I don’t often write impromptu entires like this one.
I’ve had another entry in the making for the past week, one that I’ve been carefully crafting — about China’s conveniences, my wheat allergy, taking taxis, and living on my own — but somehow writing spontaneously like this, right now feels more true to this moment (if only because I’m hastily scribbling it via Evernote on my iPad)
Today, I am leaving Shanghai and China behind (albeit temporarily). To be honest, the entire time living in this city has felt a bit like staying in a prison (a gold, gilded prison, not the Guantanamo kind). Well.. no. Prison may not be the right word. Perhaps it’s been more like a fantasy (wow, that sure was a quick reversal wasn’t it?). Sure, I have enough money in my bank account to fly back home any time and, if need be, in less than 24 hours, I can be back in LaGuardia, crying in front of that giant American flag that greets you as you walk in from the international terminal. And yet, I haven’t felt the urge to act on my escape plan home. In some weird way, going home doesn’t feel it could be real. It’s felt like I’ve been trapped in a glass castle, encased by the glittering Jingan temple, and held here by the cheap alcohol, the shimmering bars, and the illusion that living abroad in a city like Shanghai.
But now that I’m leaving for Thailand, if just for a week, something feels rattled. And to be honest, I quite like this freedom. This exhilaration of being back in the airport, writing this entry on my iPad while rolling down the walkerator (there aren’t enough walkerators outside of airports)
Despite my disastrous last few experiences flying to New Orleans, or Moscow, or even Shanghai, something about being in airports is simply thrilling. I love their rapid pace, the sense of being outside the limitations of time zones, their smell of stale coffee, plastic luggage, and the inky scent of the Wall Street Journals you always get at Hudson News. In a few hours I’ll be away from the smog, away from the honking cars of Shanghai, lying on a beach on Phi Phi Island. But for now, the Art Deco carpet of Shanghai’s Pudong Airport will have to do for a change of pace.
Here’s to freedom.
I hope you have a good time. I remember the feeling of exhilaration stood on a train platform at university of the occasions of “getting out” for a weekend or Christmas. I hope it’s for good reasons and that you can enjoy it.
Oh it’s for absolutely wonderful reasons. All of China has two weeks of vacation to celebrate the founding of the PRC so were capitalizing on the days off work to travel.
I hadn’t realized how big of a deal going home for Christmas was until I met British girls here in shanghai. It seems like such a nice tradition
This is why I like reading blogs of people from other countries as you find the differences that you cherish without even knowing that’s special to you. So going home for Christmas is a British thing? I mean we’ve seen Home Alone here so is it not the same for you, and everyone? I’m assuming you’re wearing your American hat.
I feel that in the US, Christmas is more about coming together as a family rather than an idea of ‘going home’. I’ve had a few non-traditional Christmases in the past few years (I actually spent the last one in Beijing!) but it came down to the people I was with.