Strangers in a Strange Land, Day .9

I must have played too many games of solitaire on the iPhone on the trans-Pacific flight, because now, as our flight from Seoul descended toward Shanghai, it was now just an iBrick. The information I needed to get us into the country was beyond my reach, locked away in dormant silicon. The suddenly justified voices of worry in my head erupted into a mocking Hallelujah Chorus. I battled back; I knew I had the iPhone charger in my pocket, and I had seen a standard American-style plug on our last aircraft, also an American-made Boeing. The landing announcements had already been made, but I jumped up and dashed for the bathroom, reasoning (or at least hoping fervently) that there would be an outlet for shavers that would allow me to goose the iPhone just enough to get the address I need off of it. I found an open lavatory, and lo and behold, there was an outlet. I fished the cord out of my pocket, hooked everything up, and ... nothing. Drat.

I returned to my seat in full minor panic mode. I resolved two things. I had packed an outlet converter in the outermost pocket of our backpack, figuring that it might come in handy at some point (take that, irrational worries -- I planned for a worst case scenario!). I dug it out and stashed the portion that worked in China in my jacket pocket. For the destination data for our entry cards, I would simply write my friend's name, with the text "US State Department Officer" after it. Go ahead, Commies, challenge me now.

After weaving in the yellow air outside Shanghai for a while due to traffic at the airport, we finally landed at mammoth Shanghai Pudong Airport. We disembarked quickly from the airplane and found ourselves in China, in an totally modern and utterly empty concourse.

And I already felt like a fugitive.

All the way down the concourse, I scanned the walls for electrical outlets, hoping to get a quick burst of energy for the iPhone so I could retrieve our lodging arrangements (trying not to worry about possibly frying the phone instead). The broad walkway was populated only by the quickly-dispersed passengers from our flight, which made it impossible to surreptitiously siphon off some juice, if I could have found an outlet at all. By now totally under the influence of my nagging doubts, I feared that my first contact with the official sovereign authority of China would be at the hands of the state police for the unauthorized acquisition of the People's Glorious Electricity.

Trying not to look nervous or guilty (which is a guarantee that that is exactly how I looked), we queued for the immigration checkpost. After only a few minutes, our papers were taken by a young lady in a kiosk who was adorned in some sort of official military garb. Moments later, without a word, she handed our passports back, and we were through! I mumbled thanks in my first stab at Chinese and we were off to search for our luggage. Wonder of wonders (hah! Silence, you doubts!), both of our bags were waiting for us at the carousel. All that awaited us was to leave the controlled baggage area and emerge into the welcome embrace of our American hosts.

After all the doubts, all the near misses and slight mishaps, we had made it. I tamped the doubting voices down for the last time and triumphantly led the family through the gates into a walkway that was surrounded with people looking for their arriving colleagues and loved ones. It was a true red carpet moment, with all of them looking at us while we tried not to be overwhelmed looking back at them. All we needed to see was the face of our friend. I figured he would probably be dressed in a suit, since it was mid-morning on a work day. Caucasian faces were few and far between, so it would not be difficult to spot him.

The end of the arrival gauntlet came and went without our names being called or a familiar face spied through the crowd. We found ourselves ejected into another broad concourse, scanning the waiting crowd from the back now. Oddly enough, we seemed to have a greeting party of ... nobody. After fifteen minutes, still nobody. After a couple of trips up and down the entire concourse, still nobody.

Of course, we had heard about Shanghai traffic. It was perfectly possible that Greg was running late. I could clear that up in a moment with a phone call.

Did I mention that I put all of our in-country contact information on my iPhone? The iPhone that was still completely inert? And that I spoke exactly two words of the local language?