Over There

by Kevin Yu

Twelve hours. An agonizing twelve hours stuck in one spot. Twelve hours in a tiny seat with no legroom. The mind-numbing concept of waiting for twelve hours on an airplane to get somewhere is remarkable. An entire day is spent watching time pass at an unnaturally slow rate. Stuck in a giant tube with two hundred other people also waiting. It is hard to think of activities to do on a flight to Shanghai. I could pack some movies to watch or bring some snacks, but no matter how much stuff I bring, there is still a few hours left unfilled. If I were ever to go to prison, I imagine the feeling on the plane to be of a similar feeling. To be honest, I am a little disappointed. It is the modern age and to think the human race cannot find a faster way around the world is sad.

Every summer, my parents decide to send me to China for a few weeks. We have family there and it is nice to see them all. I can speak Chinese so I actually talk to them, which is better then what I can say for some people. Family is important to me. My little cousin who is a year younger then me always comes to see us when we are over there. Last time I was there, we spent our time together baking food, shooting some hoops, and playing cross fire; an online shooting game.

But before I can do any of that I need to get there. The day started with us carrying our bags to the car and driving to San Francisco Airport. I lugged them across the driveway and heaved them into the trunk. At this point, I am doing my mental preparations for the long flight ahead so that I do not go insane on the plane. The airport is a vast and sleek looking building that is like the well-educated, politically correct guy at fancy dinner parties. There were masses of cars trying to find a spot to unload passengers and baggage and things got crazy. I have seen a fair share of collisions in that short unloading zone. Inside the airport you can see a variety of different people with their baggage waiting in line or sitting down. We checked our bags in and got our boarding passes, one thing taken care of. Next step, getting past the security checkpoint. Bags are pushed into the X-ray, pocket contents are placed in grey bins along with shoes and laptops. An unnecessary inconvenience. We get to our gate soon after. People sat in chairs with laptops and books, typing or reading like every second is precious. They grew impatient without even having boarded the plane. The doors open, and people cluster around, anxious to get on. Ironic, they seemed eager to end their waiting by getting on a twelve-hour flight. After we marched down a long path, you reach the plane. The point of no return; the final threshold. We walked down the isle and find our seats. The same seats we will be so familiar with for the next few hours. Let us review the safety instructions: prior to take-off please fasten your seatbelts and make sure your tray tables and seat backs are in their upright- no, I am no going to listen to this again. In case you were curious, I am a window person. I always think how much it would suck to get the middle seat. I tried not to start sleeping just yet. That is a card I play when all else fails. I listened to some music, sipped on some sprite. It is going to be a long flight.

Being on the plane feels like living in a strange hotel for a day. The awkward seats that recline so insignificantly, the premade meals in plastic trays, the small bathrooms with toilets that flush really powerfully. The plane felt like a backwards world that makes no sense. I never understood why their blankets smelled like pepper. Being trapped in a metal tube is like a bizarre dream where anything could happen and all the rules are gone. Unfortunately, even though anything could happen, nothing ever happens. You just sit there and wait. The movies they played were good movies that have been destroyed through alterations. They cut all the good parts from the movie because they do not want to show violence or whatever. The whole thing is just a drag.

When we finally arrive at Shanghai, we gathered our carry-ons and exit the plane. The air was thick and humid and you could hardly breath. All the walls and floor tiles are grey and dull. There are posters covered in writing that could not be understood. We were in a completely different world now. After getting past customs and retrieving our luggage we made our way towards the exit, into the world. We either meet up with my uncle or an associate of my dad who will drive us to our final destination. The car ride is another three hours. The common feeling at that point is frustration. Having to sit and wait some more is the biggest possible upset at the time. But soon enough, we arrive at a large complex filled with tall buildings.

Every year I have to go through the same process. The parts that involve traveling and the airports are relatively the same every time I go to China. The experience itself has only been changed recently and slightly. The city we would live in was urban, filled with a lot of people living in a small space. In the past, my parents would arrange for me to stay with at my aunt’s house. Two years ago, they lived on an apartment level, in an eighteen-floored building. The building was one of many towers that were part of a community, which was one of many in the city. The lack of living space for the large population meant that every amount of space was important. Unlike houses in the US, there were no individual homes but rather condos where each family would share a floor with two other families and a building with thirty-five other people. Very different from the way we live.

