For me, the process of getting ready to leave for China was pushed off to the last minute by the barrage of work associated with wrapping up the first half of the semester. The night before leaving, I took a midterm, scheduled Rice EMS for March special events, and sent innumerable emails before settling down to pack in the wee hours of the morning. I slept about an hour and a half, and then it was off to catch the shuttle to the airport at 0500.

When I woke up, I had a reply to one of those innumerable emails. I had queried the Shanghai Municipal Information office about pharmaceutical policy, my research topic, and I was excited to hear what they would say. Unfortunately, the reply wasn’t actually a response, but a notification that their email account didn’t accept messages from unknown addresses. I didn’t fully realize it at the time, but this was a good example of how hard it can be to get cooperation from the Chinese bureaucracy without an introduction. Connections are important.

Curiously enough, both the parent course professor (Dr. Marshall) and the lab instructor (Shelby) had independently designated me in charge of making sure everyone got on the shuttle in the morning. I guess I have some sort of responsible vibe, or something (This may also be why my classmates nicknamed me “Dad”…). Anyway, I rounded up them up and we got on our way to the airport a few minutes early. Which was all for naught, as apparently temperatures above freezing are sufficient to overwhelm Delta’s deicing capabilities at IAH, and our flight to Detroit was delayed to the point it was clear that we would miss our connection to China. It was a terrible waste of our collective sacrifice in getting up so early (I think our class averaged something like two hours of sleep). But there was nothing to be done for it, and the best Delta could do for rebooking was to send us out of NYC the next day on China Eastern.

Waiting at LaGuardia

As disappointing as losing out on a day in China was, I was pleased with our layover destination, as I had never been to NYC before. Our hotel was out by JFK airport, but we went into downtown for the evening to see the sights. Although it was bitterly cold to be walking around the streets of NYC, I really enjoyed seeing Times Square, Central Park, and the Empire State building for the first time. In taking in my first impressions of NYC, I noticed that the air quality was worse than I would have expected. Little did I know what I would be in for in China…

Snow in Central Park

The next afternoon, it was off to China on an almost 15-hour flight. I was somewhat disappointed with the service and food quality on China Eastern, but that was partially because I expect higher standards from a non-US carrier. I made it through the flight comfortably enough by watching five movies back-to-back. One thing that really surprised me on the flight, though, was a Chinese man offering to let me use the airplane restroom before him if I was planning on being quick. I wonder if that is related to some sort of cultural difference between Americans and the Chinese.

As we arrived in China, one of the most fascinating parts of the customs process was having ability to rate the agent sitting across from you by pushing a button 1-5 on a machine. Of course, one wonders about how safe it would be to give the agent a poor grade, but it was nevertheless unexpected for China to be allowing you to provide such feedback from the moment you walk in. After clearing customs, we took the subway into the city, and we were in Shanghai!

On the Shanghai subway

As the minutes turned to hours of waiting in terminal A8 at Houston’s Bush Intercontinental airport, the class slowly came to the realization that we would not be traveling to Shanghai on time. Technical difficulties with Delta airlines de-icing machine delayed our flight for more than 3 hours, meaning our connecting flight from Detroit to Shanghai would certainly be missed. However the time spent in terminal A8 was rather productive. Although at first the class sat in disappointment, we soon started chatting with and really getting to know one another helping to solidify the group dynamic for the trip.

After a few hours of waiting, our Instructor Shelby came to speak to us with good news: we were going to New York City for the night! From what I could tell, everybody was very happy about the outcome. 2 of our classmates had family in NYC and would get to spend the night with them. As for the rest of us, we would get to spend an adventurous yet educational night in the Big Apple. Half of my family is from Buffalo, New York so I had previously been to the state countless times. However I had only been to the city once before when I was 4 0r 5. Needless to say, it was an extremely eye opening experience for me.

As we made our descent to New Yorks JFK airport the scenery out the window was sort of surreal. The Empire State Building, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the Statue of Liberty were all within my line of sight at once. I had only ever seen these famous monuments and architectural feats in movies and on postcards, so it’s easy to see why I was so taken aback. After a strenuous couple of hours spent waiting at JFK’s baggage claim for our shuttle bus, we made our way to our hotel in Jamaica, New York (about 20 minutes outside of the city).

