On the Plane
Just finishing up faulkner's 'light in august'…the plane is flying close to Siberia right now…finished my second in flight meal (the first was chicken and rice, this was ramen noodles…transitioning us into china I suppose)…listening to bright eyes and jimmy on the laptop…
Lisa was right: although I had a general idea of the flight time, a 14 hour direct flight is a long time. Especially in a big plane with very small personal accommodations. Slowly but surely the reality of my adventure has begun to dawn on me. This is for real.
I want to record some of my expectations of china and of my trip - if nothing else, to give me a laugh in four months on the return flight. In reality I'm not too sure what my expectations are - so this is also an attempt to formulate and create them, as well as capture them in words.
- I'm expecting to see a juxtaposition of the modern and the old, the technological and the archaic, the rich and the poor, the proud and the humble. While I expect to see a life not too different from my own - certain aspects of the human experience I (perhaps naively) believe to be universal - but I think I'll see more of the two extremes. I expect to see more bikes and less cars, more rice and less cheese, smaller living spaces and large buildings, media and music with that quirky (to my Western eyes) but endearing Chinese flavor.
- I'm expecting to see an evolving way of life, but I'm hoping/expecting to see remnants of the past in the people, buildings, museums, street walls - the cult of mao, the cultural revolution, the great dynasties of the past.
- I'm expecting there to be a lot of good cheap food to eat. I'm expecting I'll be greatly missing cheese. So I'm expecting I may occasionally sneak into pizza hut. I'm expecting there will be bizarre things I'll eventually eat sometime in the next four months.
- I'm expecting (its in my contract, after all) a western style accommodation (in some ways a shame, but I think there will be days I will grateful) that is humble by my standards but probably very nice by local standards.
- I'm expecting to find teaching difficult at first and that I'll feel inadequate and stressed but that I'll grow to love it and increase in proficiency and ideas.
- I'm expecting to greatly increase my Chinese skills. I see myself wandering around Hangzhou on my lighter days, meeting up with my Chinese contacts, taking a few additional classes, and engaging in random conversation.
- I'm expecting to be able to make it to shanghai on atleast a monthly basis. I'm hoping to be able to make it to Beijing at the end of my adventure.
We flew in a northerly direction out of chicago, almost passing by santa, and coming down into china through Siberia and Mongolia. I had not expected that.