An hour after I had kissed my lovely, enlarging wife goodbye and hopped into the crew van headed for the airport I was sitting in that same van waiting to enter a security checkpoint which allowed access onto the field. In front of us was a string of other vehicles, carrying cargo bound for domestic locations and airport workers. I had my head down reading something rather uninteresting when I felt like I was getting car sick, which was quite puzzling due to the fact we were stationary. My head started whirling and I wondered whether my wife, who’s known for doing such malicious acts, had drugged me again to simply take advantage of me. Sometimes it’s difficult being absolutely irresistible, even when one is married.
So anyway, as I sat there pondering whether or not I’d have to call in sick to work because of my wife’s devious ways, I happened to notice that the vehicles in front of us were swaying back and forth slowly. “Ah, it’s really windy!” I thought…”funny that the leaves aren’t blowing though…hmm”. When the people in the nearby building started pouring out in throngs, many screaming, which I mistook for singing (trust me, it’s easy to mistake the two in China) I really began to wonder what was going on. Then it sank in, the fog lifted and I realized what was happening. “Dude” I said to Spoon (another foreign pilot here) “we’re having an earthquake!”. And then we both stared dumfounded outside as the earth rocked around and high vehicles neared tipping.
We both hopped out of the van with another foreign pilot, Bruce, and marveled at the dizzying experience. Remember the first time you smoked a cigarette or chewed tobacco and your head was swimming around and the dizziness almost left you on the edge of nauseous vertigo? Surely you do if you swallowed the chewing tobacco! I stood for a moment hoping my inner ear would catch up and realized I wasn’t alone in this feeling as I noticed many Chinese workers around me holding their heads as if to stabilize their swaying noggins.
I looked around and got a bit nervous when I noticed the nearby electrical lines and their supports swaying dangerously, causing me to back down the road a bit to remain clear of any potential electrocution, a form of demise that doesn’t appeal to me (though none of them really do I guess).
High above us, looming over the field sat, or rather swung like a large wet noodle, the Air Traffic Control Tower, making me really, really, really glad that I was safely on the ground having only to battle with my own strange vertigo and not more dangerous realities. The lower doors of the airport terminal, and jet-ways swung open around this time and thousands of Chinese passenger poured onto the field, creating quite a spectacle to behold. The tarmac, usually only inhabited by aircraft, baggage carts, fuel trucks and the occasional policeman riding an antiquated bicycle now resembled a huge ant colony, with little black haired Han Chinese swarming everywhere. Not something you see every day.
I immediately tried calling Elizabeth to make sure she was ok, only to find all the phone networks were out of service. I sent failed text message after failed text message to her until they started to go thru, only to leave me more nervous when she didn’t respond. Thankfully a mutual friend who lives next door to our apartment had a phone that was working and relayed, after an hour of nervous uncertainty, that everyone was fine.
The earthquake happened in Sichuan province, one south of Shaanxi, where we live. As I’m sure everyone is aware of now it was quite powerful, measuring around 7.8 on Mr. Richter’s lovely scale. Current estimates place the death toll at around 12,000, but judging from the construction I’ve seen in the older apartment buildings around where we reside, I fear that number will grow significantly in the days to come. While I don’t pretend to be an expert on the matter I can’t help but guessing that the building codes here are just a bit lacking when compared to those in other seismically active areas elsewhere in the ‘modern world’. The news agencies on CCTV are almost comical in their coverage of the story, as they replay the same footage over and over again, with differing musical soundtracks. They absolutely love this technique, one which I came to despair this past winter when an ice storm shut down this nation. That time, and surely again in a few weeks, the government hosted a relief workers awards show, with musical numbers, dancing, singing and men in military uniforms waving snow shovels around rhythmically. Watch out Broadway, Chinese natural disasters are the up and coming theatrical breakthrough. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not laughing at this catastrophe, as I do find it terrible. My heart goes out to all those in Sichuan, where we’d been just 2 weeks ago. The corniness of the government controlled Chinese media just gets me sometimes.
