Jul 21

I guess being 21 is a bit late for a coming-of-age story. But socially and mentally, I still feel like 18 or younger. I am simultaneously a working adult and a teenager. And here I am, bored on the plane from Shanghai to Dallas, occasionally grabbing some snacks and drinks at the back of the plane, and watching Mean Girls again - this time in Espanol, picking up just a little bit. I am going to Fayetteville, Arkansas. And I will still journal about everything here.

The CBP officer didn't bother me at all. It was like just 3 minutes, and I got in. He didn't even look at my trips last summer to Russia and Belarus. I heard a lot of Espanol in the airport, and lots of people with Mexican passports. It is my fifth time in the US. I am arriving at XNA tonight!

Life just takes you to random places. This March I did not know where is Arkansas. And so goes a huge chunk of your life in this random place as I glanced out of my plane window - it's just fate.

Jul 22

Ok, I got standed in the XNA airport. It was almost 11 pm when I got off the plane. The university did provide a shuttle service, but there was no bus waiting outside, and I didn't register for it successfully. My mom bought me an ATT card, but my two phones are both Redmi, and they don't work, unfortunately. I better get an iPhone. Nothing works. China mobile doesn't work, roaming doesn't work, and I can't even receive SMS from my Chinese number, so I can't even log in to China Mobile. Uber and Lyft require a mobile number, and there are no taxis waiting outside. But I am not panicking at all because these things went wrong for me all the time. When I went to Moscow or Minsk, I relied on spatial navigation to go through the metros and find my hotels, and walk around for a few days. Too bad there aren't no public transits here, nothing is within walking distance, and the airport is completely empty at night. I am going to wait until 8 or 9 am tomorrow and ask for help.

An officer was walking around, and he came over for help. He asked about the SIM pin, but I don't have the covers of the sim card for ATT anymore, and I don't know where to enter it anyway. He said you can take a picture of the taxi phone number outside and call them via WhatsApp, or you would have to wait until morning. And I said it's fine if I wait till morning. And he said good luck.

So it was 5 am and XNA began to fill up with people. There's a lot of hustling energy in such a small airport. I heard some Espanol again. Then it was 6 am, and I asked an airport cleaner for help. She said they had a phone, she seems very kind. So I went over to the assistance area and I used the phone to call "Jim's shuttle", funny because I'm also Jim. I called them, I am paying in cash, and they are coming 8:45, and I said thank you to the airport staff.

I was waiting until 8:53, and I didn't know which car was "Jim's shuttle". The airport worker came out and pointed me to a car. So I went over and an old lady was on the car, and I am going to the hotel. It costs 65 dollars. It was such a beautiful ride, you have a lot of space and nature here, unlike the crowded concrete of Shanghai. I chatted with the driver for a while, and she said she was from Ohio. She would constantly say, "cool", or "oh really?" Then I came to the hotel. They didn't accept payment in cash, and my bank cards got declined, but I was able to order online with my bank card somehow. And I turned on Univision for a while.

I was very hungry and I went out to grab some food. There seems to be some fast food to grab down every other street - burritos, slices of pizza, yogurt, or pastries - which you don't usually see in Shanghai. In China, the snacks inside supermarkets usually taste very terrible, and it's hard to find decent hot food in grocery stores. The bus isn't really punctual, but it's free. I took the bus around and I feel I could already navigate the campus easily spatially. And then there are the huge, luxurious Greek houses.

I took the bus to the JB Hunt building, and I found Dr. Wu's office on the 5th floor, but he isn't there. I found the lab on the 3rd floor, and I am supposed to have a table there soon. There's a student An Vong still there, and he's from Vietnam. So I talked to him a little and I left.

I'm heavily sleep deprived now. But I need to get cash and a working SIM card. It is a hell of a walk, constantly uphill and downhill. I went to Chase, and my 2 Chinese bank cards can't draw any money. I'm spending most of the day on spatial navigation and buses again. When I went to Russia, my Cbankhinese bank card went dead as well. So it's not anything new to me.

I should be writing just a little bit everyday, but I'm writing too much on the first day already. It seems like a good place if there are no people. If there are too many people, then I don't know.

The campus is big and green. But how much of it is actually mine? How do I matter? I don't want to leave this place feeling like I haven't existed here in the first place.

In just a day I've met with a Latin American hotel cleaner, two women from Cambodia in a donut shop, a south Asian man in a gas station store, and a woman with a hijab in T-mobile. Arkansas features a lot of people from the global south.

I got a Moto G phone in T-Mobile. It's 2 pm. I am so tired I am struggling to keep my eyes open. I finally ordered a Lyft back. Southerners are very talkative, and at least superficially, very warm and friendly. And I am comfortable making far more eye contact with people here.