Day One

It's 5:14 AM NY time, and I have just arrived at the hotel, but just barely. After 18 hours total in the air and 3 hours layover in Vancouver, the last thing I want to deal with is problems at the front desk of a Chinese hotel. But problems, of course, arise. Jessie, my future coworker and aid in settling into Shanghai today, tells me the clerk at the front desk won't allow her to use her Chinese credit card to make a deposit on the room, and that I will have to pay it, as well as one day's fee, and then get reimbursed. I don't even want to deal with this, so I tell her that my visa card gets extra charges for uses overseas. She decides it's worth her time to go to the bank around the corner while I wait at the hotel. But I get ahead of myself. The real problems started about 13 hours ago, when I arrived in Vancouver.
As the passengers of the JFK flight arescuttled into customs, an airport employee is shouting something about international connections needing to go another part of the airport to be herded through another section of customs. I get her attention and she asks me, "which flight?" I tell her the 12:00 to Shanghai and she sends me up some stairs and around a corner. I find another customs line in the new room, so I queue up. Little did I know, that same airport employee was later jogging up the stairs behind me to give me the bad news. "You, you're headed to Shanghai, right? There's a problem with the flight. Due to Typhoons in that area of Asia, the Shanghai flight will likely be redirected to Beijing [about 500 miles away] and you'll be responsible for any further connecting flights. You can go through customs and wait at the terminal for any updates." Fuck, I scream inside my head. My Chinese is barely functional and there is no way I'd be able to figure out how to get into the Beijing airport, book a new flight for sometime after this typhoon thing blows over, keep the receipt so I could get reimbursed by my new employer, find a hotel so I can wait out the storm, and then get in contact with my employer to tell them the good news. I make it through customs and sit and wait for any updates, as my flight wasn't scheduled to leave for another 2 hours.
After about an hour, a decent sized group of Chinese people has amassed. They are chatting away, so I'm guessing they are oblivious to the typhoon problems. The lady behind the counter finally comes onto the loudspeaker and makes the following announcement:
"Due to dangerous weather conditions created by a typhoon in southeast Asia, we are currently unable to guarantee your flight into Shanghai. We will be departing toward Shanghai and the pilots will be making the decision of if it is safe to fly into PuDong Airport mid-flight. If conditions are deemed unsafe, we will be rerouting to Beijing. If you choose to fly today, you will be financially responsible for any further necessary connecting flights to Shanghai."
I'm about to shit my pants over the decision I have to make in the next 15 minutes but the rest of the crowd looks like they could care less. I'm in awe of their fortitude until a CHINESE speaking attendant comes onto the speaker and makes the same announcement. Panic ensues. I ignore all of the hubbub as I try and decide whether to shit or get off the pot. I finally figure that a couple of days in Beijing would be cooler than a couple of days in Vancouver, so I get on the flight. Ten hours (of 12 total flight hours), two naps, and a movie later and the captains come on the plane speakers and announce that the typhoon is moving away from Shanghai, and that we will be able to make a safe descent. I almost cry a little. If I were stuck in Beijing to fend for myself I might have wound up being sold for body parts on the black market. Who knows.
So I arrive and Jessie, an English First (EF) employee, is at the airport to bring me to my hotel and help me get settled in. As I chat it up with Jessie on the shanghai maglev, the fastest in the world at nearly 300 mph!, I find out she's a WuHan native who has only been in Shanghai for 3 months. The last time I was in Shanghai I was here for just over 3 months, so I might even know the city better than she does! But more important than knowing the city is being able to deal with the Chinese people. This is a twofold problem for me, as I can't speak in Chinese very well and I don't THINK in Chinese. The Chinese all have this crazy, roundabout way of confronting even the most simple of problems and it really TAKES a Chinese to UNDERSTAND a Chinese. On an interesting side note, Jessie told me at her old job she was a model scout, and that she knows many photographers in Shanghai. If I can find a modeling job in Shanghai, I would take it in an instant. Easy money! I've been joking about it for a while, but imagine if I found my way into Shanghai modeling the very first day I arrived! Ha!
But anyway, I'm here at the hotel and we finally got the room sorted out. I am exhausted right now and really need a nap, so I am signing off. I'll be sure to keep updating on cool happenings. Until the next post, good luck in America.