That night, last night, our ground floor apartment turned into the local foreigner hostel, housing around 10 others who weren’t allowed to enter their high rises as of yet. While I sat in a hotel room in Shenzhen, awaiting a flight to Qingdao for a simulator check, Elizabeth managed Hotel Archambault charging fantastic rates that will surely help us reach our retirement goals quickly.
Long story short: We got rattled, but we’re all fine.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Catch up
Wow, I feel like I need to write something profound and incredibly insightful. I've been on braindead autopilot for the past month or so, not having much motivation to write or take pictures or a lot of other things. Why? I dunno...maybe the suspended heavy metal particulates in the air held down at my lung level by constant temperature inversions has finally done the trick...I'm slowly becoming retarded. Or maybe I was stressed about other things. Toss up I think.
We went to New Zealand for a friend's wedding outside of Wellington. The trip, and the wedding were great. I even managed to work in a days worth of fly-fishing on the day of the wedding with an old man who felt bad for me. This pity was great. We flew into Wellington on Day 1, spent 2-3 days in the Levin-Wellington area, and then headed for the South Island. We underestimated the size of the island however, and spent more time driving then we had initially planned on. I should have expected this, coming from Colorado where a town could be within spitting distance but the drive thru the various mountain passes takes hours. On the South Island we made our way along its North Shore and to the wild West coast and its amazing scenery. Spending a couple days making our way down we also took a heli-hike up Fox Glacier before heading down to the island's extreme southwest corner and its amazing Fiordland National Park. We did a two day kayaking trip thru the impressive fiords which Elizabeth decided she would never do again while pregnant, and she claims I'm lucky to still be alive for convincing her to do it. After the kayaking we made our way back up to Queenstown for some wine tasting (well I did) and some bungee jumping (again, I did... pregnancy limits one's ability to drink and jump off high ledges...may be an evolutionary survival trick, who can tell?). So thats the extreme short hand version of our 1st and surely not last New Zealand experience. It was fantastic and I would highly recommend it to anyone and their Grandmothers. It was just that good.
I'll write more soon, as its been an interesting couple of weeks.
Jesse
We went to New Zealand for a friend's wedding outside of Wellington. The trip, and the wedding were great. I even managed to work in a days worth of fly-fishing on the day of the wedding with an old man who felt bad for me. This pity was great. We flew into Wellington on Day 1, spent 2-3 days in the Levin-Wellington area, and then headed for the South Island. We underestimated the size of the island however, and spent more time driving then we had initially planned on. I should have expected this, coming from Colorado where a town could be within spitting distance but the drive thru the various mountain passes takes hours. On the South Island we made our way along its North Shore and to the wild West coast and its amazing scenery. Spending a couple days making our way down we also took a heli-hike up Fox Glacier before heading down to the island's extreme southwest corner and its amazing Fiordland National Park. We did a two day kayaking trip thru the impressive fiords which Elizabeth decided she would never do again while pregnant, and she claims I'm lucky to still be alive for convincing her to do it. After the kayaking we made our way back up to Queenstown for some wine tasting (well I did) and some bungee jumping (again, I did... pregnancy limits one's ability to drink and jump off high ledges...may be an evolutionary survival trick, who can tell?). So thats the extreme short hand version of our 1st and surely not last New Zealand experience. It was fantastic and I would highly recommend it to anyone and their Grandmothers. It was just that good.
I'll write more soon, as its been an interesting couple of weeks.
Jesse
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
चिनेसे न्यू एअर
It was sometime after we had crashed the first time, yet before the second.
We were flying from Tianjin, an industrial city just outside of Beijing, to Taiyuan, a central Chinese city known for among other things, its famous vinegar and its hideous statue of a seemingly intoxicated horse galloping thru space with tongue flailing wildly outside its teeth which nicely greets you at a major crossroads. I had given the previous copilot my “here’s how I do not want you to land” speech, one which I have been working on refining lately, as it hadn’t seemed to hold too much credence amongst the First Officers here. I think I was working on how to adapt it to the FO sitting beside me then, Gavin (self given English name), when something outside the window caught my eye.
