C.H.I.N.A, Cloudy, Hot, Inconvenient, Nadir, Abject. This was my mindset when I was told we where we were going this summer.

“Why” I asked my parents, they obviously didn't understand what it was like for a teenager to spend a third of his three month break being technology starved and spending time with the thousands of relatives that he doesn't even know. My initial reaction was that I needed to convince them otherwise, I had a summer plan to play videogames and continue my club swimming at the local natatorium. My mother told me that it would be good for me to see my relatives and experience China. I told her I already experienced China the last time I went. She responded by saying I was only six years old and didn't pay much attention, and that I was forgetting my heritage. I didn't see the point.

I convinced myself it would be the worst experience of my life. There were about a million other places I'd rather be. June and July passed rather uneventfully. August snuck up on me like a Monday during the school year. I chose my luggage and we rode a taxi to the airport. It was 3 am in the morning and there were about 2 other passengers waiting to board. I got on board the plane and the attendants went through all of their routines about turning off electronic devices and all that jumble wumble. In all my years on this planet I never heard of a plane malfunction due to electronic devices being on during takeoff. I guess it interfered with aircraft communications somehow. It was a small flight, we were only being transferred to a major airport, and anyone who has ever travelled knows that's the worst, the waiting time between flight transfers is something like 5 hours, and we all know the outlets are all occupied so you cant charge your electronics. I won' bore you with the details but basically I spent the time reading all the warning labels that were on pretty much everything in the airport. It's safe to say that everything was "safe." After all the wait we finally boarded and Air China plane. They had translators and everything. I felt the plane takeoff and away we went. My parents were no help in making me want to go, all they did was explain about all the exciting places we would see. The Forbidden City, all the Tombs of each Emperor and their Wives. I explained to them that they all look the same, the same kind of architecture and the same color. Once we landed we were greeted by my uncle, he was so happy to see me because it had been 10 years since he last saw me. We got many warm greetings from other family members as I recall. The air was thick, and full of smog. It felt like I was breathing in soup. Inside the hotel was better but let me tell you this right now, Chinese air conditioning was a big joke. There are two types of air conditioning in China, the first is the kind that blows so hard it will give you a fever. The second makes a really loud noise to make you think its working but in reality its not doing anything. Also the housekeeping turns off your AC when they clean to save electricity, so when you come back after a very hot day, and when I say very hot I mean like temperatures you could fry an egg on the ground hot. Anyways, so when you get home after a day of touring you come back to a heated room that has the windows closed and needs about 20 minutes to cool down. After we spent some time there we moved to Tien Jien, another major city in China. This city was so full of smog and people you cant see 20 feet in front of you, and when you could it was just people. All the buildings look gray and there are about 2 dozen being constructed every mile to fit the overwhelming population. We stayed in this 4 star hotel that to my extreme surprise had bad air conditioning. My dad met up with this guy that visited the United States a few years back and worked with him, so they went to his lab and did veterinarian stuff while I stayed in the hotel room with my mom. We shopped at a few stores and there are street venders as far as the eye could see. The trick was to know which ones were legitimate and which ones were fake. The fake ones would sell you a bunch of cheap crap and say its the real deal and charge a small fortune for a bracelet that was homage from wood. After a few days in the city we went to the rural areas of China where my dad's family lived. They lived in the kind of villages you would picture in old movies. The people were really nice though, they farmed and lived each day like the next. The air was a lot cleaner in these parts. I suppose this would have been my favorite part of the trip if it didn't smell terrible. There were farm animals and they can really take over an area with their smell. Our last destination was Shenyang where my mother's family lived. They lived in apartment buildings and treated my like their favorite nephew. I started to enjoy myself a little more and get into the swing of things. I had even smoothed out my Chinese that I had almost forgotten. Each and everyone of my relatives bought me gifts and I felt like I had gotten the wrong impression of China. When I changed my mindset things were a lot smoother than I thought. Like you could use fans instead to cool yourself down.

I know I might sound very narrow minded but honestly it wasn't all too bad in China. There's just a few things you get used to in living in a more developed society like the United States. You don't appreciate the luxuries enough. Not until they are taken away do you realize how much you miss them. If you go into something with the mindset of it being terrible, it will be terrible. If your mindset is positive you might surprise yourself in how much fun you can have.