when translating is needed. Take for example the little Chinese girl selling roses to pedestrians. Lisa (Chinese), Ryan (white) and I were walking back to the hotel from the restaurant and the girl runs right to us, right past Lisa and I and started badgering Ryan to buy a flower. He tried to out maneuver her and asked us how to make her stop following us and even with his attempts at waving her off and saying “no” she kept following (she followed us for a long block). While Lisa and I were able to walk peacefully, looking over at the two of them. We realize that because we are Chinese, we are just “another” Chinese. Perhaps it’s good they don’t know we’re American; less bothering? We’ll see how this all play out.

Today (Sunday) is also the closing ceremonies of the Olympics. Just about every channel on TV is showing Olympic stuff. And there is also some Taiwanese programming here. Shows that I’ve seen before. And the music channel plays Chinese and American songs. Sometimes more American than Chinese.

My first day of training is tomorrow (Monday)! Will meet other foreigners! And speak English!