Ok close your eyes and imagine this:
Great, now that you’ve opened your eyes again you’ve realized that closing your eyes and reading doesn’t work too well. So let’s try this again. Imagine a late June evening in the Eastern United States. Fireflies are at their hormonal peak and are flashing away everywhere frantically, each in its own, random yet rhythmic Morse code. You are at a large field on a cool June evening, so there’s a bit of mist rising as the air cools near its dew point. Yet you’re not actually standing at the field, you are hovering about 500 feet above it, watching through the mist, a completely random, completely silent, orchestra of light bursts. Now go up about another 25,000 feet and imagine that this orchestra is being played out by thousands and thousands of other little buggers for as far as you can see. What do you have? Day 4 or 5 of Chinese New Year…and still going strong. Oh, and for authenticity sake, each of these little fire flies, whenever it gives off its burst of light, lets out a huge burst of noxious, toxic smoke, pleasantly laden with nitric oxide, sulfur oxide, heavy metals, and huge amounts of ozone. Oh, and most of these fire flies are no longer allowed to enter the United States because of among other things, the discovery of some radioactive isotopes in many of them that are born in China. But hey, it’s pretty, right?
So, back to inside the cockpit. I sat there, face pressed against the large side window, staring down, through the mist (or more accurately, toxic death clouds—bit pessimistic, eh?) at one of the most amazing things I’d ever seen. For as far as I could possibly see stretched an endless ocean of mute explosions…some colorful, some simply white bursts, but all endless in their frequency. As we flew over the metropolitan area surrounding Tianjin, a zone with a population in excess of 10 million, it appeared that every resident and their visiting relatives were out there, intent on lighting the sky up with a ferocity previously only known to Baghdad dwellers. The clouds thickened and we crossed over the mountainous area west of the Tianjin before crashing again in Taiyuan. Good times.
A few evenings before the firefly episode we had experienced the real Chinese New Year. My ears are still ringing and my stomach still gurgles at the thought of the drinking contests, three weeks afterwards. It was insane. We began the night at a hotel which is run by the Chinese version of the FAA, and were treated to gifts and a typical bizarre assortment of edible experiences including sweet fried snake, and my favorite, huge cubes of pure pork blubber with pepper. There is nothing quite like gelatinous blobs of peppered pig fat to go with an ice cold beer and shots of rice moonshine. After dinner we migrated down the street to another large, boisterous and smoky restaurant where the First Officers and mechanics awaited. It was here that the binge drinking truly began.
Unfortunately for many who dislike drinking in gargantuan proportions, myself included, the Chinese at festivities cannot just casually drink together with festive mellowness. If one comes to you and says hello, makes a toast and ‘cheers’ you, you are expected to raise the bottom of your bottle towards the ceiling and finish the remainder of whatever you are drinking right there on the spot. This is fine until you realize that standing behind First Officer Bill (whose real name is Wang Chai) is a line of 11 other copilots you’ve flown with (all with comical English names. My favorite being one whose name was…ummm….something like Zonqing Xailu Rong, but who then states after introducing himself “You can call me Bob.”) in the past month, all waiting their chance to clink glasses or bottles. After a few of these, and some scornful (but life saving!) glances from Elizabeth, I had to politely bow out from all of the other goodwill wishes coming my way, but not before getting to see one copilot completely empty his stomach contents, projectile like, immediately in front of us. He apologized, and then in true Chinese style, so as not to lose face, picked up another full beer and slammed it while we stood holding our noses in horror. He has ironically become one of my best copilots. Thankfully we don’t binge drink in the cockpit.
After the alcoholic mayhem had taken its toll on my cognitive functions I was hustled out to an awaiting taxi by Elizabeth and we headed home with a few other friends. When we arrived back home I passed out almost immediately, with only a few bed-spins, and missed the bombardment that took place that night. Lucky for me, the fireworks fervor is maintained throughout the 14 day celebration, and each night was of amazing intensity. Ever wondered what it sounded like landing in Normandy on June 6, 1944? Come to China after the lunar New Year and you’ll find out.
Check out this link to a video shot by our neighbor and fellow expat pilot for an idea:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=be8RBCoC4po
We were flying from Tianjin, an industrial city just outside of Beijing, to Taiyuan, a central Chinese city known for among other things, its famous vinegar and its hideous statue of a seemingly intoxicated horse galloping thru space with tongue flailing wildly outside its teeth which nicely greets you at a major crossroads. I had given the previous copilot my “here’s how I do not want you to land” speech, one which I have been working on refining lately, as it hadn’t seemed to hold too much credence amongst the First Officers here. I think I was working on how to adapt it to the FO sitting beside me then, Gavin (self given English name), when something outside the window caught my eye.
