I don't recall ever having been in a holding pattern in the US (I've only been flying since '99). I remember 2 or 3 go arounds on a flight from Chongqing to Guangzhou China due to weather then finally we got sent to land in Shenzhen only to sit on the tarmac for an hour and fly the 15 minutes back to Guangzhou...

The Weather by the way was hardly anything by our standards. There were a few stray lightning bolts but it wasn't really raining much or storming on the ground.

This was after a long delay in Chongqing too after they decided to close the airport for a light haze. Again, not something that would have diverted flights in the US, but all of the planes en route to CKG at the time were sent to Chengdu to wait it out. It was funny becuase they were allowed to take off just not land. All of the planes that were already at the airport took off while we waited for our plane to come in... of course I tried to get re-routed but in China point to point is pretty much the rule and they couldn't send me to Guangzhou via an alternate city.