Leaving the USA -- Arrival in China

Our last fling iin the USA before departure was a family gathering at Zaxbys in Conyers. Gathered with us were the Mullinses, Ogdens and Heatons. It was a miracle the building was still standing after our grandsons finished. We had a great last visit with hugs and kisses all around. Leaving was one of the hardest things that I ever did.

 

Benjamin drove us to the airport where we unloaded our four 50 lb. suitcases plus two carry-ons each. We had a bit of a struggle getting the bags to the check-in counter by ourselves, but we are so independent and cheap that we managed it somehow.

We had a very nice young man checking us in who was impressed with Suzanne’s story of a granddaughter born just yesterday and that we were volunteering to teach in China for a year.  Of course one of the bags was overweight by 5 lbs. but he didn’t charge for it. We felt lucky on that one. As we approached security I looked at our boarding passes. I had requested an aisle seat for us and the adjoining one. We were assigned seats A & C for the flight from Atlanta to Seoul, Korea. It was the long leg of 17 hours. The thought of a snoring Korean next to us on the leg was annoying. But I figured that perhaps we could trade the window for the center seat or at the worst trade the aisle for the center seat and we could at least sit together. We patiently waited for Zone 4 to load figuring that all of the overhead storage would be gone by the time we boarded. The nice ticket agent had moved to the boarding area and greeted us and wished us a pleasant flight. He was our last contact with America since it was a Korean Air flight. When we approached our seats, I looked at the seat number on the boarding pass and at the seat, back to the boarding pass and back to the seat. That nice young man had upgraded us to business class. We had seats that actually lay down for sleeping!. We had more movies than we could watch; we had more food than we could eat, although they were strange food items. We never enjoyed a flight as much. I didn’t want it to end. I knew at the end of this flight, I would return to being an economy passenger.  After 17 hours, however, I was ready for it to end. We arrived in Seoul at 4:15 AM local time and had an 8:15 flight to Xi’an. The airport was not very well sign posted so we followed the crowd to immigration to have our passports stamped. After passport control we found ourselves in the unsecured part of the airport with baggage claim and ground transportation. That is not where we wanted to be! We went back in and found a Korean Air info desk that sent us to the departure terminal. We were trying to make our way back to the departure gates. All of the security check-points were closed.  There was no A/C, there were no English signs anywhere, and a sign on security check-in #1 said open at 8:00 AM go to Check-in 3 after 10PM. We go ~ 100 yards to check-in #2 and it says open at 7:30AM, after 10PM go to Check-in #3. When we arrive at Check-in #3 ~ 100 yards further it is closed with nothing in English at all. I asked a guard, who spoke no English, where to go through security. He pointed us to security check-in # 4. You guessed it, about 100 yards down the terminal. Of course, upon arriving at security check point #4 it was closed with no English signs posted. At this point, being a guy who gets pretty steamed when I make a foolish mistake, I was dripping with sweat, my 24 hour deodorant stopped working hours ago and I was in a pretty foul mood. We went back to Check-in #3 to wait it out. After about 30 minutes of steaming, and thinking about how if we were on the Amazing Race, my error could have cost us $1,000,000, a few security agents arrived and opened up check-in #3. Traveling with 2 laptops and an I-pad is cumbersome at security points; they all had to be poked at. Then there is the small matter of a titanium hip. I always get lots of hands-on personal attention. Security took much longer than usual and we had quite a hike to our gate. Suzanne was very observant and found a trolley that we could load all our stuff on while we walked about 30 minutes to our gate.  We walked by our arrival gate. It was only about 10 gates from our departure gate. Our Korean adventure had used up much of our 4 hour layover. It certainly was not boring. Our flight to China was uneventful. We sat next to a Xi’an native who lives in New Jersey with her American husband. She was traveling home because her father is very ill. She told us how difficult it was to get an emergency visa to return to China. The Chinese consulate in NYC said that she should have planned the trip in advance. I think we should follow that advice and plan all of our emergencies.

We touched down in China on time and hit the gate ~ 10:50 AM Thursday, September 6, Sarah’s birthday. I had managed to not lose our passports. Our bags arrived after about 30 minutes at baggage claim. I was afraid that we were supposed to take them through customs in Korea and they were still sitting on the belt going around in Seoul, but there they were. We made our way through the “Nothing to Declare” gate and were greeted by our waiban (handler of foreigners). We loaded our stuff into a University Van and drove the 1 hour to Xi’an International Studies University – Old Campus, where all of the foreign teachers live. The university had to check our passports, visa etc. and we went to an “office” which was more like a cleaning closet to pick up keys for the apartment. I had to pay 200 ¥ (about $30), but of course, we had not yet visited an ATM. There was a kind American teacher passing by who loaned me the cash.