Ok close your eyes and imagine this:
Great, now that you’ve opened your eyes again you’ve realized that closing your eyes and reading doesn’t work too well. So let’s try this again. Imagine a late June evening in the Eastern United States. Fireflies are at their hormonal peak and are flashing away everywhere frantically, each in its own, random yet rhythmic Morse code. You are at a large field on a cool June evening, so there’s a bit of mist rising as the air cools near its dew point. Yet you’re not actually standing at the field, you are hovering about 500 feet above it, watching through the mist, a completely random, completely silent, orchestra of light bursts. Now go up about another 25,000 feet and imagine that this orchestra is being played out by thousands and thousands of other little buggers for as far as you can see. What do you have? Day 4 or 5 of Chinese New Year…and still going strong. Oh, and for authenticity sake, each of these little fire flies, whenever it gives off its burst of light, lets out a huge burst of noxious, toxic smoke, pleasantly laden with nitric oxide, sulfur oxide, heavy metals, and huge amounts of ozone. Oh, and most of these fire flies are no longer allowed to enter the United States because of among other things, the discovery of some radioactive isotopes in many of them that are born in China. But hey, it’s pretty, right?
So, back to inside the cockpit. I sat there, face pressed against the large side window, staring down, through the mist (or more accurately, toxic death clouds—bit pessimistic, eh?) at one of the most amazing things I’d ever seen. For as far as I could possibly see stretched an endless ocean of mute explosions…some colorful, some simply white bursts, but all endless in their frequency. As we flew over the metropolitan area surrounding Tianjin, a zone with a population in excess of 10 million, it appeared that every resident and their visiting relatives were out there, intent on lighting the sky up with a ferocity previously only known to Baghdad dwellers. The clouds thickened and we crossed over the mountainous area west of the Tianjin before crashing again in Taiyuan. Good times.
A few evenings before the firefly episode we had experienced the real Chinese New Year. My ears are still ringing and my stomach still gurgles at the thought of the drinking contests, three weeks afterwards. It was insane. We began the night at a hotel which is run by the Chinese version of the FAA, and were treated to gifts and a typical bizarre assortment of edible experiences including sweet fried snake, and my favorite, huge cubes of pure pork blubber with pepper. There is nothing quite like gelatinous blobs of peppered pig fat to go with an ice cold beer and shots of rice moonshine. After dinner we migrated down the street to another large, boisterous and smoky restaurant where the First Officers and mechanics awaited. It was here that the binge drinking truly began.
Unfortunately for many who dislike drinking in gargantuan proportions, myself included, the Chinese at festivities cannot just casually drink together with festive mellowness. If one comes to you and says hello, makes a toast and ‘cheers’ you, you are expected to raise the bottom of your bottle towards the ceiling and finish the remainder of whatever you are drinking right there on the spot. This is fine until you realize that standing behind First Officer Bill (whose real name is Wang Chai) is a line of 11 other copilots you’ve flown with (all with comical English names. My favorite being one whose name was…ummm….something like Zonqing Xailu Rong, but who then states after introducing himself “You can call me Bob.”) in the past month, all waiting their chance to clink glasses or bottles. After a few of these, and some scornful (but life saving!) glances from Elizabeth, I had to politely bow out from all of the other goodwill wishes coming my way, but not before getting to see one copilot completely empty his stomach contents, projectile like, immediately in front of us. He apologized, and then in true Chinese style, so as not to lose face, picked up another full beer and slammed it while we stood holding our noses in horror. He has ironically become one of my best copilots. Thankfully we don’t binge drink in the cockpit.
After the alcoholic mayhem had taken its toll on my cognitive functions I was hustled out to an awaiting taxi by Elizabeth and we headed home with a few other friends. When we arrived back home I passed out almost immediately, with only a few bed-spins, and missed the bombardment that took place that night. Lucky for me, the fireworks fervor is maintained throughout the 14 day celebration, and each night was of amazing intensity. Ever wondered what it sounded like landing in Normandy on June 6, 1944? Come to China after the lunar New Year and you’ll find out.
