Chinese Experiences in Surreal

Well, I've made it.  All DHL dramas were put to rest after a shirty call to the local office and, after bidding a tearful farewell to my friends, my flat, Paul,  I boarded a plane early Sunday morning.   I'm not sure if there's an emotion that adequately describes the shit-scared feeling one has when they've packed up their life to move to a communist country that speaks a tonal language consisting of over 50,000 characters.  It's a feeling that simmers and cultivates itself into an almost bacterial rage as one flies thousands of miles over land and inland sea.  And then your plane touches down and a strange, almost manic calm falls.  There's no turning back now.

Undramatically, the airport was an airport.  Arrive, queue, show your passport to an official who doesn't speak your language.  Pick up your bags, go through agriculture, find someone waiting for you on the other side.  And Dulwich was waiting there smiling, reassuring me that I shouldn't just turn back and board the next flight to London.

With the 32-degree air hitting us, the morning became a whirlwind of picking up other people, meeting smiling HR staff waiting at my new flat, doing inventory, learning how the air conditioning works.  I was welcomed with a gigantic fruit basket, a bottle of red wine, a card and a bevy of paperwork about 'Shanghai Sherpa', a motorbike delivery service that will collect food, wine, beer from your favourite restaurant, takeaway or shop and bring it straight to your front door.  I've yet to use it but I'll keep you posted.

My flat is palatial, or as palatial as a one-bedroom place can be.  I feel like i'm living in one of those summer Florida holiday complexes--I have a bigger than king-size bed, a balcony, a nifty toilet function that heats the seat, oscillates to the front and rear and dries. The flat lacks a proper stove (one burner) or an oven (desktop oven delivered today).  And after three days here, i'm finally unpacked, just about.

My days have been filled with a brilliantly organised schedule of orientation events.  Drinks or dinner every evening, school HR briefing today and my personal favourite: The Chinese Medical Appointment followed by IKEA.

Looking back, IKEA was a consolation prize for the morning's session in stripping whatever personal dignity we'd arrived with.

The medical appointment started when 20 of us piled onto a bus to drive 40-minutes across town to reach a state-of-the-art medical centre.  We arrived. We waited for 30 minutes.  And then 12 members of impersonal Chinese medical staff shuffled us through being weighed, stripping down to shorts and a robe, having our blood pressure taken, our boobs jiggled two-feet away from peers whose surnames we'd yet to ascertain, hugging the chest x-ray machine whilst being shouted to 'RELAX, HOLD BREATH, RELAX!', being suction cupped and clamped to an EKG machine, ultrasounded for signs of liver/kidney disease and then sticked, poked and drawn blood from by the sternest woman in China.  All of this for all of us took 30 minutes, max.

It was a lesson in farce; I doubt I'll ever see anything like it ever again.

And then IKEA, the home for Chinese people to pull up a chair, bed or display room and conk out with the entire family for hours.  The kids section played the part of creche with Chinese grandparents manning the fort and everywhere you turned, people had their shoes off curled up like mannequins on display.  Two hours later, I left with enough candles, plants and frames to cover the flat.

Other quirks…Carrefour, the local Supermarket, capitalisation needed, stocks a section of 'Live Animals' next to the meat and fish counter.  You choose between giant bullfrogs, eels and turtles.  There's a cooking oil aisle 50 meters long; the rice aisle is even longer. And if you try to shop for homewares, cleaning supplies or even feminine hygiene products, a small Chinese lady (sometimes several Chinese ladies) will approach you to give you lots of options.  She doesn't speak English.  You don't speak Mandarin.  A glorious pantomime ensues.  Glorious.

Day Three.  This is going to be one hell of an adventure.