On Monday afternoon, I boarded the flight at Heathrow to good news and bad news from the captain: the flight time would be ten and a half hours instead of the 12 that I had been dreading, but there would be a delayed departure to accommodate 30 passengers from Paris who needed to make the connection.
Two meals, two movies and a snooze later, I arrived at Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport early on Tuesday morning, somewhat jet-lagged, but expectant.
As we disembarked and headed towards immigration, I turned around to see if I recognised the two young ladies behind me conversing in that unmistakable Barbadian accent. So much for being far from home!
Before we proceed any further, let me state that Nobel laureate V. S. Naipaul is one of my favourite authors. And I unabashedly admit that I have lifted holus-bolus the title for this report from his 1987 novel of the same title.
Naipaul’s novel, set mostly in the English countryside, reflects on the nature of our perceptions of our surroundings, and the extent to which our own preconceptions of a place affect these perceptions.
Admittedly, my preconceptions of Shanghai were formed by information received from my colleagues who preceded me here and from my own research. So everything seemed at once familiar and yet new.
Having been here only a few hours now, I concede that my perceptions of Shanghai are somewhat limited, but I’m certain that you’ll permit me to share, at least, my first impressions.
First of all, at 75 degrees Farenheit (24 Celsius) the weather was lovely and fresh, instead of the sweltering sauna heat that my colleague Cheryl Dixon reported on during her stay here in July.
There was little traffic on the streets as my taxi made the 45-minute trip from the airport to my hotel in the Expo Village.
I had arrived in the middle of the Golden Week holidays which begin with the Chinese National Day on October 1.
After a rest and a shower, I made my first foray into the Expo site, escorted by my Caribbean Development Bank colleague Anne Bramble, who’s showing me the ropes before she leaves on Saturday. She introduced me to the people in the CARICOM Pavilion who have been running the show.
Some of them have been in Shanghai since the inception of the Expo and some are more recent arrivals – like me.
On our way there, it was clear that I had truly arrived at the World Expo. There were Arabs and Africans in native garb. I heard snippets of conversations in French and Spanish, and in English spoken with American accents, in a sea of mostly Chinese chatter.
On the shuttle bus back to the hotel, Anne, with her bright dreadlocks, stood out, attracting the glances of some of the Chinese passengers.
A smile which I returned to a Chinese gentleman led to the question: “Where are you from?”
The response to my reply “Barbados” did not lead to puzzlement and a repeat of the word “where?”. Instead, he smiled and said:
“Oh, beautiful country.”
And so I begin my assignment here.Sharon Marshall is Information Officer of the Caribbean Development Bank.