After settling in the hotel, we hailed a couple of Ubers to take us into the city for the night. We then spent several hours going on a walking tour of the city with Shelby being our guide. We saw the Empire State building up close, Times Square, Rockefeller Plaza, Central Park, Fox News’s headquarters, and most importantly a 4 story Toys R’ Us in the middle of Times Square.

After several hours of walking in the bitter 19-degree weather we decided to call it a night and head back to the hotel in several more Ubers. Although the trip to New York was technically just an extended layover, it felt more to me like an unexpected vacation. The density of New York City helped prepare me for what I was about to see in Shanghai.

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.

Our trip started off on a great note with our flight to Detroit being delayed because of frost on the plane’s wings. Unfortunately, this meant that we would miss our connecting flight from Detroit to Shanghai on Delta Airlines. Instead, we were booked on China Eastern Airlines departing from JFK the next day. When I heard that we were flying China Eastern Airlines, I was a bit hesitant because I had never heard of such an airline.

Although this was a rather odd start to the trip, it ended up a blessing because we essentially got to visit NYC for a whole day. While the rest of the group went on to engage in tourist activities like going to Times Square and the Empire State Building, Nicole and I visited our families who live in the city. I went straight to my grandparents’ apartment to spend time with my family who live near Central Park (all of my family from my mom’s side lives in Manhattan- 7 cousins, 4 aunts, 4 uncles, and my grandparents). For dinner I went to Gari, which is one of my go-to sushi places in the city. After sleeping for around 9 hours that night (the most I had gotten in a week), I went to brunch the next morning and said goodbye to my family.

In a way, our detour to NYC was an added bonus with regards to observing global cities. I am very familiar with NYC (since I visit multiple times a year) but getting the chance to visit right before traveling to Shanghai, another global city, was a unique experience. I think that comparing NYC and Shanghai is interesting and we definitely got to make our own comparison firsthand.

Planes! Trains! Automobiles!

After a delicious meal of Hunan cuisine, we boarded a high-speed train and left Shanghai behind. I’d never been on a real train before and was nearly as excited for the train ride as I was to see another city. Despite my eagerness, all the hype about the train had also left me a bit nervous; I expected to board a rickety old train and to have to struggle for a seat on a wooden bench next to a stinky old man who had no qualms about spitting in the compartment.

My expectations were completely off base and all my eagerness was confirmed. The train was spacious and comfortable (and all the passengers were well-groomed) and featured giant windows to entertain me throughout the entire trip. The train lurched into motion, and I reclined my cushy seat… only to realize within minutes that my en-route entertainment through the window was to be much different than anticipated.

Only miles away from the train station, on the outskirts of Shanghai, I began to see a completely different China. The suburbs of Shanghai near the train station continued until they met the suburbs of other, smaller cities all the way to Nanjing. Their architecture featured cookie-cutter high rises ten to twenty stories tall with drab, utilitarian exteriors.

I knew that this was the area outside of Shanghai was home to migrants, forced to the outskirts as property values nearer to the city center continued to sky-rocket. Prior to the train-ride a teacher of migrant students told me that the migrant populations are constantly pushed further and further from the city; however, I hadn’t taken the time to imagine what these migrant communities might look like. I suppose that I assumed that the Shanghai I knew–full of shopping, eating, and business–continued for miles on end… but that is not what these communities looked like at all.

The train ride en route to Beijing certainly put me in my place. I knew that migrants made huge sacrifices to come to Shanghai. I knew that they made menial wages. I knew that they were pushed to the fringes. Still, I was sugarcoating the migrant experience, romanticizing it, and not actually contextualizing or understanding their lifestyle. As the train barreled through the exterior of Shanghai I couldn’t help but realize how off base I had been, while also realizing how easy my life is if my greatest worry is about sitting on a wooden bench next to a smelly man for a high-speed train ride.

The train ride gave me a glimpse of the migrant experience and therefore helped me appreciate and respect the difficulties that migrants must overcome in light of the luxuries that I had been enjoying for the last week. We travelled across the world for a research field trip; migrants’ children go to underfunded, sub-par schools. We took the high-speed train to save our precious time; migrants often commute over two hours to work. After actually seeing that migrants are not indulging in all of the modern delights and luxury of the Shanghai I had been exposed to thus far, I realized that this train ride taught me nearly as much about migrants as did the lectures I’d attended in the city.