The streets of China looked like a battlefield. The pavement was torn and there was a scramble of pedestrians, bikers, and cars. Crossing pedestrians always ran the risk of being hit by a car because unless there was a red light, the cars would stop for no one. Everything was covered in a dense layer of dust from previous construction jobs or residue from everyday life. The color of choice was grey. Everything outside had a hint of grey due to the lack of interest for colors. The largest grey mass of all was the sky, which seemed to be constantly covered in clouds. It rained for most of my stay.

Due to the ever improving lifestyles of the Chinese people, the city of Hangzhou has been demolishing old homes and replacing them with newer, better houses. Everywhere you went there was a construction site, whether it was a new office complex, theater, shopping complex, or apartment. The expansion would not stop or slow for any reason. My closest family members living there had the great opportunity to move into a new house, which they did, and so did we. Our house was recently renovated and we were able to stay there for the duration of our trip. We invited our family over for dinner and had a great time.

Unfortunately, since we had just moved into the new house in China, there was a lack of certain accommodations that houses needed. For example, we had not set an internet modem so we could not access the web. It was more like a place to sleep and eat then a place to live. But we were always doing activities so that there was no need for Internet and a clean floor. We often went to meet with business people who wanted to talk with my parents, things that did not have to do with me but I would want to tag along on. On the way back from a lunch meeting, my mom sees a sign that said “fireworks” and we decide to pull over. The store was old, small, and grey, but there were bright colored packages and boxes lined up along the wall. My mom asks the odd-looking shop owner what he had. He takes us to a glass case where he shows us an assortment of fireworks. We take two packs of firecrackers, each with two thousand individual explosives, and a brightly colored box. The box was the best and worst of anything mankind could manufacture. At first look, the box seems ordinary; wrapped in packaging paper with pictures of fireworks printed on it. There was no explanation of what the box did or what was inside it. The owner said that there were forty-nine rockets inside that would go off at different times and would do different things. We were sold.

The week that we spent in China also happened to be the week of the sixtieth anniversary or the People Republic of China, which was equivalent to Independence Day in the US. My dad was invited to see the parade, live at Tiananmen Square in Beijing so he flew out the day before. My family and I watched the ceremony on the TV. We watched in awe as the Chinese army marched across the square in perfect synchronization and order.

“Every soldier marching in the parade has to be the same height and must practice months in advance,” my grandma explained. The Chinese prime minister and his delegates would watch from the balcony and my relatives would become excited when the camera would point at them. This was all new to me. After the soldiers finished their run, the floats would arrive. Representing different government organizations, past leaders, utility groups, and provinces, the colorful floats grouped with people would come and go. Then I got bored and decided to paint a painting. The painting was a still life of fruit in a basket. I thought it was a good painting. The reason I painted the still life was because there was an art assignment due while I was gone so I decided to take a canvas and paint to China and do a painting there.

Back to the topic of fireworks, my cousin and I spent the firecrackers and the box on different occasions. The first time was at the bottom of our building in the rain. I took my uncles lighter and placed the flame near the fuse. As soon as I heard the hiss of the ignition, I ran as fast as I could to a hiding spot.

“This is really loud,” I said to them. The second time was on the roof of the building no one could see us. For the finally, we walked to the riverside where people were taking walks and found a place to set off the box. The menacing ambiguity of the red wrapping paper made people go insane. I myself did not know what to expect to happen when I lit the fuse. I half expected the fuse to go out and nothing would happen and half expected a nuclear reaction to undertake that would vaporize the city. Fortunately for both cases, when the fuse ran out, rockets of different colors shot out, where each performed a unique trick. I have never set off fireworks before and the whole experience satisfied my craving for things that exploded.

My time in China was nearing to an end. Having spent a week with family on the other side of the world had made me want to get back to where I belonged. But in a sense, I was where I belonged this whole week. I start to gather my things that I had brought from the US. I say my goodbyes to the familiar faces that I rarely see and set off on the long journey back. Back to the real world where I have to go to school, and deal with life’s problems. I often wonder why I don’t live in China like my cousin or the rest of my family. What factor carried my parents thousands of miles to the US and left me to live under blue skies and on green grass. Maybe I was on an eleven-month trip to the US and I had come home for a week. Maybe I am not really living here, in the US, but rather just sitting, waiting for my flight to end and my destination to be reached. Twelve hours to, ten hours from, that was the deal. Ten hours of mind numbing boringness and retarded movies. We are going home.