Check out this link to a video shot by our neighbor and fellow expat pilot for an idea:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=be8RBCoC4po
Monday, February 11, 2008
Flying for prizes
The last time I flew a CRJ was May of 2006. It was from Raleigh-Durham, N.C. to Chicago’s O’Hare airport, and as I exited the aircraft and set out to catch another that would take me home to Colorado, I think I turned and flicked the airplane the bird. My anger, or actually bitter relief at that very point, had little to do with the airplane itself, but more to do with the evil empire which owned the aircraft, my previous employer. I would like to think that there exist few companies out there who treat their employees so poorly, for surely the world would be a better place without throngs of miserable, exhausted and abused workers. I thereafter packed up my house, moved to Africa, and found more personal, inner serenity in a war torn, backwards faux state (that is currently under siege-again) than I did during my previous 5 year tenure within our national boundaries. That in itself speaks volumes I think.
Twenty something months later I’m back flying this aircraft that was the nail in the coffin of my decision to quit that previous job. Ironically, the new company I work for is a joint venture between two nations and two airlines, with one of the parties being my past paycheck issuing nemesis. Yet it couldn’t be farther from that previous abusive job that would’ve made a great Stockholm Syndrome case study. Every morning a van arrives to pick me up early, right at the entrance of our apartment complex. It takes me and the rest of the crew for a lavish, early morning Chinese feast before our day begins. It did take me some time to come around to the a.m. banquet, my stomach turning the first few times I smelled pickled beef with cabbage at 0630,then again, there may be no appropriate time for such a dish. There is no such thing as breakfast food here. No waffles, nor bacon. No eggs Benedict or breakfast burritos. Only steamed broccoli, spicy noodles, beef dishes, chicken dishes, pork dishes, fried eggs, steamed buns, dumplings, hot milk and a vast assortment of other dishes one rarely considers ordering when perusing the neighborhood Chinese take-away menu. Yet you are expected to eat, to gorge in fact, as it is considered unsafe to fly if you have an empty stomach.
After breakfast and a trip to the dispatch office to retrieve and review paperwork, we are taken to the airplane, already warmed and inspected. The fueler stands waiting patiently in the stinging cold for your order and what looks like a herd of half bears half Chinese Paul Bunyan wannabees circle the airplane repeatedly scanning for defects. They wear thick, poofy, dark leather jumpsuits which have bear fur hats and collars, and clumsy looking arctic boots. If China had an Iditarod these guys would be suited and ready to mush.
Its somewhere in this timeframe of completing cockpit inspections and admiring the busy, shaved ursus asianas wobbling about that the flight attendant usually approaches and asks:
“Cup-tin, what would you like when we arrive in Tianjin?”
The first time I heard the question I wasn’t sure how to respond. I sat staring smiling and shrugged my shoulders, hoping she’d pick up on the international signal for “ I have no fucking clue what you’re talking about.” Thankfully she did.
“Milk, chocolate, rice, beef, chicken, gum, soap..ah yes…here…you need shampoo!”
“Ok…not sure what you’re implying, but sure, I’ll take the shampoo. Why am I taking the shampoo again?”
I received the tried and trusted international signal right back.
Sure enough, upon landing in Tianjin an army of little Han Chinese women overflow into the aircraft aiming to clean, yet one comes looking like a miniature, perverse version of Santa Claus in a hodge podge of raggedy, coal dust colored clothes. She unloads the sack of presents into the center aisle whereupon the flight attendant quickly divvies up the booty into personal sub piles. Before the passengers arrive the bag containing a bottle of Pantene ProV shampoo finds its way into my hands, along with a bag of individually wrapped, jerkied beef nuggets…my favorite.