We toted our stuff to our second floor walk-up and looked it over. The walls are chalk white. I say chalk because the white rubs off.  It is probably toxic white lead paint. The floors are a dark wood laminate that sounds ticky when you walk on them. But, WE HAVE A/C!!  The water was only a mild brown when it came out of the faucet. It is better now. We have a 20 Liter water bottle in a cooling stand that we replace for ~ 9 ¥ (a little more than $1). The big bedroom has a king size bed but no A/C – That won’t do. We changed the king bed into the smaller bedroom with A/C. The bed nearly fills the room. The door won’t close because it hits the bed. We found ~ ½ inch of dust under the beds when we moved them. We had to hold our breath as we cleaned the floor.  We worked at unpacking and feathering our nest until we could stay up no longer. We passed out and had a new adventure waiting for us the next AM – the Chinese Health Department.

Our Lving Room ~ 8x10

University Botanical Garden off our rear balcony

Kitchen, the box on the left is the washer

From our front balcony

We met at 8:30 with our waiban and two other foreign teachers that had just arrived and headed off to  the health department with our medical forms from our competent US family doc, our chest X-rays, our EKG results, and our comprehensive lab reports from outstanding US clinical laboratories. But China is very thorough and wanted to make sure that we were not going to be a public health nuisance while staying in their beautiful land. The line was about 100 people long. We waited while our waiban took our stuff to be examined by a Chinese official.  Whether it was a government official or a medical official, I don’t know. They did not like our X-rays so they had to be repeated. We hauled those bulky things all the way to China for nothing. The other folks had to do more stuff to get the official red stamp of approval. They stood in lines for EKGs, X-rays, Medical checks, BP etc. We were special, we just had X-rays. Good thing we’ve finished our family because it was probably a big dose! Friday was consumed by the visit to the Health Department but our waiban treated us to a late lunch in the faculty dining room. It was CHINESE FOOD! Who would have guessed. My right hand developed a cramp from my attempts at chop sticks. Suzanne seems to have figured it out, but I am not so coordinated.

We had the weekend to poke around our neighborhood. The university is surrounded by a wall. There are three gates, all staffed by security. There is no checking of anyone coming or going but the security guys are there to move the cones out of the way when the university bus comes through. The wall does keep out a lot of the city noise, and we do live in a nice green space.

On Friday night, the daughter of one of the Italian teachers gave a piano recital at the Xi’an Conservatory of Music. She had a performance in Xi’an, then one in Beijing, and then back home to Italy.  It was raining like a tropical storm, but the foreign teachers all walked ~ ¼ mile to the bus stop and boarded a bus with about 500 Chinese to go into the center of town. When we were told to get off the bus, we headed back into the storm and hiked ¼ mile to the recital hall. It was packed, it was humid, and there was no A/C. Well, there probably was A/C but too expensive to use it!  We found seats on the front row and enjoyed the show. The return trip was just as eventful, rain coming down sideways, water in the street deeper than your shoes. Suzanne had three very ugly blisters by the time we arrived home.

Saturday we found a grocery store called Metro. It is about ¾ mile from the apt. It is a Chinese Sam’s Club, except not! We found cheese, a Chinese form of Nutela, peanut butter, bread, milk that does not require refrigeration, yogurt-- the essentials of life. It, of course, was still raining but just a bit.

Sunday was truly a blessing. We meet with our branch in a former hotel on our campus about 100 yards from our front door. The other BYU teachers in town have to taxi over to our campus. They say it is about 35 minute ride. They are closer to the city wall and the Muslim Quarter. It sounds like an interesting place, but I digress. Our branch consists of six teachers at XISU, seven other BYU teachers at two other universities in Xi’an; an old fellow ~ 70 perhaps, that came as a BYU teacher 10 years ago and has a Chinese wife and a young couple with 3 children < 8 years old.  Our sacrament meeting was great; each of us came to the podium and talked briefly about our favorite hymn. Then we sang it. My favorite was # 102, Jesus Lover of my Soul. I said how special it is to me because we play it together as a family quartet. Suzanne chose one that has a double life – Brightly Beams Our Father’s Mercy. We left our meetings feeling the Savior’s love.