Our Journey to China

As I sit here on my flight to China, I’m reflecting back on my last 20 hours of travel. Even in this first day I’ve learned a few things about the world we live  in.  We flew off from JFK in New York, and the hardest part was of course, saying goodbye. Just thinking about how I won’t physically be there for my sister’s first day of Kindergarten or my baby brother’s development in language, and my puppy’s (my baby) first birthday turned into instant water works. think that the only thing that was holding back my excitement was the fact that I had to leave my family behind. But I got to video chat them as soon as we landed for our layover. Now that I can’t turn back from here, I can’t wait to land in China and begin this new life of adventure.

Something that I never really thought about living in America is the difficulty of language barriers. In Russia we had a layover for a few hours and it was so hard trying to read where to go or what to do. Of course, we just followed where ever everyone else was going, can’t go wrong with that! Well actually you can, but we took that chance and it turned out for the better. It’s so hard coming from your homeland and knowing if you ever needed help there was someone to help you when you asked. It’s so different trying to ask someone something and have them give you that “You’re speaking an alien language” face. But we got to our gate safely and from there we waited. The time change is definitely effecting us because as we boarded our next plane, in America it was about 3am and I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I slept so much. All of us were separated from each other and at first it was a little nerve wrecking. Tirhza and I even tried getting someone to switch seats with each other people but in the end it didn’t work out. I had one man sit next to me, who we were actually trying to get to switch his seat, and he was so persistent in keeping his. Or maybe he wasn’t understanding what I was saying. I learned that everything that I’ve heard about the Chinese culture with them being so helpful and friendly to be true. Although I was upset and frustrated that he wouldn’t switch seats with Tirhza, he became my friend. Our conversations consisted of lots of head shaking, gestures, and big smiles. He looked after me in a sense that he woke me up whenever the food or drinks came around. He also saw that I was watching the movie and he just put one of his ear buds in my ear for me to listen (even though it was in Russian). He also didn’t disturb my sleep by waking me up to get back to his (he sat in the middle), he found another seat. When I woke up to see him in another seat I told him to come back to his seat, and he ended up trying to share his lunch. He had brought boiled eggs and just tossed one over to me to eat. But I respectfully declined by a no gesture and a smile. Then I tried out my “Thank you” in Mandarin and he was ecstatic. He taught me how to say “You’re welcome”… but of course I forgot it already. I should get into a habit of writing these things down.