I'm currently sitting on a plane en route from Shanghai to Singapore after flying from Tokyo to Shanghai this morning. Our layover was a little over 3 hours and as we taxied to the gate I asked Spectra if she was excited about setting foot in China for the first time. "No," she said, "because this doesn't count. It's only the airport."
That serves as a caveat for this entry. I'm sure as heck not making any sweeping statements about China or being Chinese here but with that in mind... our Shanghai airport was so Chinese (in the sense that it conformed to American notions about China) that we almost missed our flight as we were lost in fog of wonder and bewilderment.
When we got off the plane we were unsure of where to go or what forms we had to fill out because we were only laying over and not leaving the airport. We found the counter easy enough and had our first China experience. I'm not sure when this airport was built but it looked relatively new and crazy massive. The terminal was just one long concourse that ran approximately 1,500 feet (I came to this estimate through a combination of counting my paces to extrapolate and information printed on signs): so the concourse was a fraking mile long and funky sort of space aged looking circa 2000. Again, I'm not sure when it was made but I can't imagine it was a decade old.
So what did the area behind the counter look like where the ladies who were reviewing our documents look like in this futuristic wonderland? Bare concrete floors with chairs you might find in a beat up independent coffee shop near a university campus. It felt wrong, like accidentally seeing behind a movie set. The ladies behind the counter barely acknowledged our presence and spent almost the entire time we stood their talking to each other and not to us. There was nothing wrong with that, per set, and we weren't offended or anything, but that would not have happened back in Tokyo. Exactly the opposite, where every transaction, no matter how small, involves an incredible degree of theater where the clerk or whoever starts by thanking you for coming to the store and then provides a running commentary of every move they make before thanking you profusely for shopping with them today or checking your baggage. In Japan they go way, way out of the way to convey to you that the interaction they're having with you is of the paramount importance. Not so much at the Chinese counter.
Next we had to go through security again but we're couldn't just go to the security line. We stood in a holding area for reasons that weren't evident. When a group of us layover/transfer people formed they let us walk to security which wasn't even 50 feet from where we were standing. There was only one x-ray machine and one metal detector, each being operated by a single person. Spectra was the first to go through. She had a large purse and a jacket. She put them both in a bin to send through the x-ray when the guard standing at the metal detector barked at her, "No." Spectra had no idea what she'd done wrong and neither did any of the rest of us standing in line. She commenced with trying to suss out what had been objected to by holding the items up and raising her hands up in the "what am I supposed to do" gesture. The guard "helped" by standing in place — 15 feet away — and saying "no" repeatedly until Spectra struck upon the solution through trial & error: the bag wasn't supposed to go in a bin, only the jacket.
The x-ray guy then had to go through Spectra's bag and he pulled out a Sig water bottle that had water in it. We aren't expecting tty up go through t that kind of security so we hadn't thought about the water in the bottle. Spectra said, "Sorry, there's water in it." The guy said, "It's water?" She confirmed and he motioned to a garbage can with a plastic bag liner.
Now we're both confused. Does he want us to throw the bottle away? I looked in the can and there was some paper, soda bottles, and various detritus. Spectra asked, "Throw out away?" He said, "The water." She said ,"Throw the water away? In the garbage can?" He nodded. I motioned with my hand a typing something over to pour it out motion over the can and he stared blankly at me. Spectra said, "Pour it into the garbage can?" He said, "It's water, right?" Spectra confirmed and he said pour it into the trash can. So Spectra poured a full bottle of water into a trash can. Not an Earth shattering act but very weird and awkward all around.
For reference, when we were boarding the plane in Tokyo there was some confusion about whether we'd get vegetarian meals on the flight. As we were boarding the flight when they scanned our tickets and the machine made a warning sound. Spectra and I were pulled aside where we were greeted by a Japanese woman who asked, "Are you the couple who requested vegetarian meals?" We said we were. "Ah, good, we just wanted to let you know that you will get vegetarian meals on this flight." Seriously, they'd flagged us to pull us side so they tell us something we were about to find out anyway.
After that we emerge in the mile long terminal to find... almost nobody. It was eerie. There were people there but not nearly enough to make the cavernous space make any sense. On top of that running along one side of the terminal was a string of shops. There were floor or five shops and restaurants that basically repeated themselves over and over for the mile. The average shopper-to-employee ratio in these places was something like 1-to-5. They were swarming with people working and no shoppers. Spectra and I both felt terrible. Especially because Marita was the opposite, the shops were so packed with shoppers you could barely move around.
There was free internet access but Facebook and the New York Times were blocked, which was much more unnerving to experience in really than I would have guessed, and Google wouldn't let me log in because someone trying to log into my account from Shanghai struck them as suspicious.
Finally there was getting on the plane. We were put on buses (in the rain, which obviously wasn't their fault but added to the experience)and driven out to the plane and dropped off about 100 feet from the plane, which we ran to through the rain. The flight itself was delightful.
To reiterate: I'm not saying this experience is ironclad proof of what China is like. All I'm saying is out was jarringly different — and in many most ways diametrically opposed — to our experiences in Japan. And that they conformed to many of the notions westerners (or at least Americans) have about China: simultaneously overbuilt and maladapted, and not — how do I say this — people oriented. I wanted to go to China at some point but now I really want to go in part because to see the degree to which this experience foretells travel in China.
AGAIN AGAIN, this is not a criticism. It was just different, really different. Jarring even and this fascinating.
Next stop: Singapore. And since I'm sitting in Singapore right now as I finish this I can tell you the next post won't be like this one at all
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