AMERICA, EAT YOUR BIG APPLE OUT!

            Shanghai was mesmerizing! We had two fun-filled days there. The city is stunning. And in more ways than one. Let's talk opulence first. The Shanghai skyline puts the Manhattan skyline to shame. Shanghai has bigger, taller buildings, and far more of them. The architecture is so unique, it is often breathtaking. As one of our scavenges Monday, we went to the observatory on the 100th floor of the Shanghai World Financial Center and gazed (rather gaped) at the beauty of it all. The skyscrapers reach toward the heavens with many different gestures. Their numbers extend beyond the human eye, even from that altitude. Of course, part of the reason they can't all be seen is pollution. But what emerges from the smog puts everyone else's digs to shame. New York buildings seem rather mundane by comparison. We took a boat ride through downtown Monday night and the rows of enormous buildings seemed endless. But Shanghai is a city with lots of personality beyond its skyline. It has beautiful parks and neighborhoods as well.

            Now, don't get me wrong. I'm a Broadway boy at heart. While I've unfortunately lived in the Deep South (and Texas) most of my life, I'm never truly as content as when I'm booked into a hotel on Times Square with tickets to "Wicked," "Book of Mormon" or the latest off-Broadway emergence. I suspect the city that never sleeps will always surpass the rest of the world in terms of raw entertainment, but this Eastern berg has them beat on one of their past bragging rights and, given the direction in which the up-and-comer is going, I wouldn't be surprised if we hear that Tommy Tune and Joe Mantello have relocated and are in search of some fetching Asian men for their next production.

SERVICE -- SHANGHAI IS WAY BEHIND THE TIMES, THANK GOODNESS

            Shanghai doesn't seem to understand the evolution of customer service. Customer care and attentiveness are part of a bygone era in the United States. Just watch a "Back to the Future" movie depicting the '50s where, when a vehicle pulled into a gas station, seven people jumped out the woodwork to perform every task imaginable. The guffaws of the audience are priceless to those of us who remember a similar time. I remember gas station attendants cleaning windshields and windows after checking fluid levels and tire pressure, men delivering milk, butter and Charles' chips in metal cans to your front door, sackers taking the groceries out of your basket and putting them into bags when they were checked.

            All of those activities and more continue to flourish in Shanghai. The service is so good that it is sometimes maddening. I've always said that people are trying too hard to please you when you worry that you're being watched holding your external appendage. I experienced that worry during this trip. At one time, after departing the hotel and reaching the street, I realized I had left my sunglasses in my room. On my way to retrieve them, I was greeted with pleasantries at the building door by a hotel employee. I experienced the same at the row of elevators, where the woman not only pushed the "up" button for me but moved toward and waved her arm in front of the opening elevator like an Asian Carol Merrill. The maid was in my room as I retrieved my glasses, so I went to the hotel's public restroom. A smiling attendant greeted me at the bathroom door and walked me over to a stall which he opened in my honor. I half felt as though I was back in the '70s at a highway rest stop. When I exited my cubicle, he actually turned on the sink water, pressed down the soap button and handed me my paper towels for drying. Frankly, I wouldn't have been surprised if he'd offered to hold my ying-yang during the evacuation. The service is that good.

            And the people are so friendly. Almost everyone we approached to assist us with our scavenges tried to be helpful, from the businessmen we accosted downtown to the older gentlemen we approached in the French Connection to the service personnel we met along the Bund. Everyone was supportive. When we announced our citizenship (and even our state of residence), no one batted an eyelash. No political discourse erupted; no obscene reference to George W. Bush was made. Everyone who could, seemed pleased to meet us in spite of our citizenship while proceeding to tell us, in the most delicate terms, why our plan for achieving a particular scavenge was doomed to failure.

            Note that I said "everyone who could." One fact I have not mentioned is that very few of the people we encountered actually speak English. You hear stories that the Chinese are taught English from elementary school on. Well, either that policy started only recently or the majority of people we met were dropouts or had weak teachers because most of them spoke either no English at all or very little. We frequently walked for several miles after failing to communicate with a half dozen or so cab drivers. The people walking weren't much more fluent in English. Of course, I must ask each of you this: if a person from China visiting America were to walk up to you on the street (or to one of your acquaintances who is a cab driver), would you (or your acquaintance) have any ability to communicate with the individual if she didn't speak English? My guess is that the answer is "no." Isn't it extraordinarily arrogant -- not to mention ethnocentric -- for me to expect that my words would be received and understood by those in the very country with a language I have at least subconsciously chosen to ignore? Certainly, many more of the Chinese speak English than Americans speak Chinese. I have great difficulty listening to comments tht America is too liberal on immigration and has no business authorizing Spanish language signs, open captioning and billboards. Every product, street sign, direction sign or advertisement in Shanghai has its message outlined in both Chinese and English. If it's good enough for them....

            We just arrived at the Caravelle Hotel in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The hotel is lovely. I'll let you know about the city in a few hours.

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! 

China!  

Casey is almost as excited as I am!

Zoe, Rainey and I at the airport- jetlagged but happy!

CASEY AND ERIK VERSUS THE WORLD!

            I love America. But that doesn't mean I have to hate the rest of the world.

            Patriotism can be a positive force, particularly when it motivates people to excel. We all benefit when people perform tasks to the best of their abilities, regardless of motivation. And it's easy to be patriotic when you live in the nation with a Bill of Rights that guarantees the fundamental liberties of the people against the will of a despot or even the majority. Moreover, the prospect of achieving the American dream gives people hope and pride. But patriotism can be ugly, particularly when it morphs into nationalism. I cringe when I hear certain compatriots say the U.S. is far better than any other nation on earth. Just a cursory look at the individuals uttering such words suggests they've never been outside the U.S. a day in their lives (unless it was to cross into Mexico to buy turquoise or Canada to score some meds). I wonder how anyone can make judgment calls about the quality of life, work or government in countries to which they have never been. Then I remember that I have rarely ventured beyond U.S. borders. That is about to change.

            As part of the http://www.globalscavengerhunt.com/ is more countries than either of us have visited, even counting places contiguous to the U.S. I'm 51 years old and it's time I learned how the rest of the world lives, thinks and feels. I hope I find the differences are great in superficial ways but not in substance. I suspect the conclusions won't be so simple. In any event, you can't understand those you do not know. And you can't legitimately criticize what do not understand. On a less cynical level, there are new relationships to be forged all over this globe and we're ready to learn to say "friend" in as many languages as we can.

            This will be easy for Casey; difficult for me. Casey can approach a perfect stranger in any social situation and converse as though they have known each other for years. I have difficulty remember people's names the first six months I know them. I'm the one who hopes the person next to me on the plane can see that I have work to do and doesn't try to strike up a conversation. As we perform the "scavenges" that earn points on this adventure, I will rely heavily on Casey's willingness to say anything to anyone and Casey will rely on me to keep him from a punch in the nose or night in a holding cell.

            Fortunately, I know some of the people on this trip already, including Zoe Littlepage and Rainey Booth, who will have http://zoeandraineygreatescape.blogspot.com/.  I'm counting on them to introduce me to others. My greatest hope is to leave this trip being more comfortable with others, both those standing before me and those I will never meet.