China has been getting a really bad rap these days. Yes, people are dying of a highly communicable disease with mysterious origins, but I had such a great time there last year (my first overseas trip ever) that I thought I would post my journal entries from that period. A love-letter to China, despite being glad I'm not traveling there now.
[note: one Yuan is the equivalent of about twelve cents]
12 May 2002: “We made it. Step one of five hundred.” This is what xian tells me as we wait at the gate for our flight. Even the pilots are waiting here with us, slumped over against the wall. I am already amazed by things: the airplane is just outside the huge glass windows, and it is the biggest airplane I have ever seen. “It has an upstairs!” Last night I dreamed of walking off the plane into a massive, bustling airport with no English signs. I dreamed of wandering through dusty streets. I dreamed that a person with us was a belligerent haggler in the markets and got us all into a lot of trouble (all of which happened later).
I can’t believe we are doing this. X says it is time I face our “new, modern lifestyle of global jet-setting,” but I look at the hills out the window and the faces of our flight attendants framed by their royal blue uniforms—and I cannot believe we are doing this.
4:25 pm PST: X has the unfortunate luck of being seated next to a man who periodically horks up a wad and spits into his waterproof disposal bag. I want to give him mine, too, so that he can seal his spit up safely—it seems more sanitary to use several bags than the same one for ten hours. If I find this unsanitary, what will China be like?
Our Air China flight was less impressive than I had hoped. I had been led to expect televisions on all the seat backs and fantastic friendliness, but really it was just like a domestic American flight, except for the free beer. Upon first sitting down, we looked up and noticed that there was a cork poking out of the center air nozzle; it was from a bottle of red wine. This created visions of air pressure imbalance leading to the POP! of the cork—or as X put it, “in the event of a change in cabin pressure, wine will begin flowing from the overhead compartment.” This was funny until we discovered that one of the lavatories was out of service, the “lavatory occupied” sign was out (leading to some serious bottlenecks at the emergency exit) and that the audio jack for our entire row was not functioning. I could not have watched “Dr. Doolittle 2,” “Saving Silverman,” or the Chinese gangster movie if I wanted to, which was ultimately a good thing.
10 pm Beijing time. Proud moment so far: the taxi driver tells us to pay the ¥15 toll and we only have a ¥50 note; he folds up the change on the dash and then surreptitiously stashes it in the door pocket. I start to ask him for the money back in my guidebook Chinese (which consists of finding a word I need and then attempting to pronounce it in a querying tone: “ching?”) and he tells me he speaks some English, so I ask him for the change back. He pretends not to understand me and starts arguing about the price of the taxi ride. We discover later that he charged us about ¥50 too much, so the triumph is hollow, but I am still proud when I get the change back. “Xie xie,” I say to him, and he chuckles.
Beijing appears to be a city under construction or destruction—it’s not clear which. A haze renders the city overcast Wednesday and Thursday. I find myself enjoying the Chinese pop music station despite the fact that the music is exactly the same trite, insipid garbage I pooh-pooh at home. The unfamiliar words lend more mystery.
Posted by care at April 19, 2003 10:28 AM | TrackBack