The Reyes Report

I think she’s telling the truth about being unable to post from behind China’s Great firewall … but I have the slightest doubt that this is her sneaky way of getting me to finally post to the blog.
– C

First impressions of China as perceived in the Beijing airport.

We descended to the Beijing airport on a cloud (probably a smog cloud). Made me happy to think the pilots have a horizon orientation tool, because there was no way my eyes could tell which way was up. The window seat was pointless as we didn’t see ground until we were nearly upon it… so I’ll have to see the sights of Bejing another time, because apparently I am not going to see them from the window of a plane.

If what lines the arrival halls of the airport is to give visitors a first impression of what the Chinese value, then in order of importance, it would be: Olympics (advertisements of the 2008 special olympics still addorn the lobby); next comes History (massive, intricate iron artifacts decorate the terminal – from bells, to urns to a rotating dragon-flanked sphere built in 117 to prove the earth is round and rotates. Why do we talk about Galileo again?); and finally technology: I had help purchasing and activating a new sim-card for my mobile phone before even reaching border control.

But all these impressions were dwarfed, truly, by the scale of … well, everything. I’ve had to explore by bus to find Terminal 3 and transfer to my domestic flight to Shanghai. This terminal is massive. It’s at least 3 stories high and stretches … at least a half-mile long but probably longer. Typical for an airport I suppose. But where it differs is in the interior: the whole structure is one open space. Which means a view in any direction feels like you’ve walked into a room with a mirror on either wall, where the reflection mirrors a seemingly endless hallway within a hallway within a hallway, continuing forever until the smallest hallway dimishes to a dot — but if you peer even more closely, you see yet another iteration. So that’s the Beijing airport — and that’s just the architecture.

Anyone who’s been to a china town will probably comment about how rude its locals are – just cutting in front of you, abandoning the concept of lines, not even looking you in the eye. Only, they aren’t being rude, they are being Chinese. In fact, When we expect otherwise, it is we who are rudely projecting our cultural rules onto them. The scale of the population is apparent here in the airport — large tour groups continually parade through the check-in and security gates. And yes, Dad, they are following flags. I keep wondering what will happen if the woman bearing the yellow standard crosses path with a man carrying one similiar — will their tours fall into a state of chaos not knowing which to follow? I imagine them landing 4 hours later at the wrong destination and realizing they had someone followed the wrong yellow flag onto the plane.

As to the lines, I relearned that cultural phenomenon on a trip to the ladies room. Normally a long queue, this seemed a bit more chaotic, with people bipassing those waiting and tring different door handles. Once realizing the doors were locked, they would stand guard outside, pouncing on the vacated porcelain as soon as its previous occupant relinquished the stall. “But there’s a line,” I thought. And then I realized I was the only one standing in it. Everyone else was stalking a stall. There are just so many, many people in China that culturally they have have had to learn to push to the front — for food, for jobs, for attention. Those who don’t push, stay forever in the back, and you can imagine the results. It’s not rude, it’s survival. But when you know a culture’s rules, you can play by them. So when the stall next to me opened, though in my mind I was 4th in line, I was next in the potty. Good thing too

Alas, here I sit with time to spare, lots of restaurants, and not the slightest desire to eat or drink a thing. A food review will definitely be forthcoming … maybe tomorrow after a good night’s rest and a tour of my new surroundings.