Shanghai encounters

One thing I forgot to mention which happened when we went to Shanghai was my first encounter with Chinese people in Shanghai. So we had just arrived after our ridiculously long train ride (18 hours) on Tuesday. We went across the street to the Mr. Donut which was amazing by the way. Our group had 9 people in it, so we split up trying to get train tickets back to our respective cities and to buy other items in the store next door. In China, you can only buy train tickets 7 days in advance, which is frustrating but hey, it’s China.

So I stood guard of our bags in Mr. Donut and a Chinese person comes up to us (Michelle and Caroline and I) and hands us a card. It says he is deaf and that he would appreciate any financial help we could give him (in English). So what are the chances that a deaf Chinese person would happen to come across a foreigner who happens to be fluent in American Sign Language? Oh yes, that’s exactly what happened. So I was ecstatic because this was the first Chinese deaf person I had met in China. I started signing to him in ASL and he signed back to me in Chinese Sign Language. I was surprised to find that I actually understood about half of what he was saying. He still wanted money, but I kept insisting that we didn’t have much because we were teachers. He asked if we had flown to Shanghai and I said no, we took the train. He decided that since we had taken the train, we actually didn’t have money, so he left. Well, I might have scared him off with my ability to sign. But it was so strange because that was the first Chinese person that came up to us in Shanghai and he happened to be deaf. I felt bad for him even though he probably wasn’t really a beggar, but he might have been just because China isn’t too proud to have people that are blind, disabled or deaf. Later that same day, as we were walking back to our hostel, I saw a group of 3 or 4 people and they were also signing. It made me think that there was a deaf school nearby or something, which would have been really cool to see.