NOTE: Pictures will be added to my posts later, once I figure out how to get them off my phone.
The journey to Shanghai began, for me, at about 4 AM on the Morning of Thursday before Spring Break. I had spent the previous three days taking early midterms and clearing up my affairs so I could enjoy the research trip in relative peace. I met up with the other Shanghai Lab students at Rice at about 5:15 AM, and we groggily boarded an airport shuttle.
Then things began to go terribly wrong.
We were waiting at the airport, most of us having eaten at the first of many McDonalds, when we noticed that the boarding time had already passed, and we still were not on the plane. It turns out that the morning was cold, Delta Airlines had only one de-icer, and it was currently broken. Our flight to Detroit was over 3 hours late, and sadly we would have missed the transfer for our overseas flight.
Our next-best option was to fly to New York City instead and spend the night there, hopping on a plane to Shanghai at 1 PM the next day. I was actually quite happy with this plan, as it allowed me to get 11 hours of sleep before the flight instead of the 2 hours I was expecting!
I was impressed, but not surprised, at how cold it was in New York City. I had not prepared proper snow clothes since I did not expect to be in such cold temperatures. We took an Uber to the Empire State Building, wandered around Times Square, the Central Park, and the Apple Store, and went to one of my favorite ramen places for dinner, before taking another uber home. Manhattan was actually more impressive than I remembered, since the last few times I had been there had been daytime trips. With its flashing lights, Times Square looked much more impressive at night! Shanghai may be a much larger city, but I didn’t see a collection of screens/advertisements in Shanghai as large as the one in Times Square. Still, in comparison to NYC Shanghai had a much more impressive skyline and much scarier drivers.
The next day, we all woke up late and proceeded straight to our flight. I was quite impressed with the cleanliness of the plane from China Airlines, and spent part of the trip there studying Chinese while listening to Chinese Opera offered by the plane’s entertainment system.
What did I learn that related to my project topic? My topic involves the experience of migrants in Shanghai compared to those in other cities, both inside and outside of China. By chance, we met and spoke to a migrant while in New York City! One of our Uber drivers had moved to Houston for a time, starting a business there that did fairly well. He appears to have had few obstacles moving to Houston. However, when the Recession happened his company failed, and he returned home to New York. So while he did not receive enough support from the government to save his prospects in Houston, he was able to migrate there, and start a successful enterprise, without too much trouble. I compared his story to those of people living in Shanghai and Beijing later on.