Since that inaugural day of flying for prizes I have both remained utterly confused and come to some miniscule understandings. Every day I am asked “what would you like from XYZ?” and after I hear my choices I usually pick chocolate. However when we arrive at the airport where I m supposed to be given my cocoa flavored prize, I am most often given a bag of something completely different along with the explanation of “Sorry…no chocolate today in XYZ!” In my random bags of concession prizes I have won more beef nuggets, yak meat, ass meat (yes, that is correct), do-it-yourself nasty 4 rice porridge packages, gum, large dried flowers that strengthen my loins, chocolate milk, gallons of cooking oil, and skin whitening of body moisturizer. Oh, and a whole smoked, blue chicken complete with head, beak and feet.
For a while it was great fun coming home at night to my beautiful wife and proudly proclaiming that while she’d been lazily learning the hardest language on earth, I had been actively working to win great quantities of ass meat. If there was ever a way to instill guilt in a nonworking spouse this is it. Yet when the piles of unopened, unused Chinese, edible oddities began to rise, we felt guilty about our stockpile. Certainly there were starving kids in Ethiopia who would kill for an edible loin strengthening weed that when taken into one’s mouth tasted of raw, wholesome and anthrax laden dirt! Surely there were limbless beggars dragging their way thru the streets of Delhi’s ghettos who’d give anything but to taste the mouth watering goodness of an individually wrapped Yak nugget the size of a peanut. Surely I’m going to hell for this one.
It was when I asked a Chinese friend “do people actually eat this shit????” and heard his response of “YES! Most of this is a delicacy in China” that I understood what we must do with my treasure at home. We quickly consulted Google Earth, found an uninhabited island in the South Pacific and then proceeded to draw up a map, complete with skulls, crossbones and swimming serpentine monsters with forked tongues, and then placed a large X on our island. We were going to cache the supplies until the Dollar-Yuan exchange rates rose exponentially again in 2060, then make out like bandits on the lucrative luxury food trade. Yet upon examination of ticket prices on Expedia.com we decided against the burying of our ass meat and rice porridge stashes and simply decided to divide up all of the random goods into equal sized bags and give them to homeless families living in the streets of Xi’an.
Now when I fly and am queried with my daily prize selection I pick something I know will be nutritious and good for someone who needs it more than I do. We also aim to collect goods to donate to the local orphanage and homeless shelter, as well as to a local agency (run by an American) that goes to remote, impoverished villages in the Shaanxi province and delivers much needed food and medicine.
I can see our philanthropy at work now:
The scene:
A doctor sits at a table in the middle of a sunny, yet frigid cold town center, flanked by two nurses and a large box of medicine and supplies. A tired and sullen crowd of peasant Chinese workers shuttles single file to him confiding their ailments and receiving free medications and food in return. Hope is in the air. True human goodwill is beginning to energize the crowd out of their despair. An old man reaches the desk and whispers his complaint of hip problems and incessant hunger. The doctor thinks not for a second, turns to the box of medicines and goods and removes two packages, handing them slowly to the man while vocalizing the appropriate actions required.
“Eat this flower. It tastes like horseshit but your loins will never be stronger. Ignore the dirt that may still be lodged within its pedals…tis roughage. Then it this meat, after of course you have removed the 3 layers of wrappers. Nothing will nourish your ancient bones like little nuggets of donkey’s hindquarters. Go old man, go and be well.”
As far as I can tell, I may be facing eternal damnation for this one.
Twenty something months later I’m back flying this aircraft that was the nail in the coffin of my decision to quit that previous job. Ironically, the new company I work for is a joint venture between two nations and two airlines, with one of the parties being my past paycheck issuing nemesis. Yet it couldn’t be farther from that previous abusive job that would’ve made a great Stockholm Syndrome case study. Every morning a van arrives to pick me up early, right at the entrance of our apartment complex. It takes me and the rest of the crew for a lavish, early morning Chinese feast before our day begins. It did take me some time to come around to the a.m. banquet, my stomach turning the first few times I smelled pickled beef with cabbage at 0630,then again, there may be no appropriate time for such a dish. There is no such thing as breakfast food here. No waffles, nor bacon. No eggs Benedict or breakfast burritos. Only steamed broccoli, spicy noodles, beef dishes, chicken dishes, pork dishes, fried eggs, steamed buns, dumplings, hot milk and a vast assortment of other dishes one rarely considers ordering when perusing the neighborhood Chinese take-away menu. Yet you are expected to eat, to gorge in fact, as it is considered unsafe to fly if you have an empty stomach.
