Words of Wisdom

My sister Nicole may have provided me with the most useful piece of advice before I left, among a lot of gems from everyone.  She told me “Jen, you have to remember, there are way stupider people than you who are traveling the world every day and they do just fine.”  As I tackled the domestic terminal of the Beijing airport yesterday, I had to remind myself of that often.  The other mantra I repeated to myself was “every airport is basically the same” which may or may not be true, but that helped me.

My first task was finding the right check in desk.  I couldn’t find any signs that said “Departures” or “Check in” or anything of the sort on the level I entered.  But, savvy information professional I am, I did find a desk with a big question mark on it and asked for help.  They sent me to level 4, and section “G” – or so I thought.  When I arrived at level 4 I could find no “G” – there was A-F, and H-M , but no G.  I paced back and forth until I finally gave up and found another information desk.  This time the helpful clerk held up the sign with the letter I was supposed to find:  “J”.  I think those signs were genius.  I’m obviously not the only one who didn’t understand the pronunciation.

Once I got to the J section, I had to find out which desk to check in at.  The signage was mostly in Chinese, but there was one big board with flight numbers and desk assignments which helped.  In this case it was more important to track the flight number than the destination, since the signage was sometimes only fleetingly in English (yay for digital signage that rotates).  I made it through the check in process and found my way to security.  I was worried about security because it wasn’t clear if all the rules about liquids and electronics were the same.  And indeed, while my bag of liquids was fine, I did have to pull out not just my laptop, but also the ipad and all the cords, which you don’t have to do in the U.S.  But otherwise the rest of the process was the same. 

Once I got in the gate area, I wasn’t sure how I would manage the boarding process.  They did have a separate lane for first class, but it seemed like everyone else boarded in one big group, not in boarding numbers.  I managed to get myself on board in the first crop of people so I didn’t have to worry about overhead bin space.  The in-flight communication was all in Chinese and English, although I admit I didn’t always understand all the English announcements.  The safety video was a little more in-depth than American airlines – including instructions on how to brace yourself in a crash landing (who knew you’re supposed to take off your high heels, glasses and jewelry?  I hope there’s enough time for all of that). 

Once that flight to Chengdu took off, I breathed a sigh of relief knowing that when I arrived, I would be picked up by my host, Liu Liu.  Liu Liu is a collection development librarian, who incidentally did a 4 month exchange in Pittsburgh, and she is the one guiding my visit here.  She is very kind and patient, and I appreciate knowing she is here to help me. 

Today is Friday and I’m going to have my first official meeting:  lunch with the library director, Dr. Ma.  I will also get my schedule of meetings for the month and I’ll get to see what’s in store for me.