Great Escape 2016: A HOMOGENEOUS WORLD?

Sunday (2 a.m., Shanghai time; 1 p.m., Central Time):

We are now in Shanghai, China. Getting here involved no crises but was still a hassle. Just this year, China began a "visa on arrival" program. I don't know all the specifics, but you don't actually get the visa until you arrive in the country. It appears the Chinese officials don't know much about the program either because they ferried us from person to person, each barking unknown words louder than the first, with no progress toward actually letting us leave the airport. The experience was a bit unnerving at first...but only at first. Eventually, Casey cracked a couple of jokes with the official handling our papers, as Casey is wont to do. I half expected to be hauled off to a holding room. Why, I don't know. I guess as enlightened as I may claim to be, I subconsciously still have remnants of "Red China" in the back of my mind. The official immediately responded to Casey's comments with a broad smile and a giggle and I realized the Chinese immigration officials are no different than American immigration officials. No matter what country they're from, bureaucrats have thankless jobs at which they're typically incompetent, generating frustration (which, depending upon perceived power, can be scary).

Which leads me to wonder just how different we all are in this modern era of the global economy and interdependence? Admittedly, I remain a neophyte at world travel, having visited only one non-Western nation before my still very limited time in China. But thus far, I have spent 14 hours on a Chinese airline's plane with uncomfortable seats and flight attendants rarely in view, seemingly unconcerned with customer satisfaction (making them virtually indistinguishable from the flight attendants of any number of American airlines (double entendre unanticipated but appreciated)). The Shanghai airport appears to be a carbon copy of Terminal E of Houston's Intercontinental Airport (though the chicken/egg dispute enters here). The city is gorgeous, with beautifully designed and appointed skyscrapers...though I can't help but think it appears some oil tycoon from Texas decided to redesign Manhattan, making everything just a bit larger (and a bit gaudier). This much is certain: The Grand Hyatt Shanghai is, without question, the most glorious Hyatt I've experienced.

Of course, all of this will likely become academic gibberish to us tomorrow (as it undoubtedly already is to many of you with international experience), when Casey and I, along with more than two dozen other Westerners in awe, venture into the city, and possibly countryside, to experience more than the plastic the tourists see. With the morning light, the neon will be extinguished and the natives will come into our view. How different will they -- their cultures, their customs, their lifestyles, their values -- be from ours? Will the differences be as superficial as the skyscrapers that dot both the Shanghai and New York skylines? Or will they reflect genuine ideological and material divergence? We seek common ground to foster relationships, but isn't it our differences that yield the search for such ground? Or is all of this a bunch of trite, pretentious balderdash, from a guy trying to make the simple seem to complex -- to show off, so to speak, to the Off-Off-Broadway audience.

I have learned at least one important fact during the briefest and most irrelevant part of our voyage: I have learned that I should (and will) no longer tolerate the acquaintances who whine when Spanish instructions and explanations are announced after English ones -- the acquaintances who expect everyone to know, understand and share not only their cultural views but fluency in their particular language. The ones who claim that America has caved in to the foreigners. In Shanghai, an industrial lifeblood of China, every sign, every billboard and every instruction has an English component. The billboards advertise Western products. The hotel televisions feature HBO, CNN and numerous other American stations. The language of the movies is English; they are subtitled in Chinese. The rest of the world cowtows to us. Truly, only we Westerners feel put upon when someone from another country gets to hear all-important instructions uttered in his native language when he visits here. We have no business turning green.

I'm off to sleep until 8 a.m. our time, then find out what our potential scavenges will be. Frankly, I'd be happy winning this competition or earning last place. Each circumstance brings quite a different experience. If I leave here top dog or bottom competitor, I'll be pleased. I'll either experience a great deal of the world in an organized manner or much less of it in an informal but elongated way. I suspect those pesky runner up or "the group won't stop until you've finished" positions would bring me the most angst.

Pics to come. So far, just the few hours of culture shock -- and not so culture shock -- have been well worth the trip.

*Update- , here are a couple of pics we have taken so far in China!