The audio speakers terminal had warned it would happen, so had a sensational article... as well as the State Department: travelers to China would not be admitted before extensive, on-plane screening to ensure that the NIH1 (Swine Flu) virus does not come in with them. If we failed inspection.. into a little white box with us, for a week. Sure enough, upon landing in Shanghai, androgynous figures in bunny suits wandered on to the plane (I watched "Andromeda Stain" before traveling. My thoughts ran back). The health inspectors held a laser gun (a temperature-taking laser gun) up to the head of every passenger. Anyone suspicious had their temperatures taken orally.
The air buzzed with nervous laughter from Chinese and foreign passengers alike. Flashes blinked as amazed participants in the event eagerly captured the moment, already banking (all of us) on the fact that we would not end up in quarantine for a week due to a slight sneeze or due to someone behind us having a slightly elevated temperature or the last name Sanchez.
When the laser-gun slinging, clean suit people cleared our plane, applause broke out. The plane cleaned out in record time. Once through customs I saw a blinking light next to the woman who had unceremoniously, but efficiently stamped me into the country. It asked me if i was totally unsatisfied, unsatisfied, satisfied, or very satisfied with her service. Hell, I thought, I'm here and not in a white box with no windows sitting next to 20 passengers whose names I don't know and no cellphone communication. Well done, China! The newspapers were wrong! My swelling gratitude needed focus and so I popped a thumb down on the big blinking :) and granted the stoic-looking Chinese woman a "Very Satisfied." Thanks! Xiu Xiu!
The rest of the day I spent alternately by myself and in the care of some people from the office where I'll be working while I'm here. Mostly, though, my tired and jet-lagged brain ran with the refrain: "what the %^&* am I doing in China?" with some frequency. At a restaurant we went to one of the guys behind the live sea food counter tried to get me to order the "spiny dragon" which - must say - did look appetizing to my strange sense of what looks appetizing . However, I was glad I said no when I saw the same guy later take his long thumb fingernail and stab the limp foot of the world's largest clam, shake his head, and put it back in the display case. (I noticed the health inspection had given the restaurant a :-| on the enormous sign on the wall and wondered what the difference between :-( :-| and :) were..). We ate fried shrimp.
That night I took my free drink voucher, sat down and had a free glass of wine at the hotel lounge. And a lounge, indeed, it was. Maybe the Chinese are very literal (I am starting to think they are because when I told the kind woman who picked me up at the airport today that I wanted to try drunk shrimp sometime while I was here in China, she found me a restaurant where I could eat raw (alive), alcohol-doused shrimp on my first, jet-lagged night here). There were lounge singers in the lounge. Singing lounge songs. In lounge dresses. The looked like something out of the '70s or '80s. Thoughts ran to some scene from Lost in Translation, though, given the sparse clientele. The phonetic, Whitney Houston-style warbling was lovely, though. I finished my drink, snuck some photos and thought - I'm gonna like China.
Lesson of the Day: be careful what you ask for, you might end up with wet converse and a plate of wiggling drunk shrimp!
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