Laolao Launches

How It Started

Almost 16 years ago, I was practicing law and teaching paralegals at a small, for-profit school. I loved teaching, but disliked the school and its business practices. We parted ways over some of those practices. About that time I was working with a client who was a philanthropic venture capitalist who happened to be working with a joint Sino-American university in Henan Province in Central China. The university was in the process of getting their English language law program approved by the provincial ministry of Education. He suggested I would be a good fit. I thought long and hard about applying - for all of about 30 seconds.

The months of waiting were hard. OK, it was about 3 weeks, but it felt like months! I think I checked my email about every 10 minutes. The email with the job offer and accompanying contract arrived while I was at work. I remember screaming "I'm going to China!" at the top of my lungs and dancing a jig all around the office while my colleagues were deciding whether or not they needed to call the funny farm and enroll me in a remedial basket weaving class.

First Travel Lessons

I'd never been outside the US, never had a passport, in all truth I'd never even seriously considered it except when reading. Although I'd loved Pearl S. Buck's books about China, I'd never imagined it would be the first foreign country I would land in.

Months of planning, organizing, packing, repacking later, I flew from Columbia, SC to Los Angeles. I'd flown many times before, but never had to change terminals. The organizers had booked my domestic flight and international flight separately so I had to get myself, my two heavy (75 lbs each!) suitcases, my carry- on and my backpack from one terminal, across the road and a good walk away to the international terminal without getting lost or killed by drivers gawking at a new version of the bag lady. Lessons learned - always book domestic and international tickets together and research transfers between terminals.

Waiting

After arriving at the international terminal sweaty, discombobulated, and irritated, but alive and in one piece, I joined the rest of the team that I would come to view as family and settled in for the long wait for the organizer to arrive with our international tickets, passports and visas. (Air China still required paper tickets. It wasn't until years later that they went to e-tickets.) We couldn't check in until he arrived. That gave us plenty of time to introduce ourselves and chat. It was especially useful as some of the teachers were returning for their second or third year and we learned a lot about what to expect from our new homes. One returning teacher, Will, became a guide and mentor for a group of us. More on that, later.

The organizer did arrive, we checked in, boarded our flight and took off shortly after 1 AM. I was exhausted from the stress, the nerves, and too much adrenaline. I remember taking an Ambien and was out for 8 hours of the 13 hour flight.

Problems

Landing in Beijing was another new experience. Those of you who travel internationally know that you have to go through immigration in the city where you first land in a new country. This was fairly easy even in China. It's actually gotten much easier and more straight forward over the years. Then you must retrieve your bags. First problem - the cargo door had jammed on the airplane and the airline couldn't get the bags off the plane. I honestly don't remember how long we waited. Jet lag does funny things to your sense of time. It was at least a couple of hours. Then there was the chore of getting those heavy bags off of the belt and onto a cart, followed by the even more difficult chore of getting them off the cart, onto the bag scanner for customs inspection, back onto the cart, and onto the belt to be loaded on the next flight. The airline had held the next flight for us - probably because our group was more than half of the passengers. We finally managed to board the flight from Beijing to Zhengzhou and get buckled into our seats. Second problem - a man was furious that he had missed his important business meeting in Zhengzhou and began screaming and cursing at the flight crew. He was taken off the plane by airport security. We were all required to return to the waiting area in the terminal while all the bags were removed from the plane, checked again for anything harmful and returned to the aircraft. Hours later, we finally took off for Zhengzhou. 

Welcome Home

We arrived in Zhengzhou many hours late, exhausted, and more than ready for food and a bed. I was tempted to leave the (expletive deleted) bags on the belt so I wouldn't have to lift them again, but talked myself into doing it one more time. As we exited the baggage claim area into the terminal, our world changed dramatically. We were met by the President of the university along with many students. We were handed a bouquet of flowers, snacks, and water. Our bags were whisked away by students to waiting buses. We were each assigned a student who would become our guide and friend. We boarded the buses for the 45 minute trip out to SIAS International University in the small (according to Chinese standards) town of Xinzheng. 

After close to 48 hours of traveling, I arrived at my new home, got into my new apartment. (I had never had my own apartment before!), put sheets on the bed and slept for the next 15 hours.

晚安 - Goodnight!