The First Day

As the plane descended to land, I stared out the window wondering where exactly Beijing was. Not in relation to America, as I've looked at a map quite a few times in order to show my family that I would be on the other side of the world, but in relation to the plane I had spent the last 14 hours pleading for sleep on. The view from the window was an unhealthy gray, the plane's wing barely visible through the all-consuming smog.

It wasn't possible to see the ground until were nearly upon it. The scene was captured perfectly by one Bruce Lerch.

"Welcome to Providence, Rhode Island."

And he wasn't far off.

Maybe it was six months of anticipations or the 14 sleep starved hours jammed in a tin can with wings but the first sight of the People's Republic was underwhelming. Some fields, housing compounds, a rundown runway strip.

This impression lasted all of the 10 minutes it took to get into the airport.

I've flown in and out of Heathrow, Newark, Logan, JFK, San Diego International, and Amsterdam Schiphol and I've never seen anything like the newly opened Beijing Capital International Airport. The sheer size, the absolute quiet, the state of the art technology and that wonderful new car scent. To stand, as I did, in the middle of the vast expansive space and stare up at the unreachable ceiling, one feels both small and yet essential, part of a beautiful and incomprehensible force.

Or maybe it was the disorienting day lost in the air.

I'm staying at the Communications University of China, a college dormitory not unlike Emerson. My roommate Seth and I had a lengthy battle with the air-conditioner unit but after a couple initial defeats, Seth struck a winning blow and we've been living in luxury ever since.

The food is delicious, it's ingredients unknown. Somethings are better left a mystery, even for this inquisitive mind.

Meals are communal, a practice that should be adopted worldwide. Everyone sits around a table, each ordering an item and promptly sharing it. Chopsticks fly as people reach over and around each other, laughing in delight, tasting not only spices and flavor, but friendship and family.

For as Americans, we are all one. That's not something I've thought about while home. But away on the other side of the world our provincial hearts call us together, inescapable is its familiarity and comfort.

On another note: Don't try to out drink an Aussie.