chapter 1 - arrival

**Author's note. I am still working on this one. Comment and tell me what you think so far. Also tell me where you want the story to go. Once I finish it, I will go through and edit and grammar check it.

23 hours after she left her home in St. Louis, Alyssa's flight touched down in Shanghai's Pudong International Airport. As the plane taxied around the airport she anxiously worried about what the next 6 months would bring.

Alyssa was 24 years old and this was her first time to ever leave the United States. She hadn't put a lot of thought into where she wanted to go, she just wanted to get as far away from her abusive old boyfriend as possible. For 2 years she had endured Chris constantly criticizing her about everything she did, and especially her weight. She wasn't even that heavy by American standards, just a very curvy 153 pound 5'2. Sure, she was thick, but it was in most of the right places. Just the same, Chris would watch everything she ate and would point out even slightest body imperfections when he was drunk, which was often, sometimes even going so far as to say "she was disgusting". Finally she had broken up with him, but that only made things worse as he basically stalked her after that, and she lived in constant fear of him.

One night she decided she needed to make a big change and opened Google Flights to see how far she could get from him on cheapest flight possible. Oddly enough, despite being on the other side of the world, a flight to China was cheaper than many domestic flights. She booked the flight that night, got on Hostel World and found a place to stay, and then sent off her passport to the Chinese Embassy for a Visa. They issued her a 10 year Visa that would allow her to stay in the country up to 6 months at time (she qualified for a student visa some how).

That was the extent of her planning for 6 months in China. She couldn't speak or read Chinese. She didn't know anyone here. She didn't even know what real Chinese food was or much about the local customs. Now here she was, in the most foreign of foreign countries should could have possibly traveled to.

The plane arrived at the gate and everyone deplaned. They were all quickly ushered through customs, she picked up her large rucksack from baggage claim, and followed the signs to the airport's subway station (at least these signs had English under the Chinese). When she got to the subway station, she new she had to get on line 2 and take it to People's Square, and there would be her hostel the People's Square Youth Hostel where she had booked a bed for just 8 dollars usd a night.

The subway was absolutely packed with people, and at each stop more people packed onto it. The airport must have been a long ways out because it took about an hour to reach People's Square. Finally, she heard the posh English announcement for People's Square that would play after the Chinese announcements. She thought to herself that so far this was easy. She got off the subway and followed the crowd up the escalators to the station. The station was massive. There were 20 different exits from the station, each taking you to a different street. She had no idea which one to take and finally just picked one at random. When she arrived at the surface, it was a muggy early evening. The street was packed with cars and constant honking, the sidewalks full of people walking briskly this way and that. She pulled her Samsung out and opened Google Maps to find her hostel. The Maps app tried loading for a moment before finally displaying: "no connection". She started to panic. She was on the other side of the world and she didn't even know which direction to walk in. She started walking down the street asking everyone "Do you speak English?". At most she would get a response back of "Hello", the only word of English most Chinese people seem to know. Finally she saw a Westerner and ran up to him, praying to herself he spoke English.

He was a young man, probably mid 20s, tall, and fit. She walked up to him in a frantic "Do you speak English?". To her relief he responded in a mild Southern accent "Yes, I am an American". "Oh thank God" she said. "I can't find my hostel, I opened Google Maps and there is something wrong with it". He smiled "This is your first time to China isn't it?". She replied "It is my first time anywhere really". He chuckled, "Well Google doesn't work in China. Most people here use Baidu, but it is all in Chinese. What hostel are you staying in?". She answered "The People's Square Youth Hostel". "Lucky you then", he said "That is where I am staying. Follow me and I can take you there".

She walked with him. The hostel wasn't far, just a few blocks, but it was down a narrow alley off the main streets and she had no idea how she would have found it without him. He introduced himself as Austin. He was from Memphis and was staying in China for a year teaching English a couple of afternoons a week. He spoke fluent Mandarin having studied it in college and possessing a gift for languages. Alyssa told Austin she didn't speak anything but English, had came to China on a whim, new little about it, and planned on staying for 6 months. She laughed as she said "at least I am short so I won't stick out that much".

Austin thought to himself yeah she is short, and thick as fuck. He loved what he thought of as curvy girls. In fact, he liked them a lot bigger than Alyssa, but in the land of over a billion skinny as a rail Chinese, she would certainly do.