Panic at the Airport!
June 10 , 2009.
Well, this story begins with quite a scare and ends with a comforting feeling and an appreciation for the people of Changsha.
I arrived in Changsha at 9 AM this morning expecting to be picked up by my “friend” (let’s just call her “Suzy”). I met her on an online dating site about 1 year before coming to Changsha and maintained almost daily contact through e-mails and video chats. I finally decided to come to Changsha for a little vacation and to meet her in person.
Okay, back to my arrival in Changsha. As I mentioned, I arrived here at 9AM expecting Suzy to meet me at the airport:
1st Problem: She thought she was picking me up at 9 PM. Easy solution to this problem, right. Wrong!! She had her phone turned off at work so she didn’t hear my calls (I thought she had just decided not to meet me and that I was now “stranded in China”) I am panicking a little now as I can’t read anything in the airport and the person at the information desk couldn’t speak English.
2nd Problem: I finally located the taxi stand and tried to show the location of my hotel to the taxi drivers, but none of them spoke any English and couldn’t read the map since it was in English (stupid me!!). I wondered back in to the airport not sure what to do next. Luckily I had learned how to say “Excuse me, can you speak English” before I came here. I suppose I asked at least 20 people and kept getting the same response “bu hui” ( “Can’t speak).
I finally came across a young lady who I guessed was a Middle School Age student and she seemed excited to “try out” the English she had learned in school. Lucky for me, she had done her homework and spoke passable English. She looked at my map and said “follow me please,” taking me back out to the taxis. She proceeded to say something in Chinese to the driver and then said “Inside, he take you” (my first little dose of what the Chinese call “Chinglish).
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