Lost in translation...

From Shanghai_Jade Buddha Temple

They say that it couldn't be done, or maybe that was shouldn't be done. Traveling during the busiest holiday in China, the Chinese New Year, is not for the weak. It was time to leave our comfortable little home at the New Asia Hotel and head for our new home in Dan Yang. With our train tickets in hand, five huge suitcases, one backpack and one computer bag we packed ourselves into two taxis and headed off to the Shanghai Railway Station. We knew that we had to check our luggage as cargo onto the train and luckily the taxi drivers pulled right up to the loading dock where our adventure begins. Without a word, or at least one that I could understand, several men began lugging our heavy, I mean heavy, suitcases up onto the platform. Sean and I were still trying to pay our respective cabbies for the ride when I noticed that all of our suitcases were now being whisked away. Quickly, I pulled the one suitcase that had our most valuable items in it from the bunch. We walked up the stairs to where the cargo gets wrapped and shipped. Everything that we own is in these suitcases so you can understand how I am watching our possessions like a hawk as Sean tries to understand the process. A very nice gentleman takes us under his wing like a big brother and walks Sean through the process.

Remember these people do not speak a word of English so you can imagine the hand gestures and body language that was being displayed. I watched as they wrapped our suitcases in large white bags and then placed straps on them with a machine. Now I am in charge of watching four white bags with no description on them in a sea of other white bags. Sean is off to a counter with this man to pay some fee (90 yuan) and he takes our train tickets. Sean then returns to me without the man and without the tickets. This is when we started to get nervous. But there was no reason, the man came back and carried our bags to the scale..112 Kg! OK we are getting closer. The gentleman now points us to a window to which we go over and stand. We have no idea why we are standing here but eventually, our friend saves us again and brings back our tickets and tells us that we need to pay another 65 yuan. He hands us a receipt and our tickets and shows us the way to the waiting room where we will board the train. I tried using all of the mandarin I could muster to ask when our luggage would arrive but our new friend just could not understand. We just needed to trust that these guys knew what they were doing so we left our luggage to board the train. HUGE leap of faith.

This being our 5th train ride, it was unremarkable except for the fact that every nook and cranny was filled on this 18 car train. As we arrived in Dan Yang, we both looked to see if we could see any luggage (cargo) being taken from the train but since the train is so long, it was impossible. As we walked through the station we showed a woman our receipt for our luggage and she pointed for us to walk around the corner. With hopes up high, we entered the cold dingy room where two women sat and we handed them our receipt. The first woman looked at it and started speaking Chinese. Not a good start. It was obvious that our luggage did not arrive on the same train as us. Now we needed to figure out when it would be arriving. The other woman made a few phone calls and says while holding up 3 fingers "3 days". As our faces went blank we looked at each other and then back at her to confirm what she was saying. She made another call and then pointed to the word "Tuesday" in my handy Mandarin book. OK, Tuesday I can live with but 3 days??? When I said that we only took the one suitcase that contained our most valuable possessions, I forgot to mention that a change of clothing did not meet that requirement. We only carried on our computers, jewelry, toiletries, medication and other items that we could not replace. Neither of us packed another change of clothes. And to make matters worse, we are to meet our new employers in the morning. We walked away from the railway station in disbelief and joked about the possibilities and ramifications of the fact that we might not ever see our luggage again.

Not letting that get us down, we went out in our new town for a nice dinner and watched a movie before going to bed. We met with our new employer Tuesday morning (yes, wearing the same clothes) and signed our contract. We had a nice lunch with several teachers and spent the day taking care of all of the formalities of working in China. Our first is to get a "Expert in Teaching English" certificate and then our residence license at the local police station. We saw our new apartment and we were both so pleasantly surprised. It is much nicer that we had imagined and after seeing the school for the second time we knew that we were making the right decision.

Unfortunately, we were so tied up with our employers that we couldn't make it to the train station before they closed so we will have to go there on Wednesday (yes, wearing the same clothes) and pray that our luggage is there. It will be interesting if for some reason they are not... Sean and I don't fit into any of the clothes here.... will keep you posted!