After breakfast and a trip to the dispatch office to retrieve and review paperwork, we are taken to the airplane, already warmed and inspected. The fueler stands waiting patiently in the stinging cold for your order and what looks like a herd of half bears half Chinese Paul Bunyan wannabees circle the airplane repeatedly scanning for defects. They wear thick, poofy, dark leather jumpsuits which have bear fur hats and collars, and clumsy looking arctic boots. If China had an Iditarod these guys would be suited and ready to mush.
Its somewhere in this timeframe of completing cockpit inspections and admiring the busy, shaved ursus asianas wobbling about that the flight attendant usually approaches and asks:
“Cup-tin, what would you like when we arrive in Tianjin?”
The first time I heard the question I wasn’t sure how to respond. I sat staring smiling and shrugged my shoulders, hoping she’d pick up on the international signal for “ I have no fucking clue what you’re talking about.” Thankfully she did.
“Milk, chocolate, rice, beef, chicken, gum, soap..ah yes…here…you need shampoo!”
“Ok…not sure what you’re implying, but sure, I’ll take the shampoo. Why am I taking the shampoo again?”
I received the tried and trusted international signal right back.
Sure enough, upon landing in Tianjin an army of little Han Chinese women overflow into the aircraft aiming to clean, yet one comes looking like a miniature, perverse version of Santa Claus in a hodge podge of raggedy, coal dust colored clothes. She unloads the sack of presents into the center aisle whereupon the flight attendant quickly divvies up the booty into personal sub piles. Before the passengers arrive the bag containing a bottle of Pantene ProV shampoo finds its way into my hands, along with a bag of individually wrapped, jerkied beef nuggets…my favorite.
Since that inaugural day of flying for prizes I have both remained utterly confused and come to some miniscule understandings. Every day I am asked “what would you like from XYZ?” and after I hear my choices I usually pick chocolate. However when we arrive at the airport where I m supposed to be given my cocoa flavored prize, I am most often given a bag of something completely different along with the explanation of “Sorry…no chocolate today in XYZ!” In my random bags of concession prizes I have won more beef nuggets, yak meat, ass meat (yes, that is correct), do-it-yourself nasty 4 rice porridge packages, gum, large dried flowers that strengthen my loins, chocolate milk, gallons of cooking oil, and skin whitening of body moisturizer. Oh, and a whole smoked, blue chicken complete with head, beak and feet.
For a while it was great fun coming home at night to my beautiful wife and proudly proclaiming that while she’d been lazily learning the hardest language on earth, I had been actively working to win great quantities of ass meat. If there was ever a way to instill guilt in a nonworking spouse this is it. Yet when the piles of unopened, unused Chinese, edible oddities began to rise, we felt guilty about our stockpile. Certainly there were starving kids in Ethiopia who would kill for an edible loin strengthening weed that when taken into one’s mouth tasted of raw, wholesome and anthrax laden dirt! Surely there were limbless beggars dragging their way thru the streets of Delhi’s ghettos who’d give anything but to taste the mouth watering goodness of an individually wrapped Yak nugget the size of a peanut. Surely I’m going to hell for this one.
It was when I asked a Chinese friend “do people actually eat this shit????” and heard his response of “YES! Most of this is a delicacy in China” that I understood what we must do with my treasure at home. We quickly consulted Google Earth, found an uninhabited island in the South Pacific and then proceeded to draw up a map, complete with skulls, crossbones and swimming serpentine monsters with forked tongues, and then placed a large X on our island. We were going to cache the supplies until the Dollar-Yuan exchange rates rose exponentially again in 2060, then make out like bandits on the lucrative luxury food trade. Yet upon examination of ticket prices on Expedia.com we decided against the burying of our ass meat and rice porridge stashes and simply decided to divide up all of the random goods into equal sized bags and give them to homeless families living in the streets of Xi’an.
Now when I fly and am queried with my daily prize selection I pick something I know will be nutritious and good for someone who needs it more than I do. We also aim to collect goods to donate to the local orphanage and homeless shelter, as well as to a local agency (run by an American) that goes to remote, impoverished villages in the Shaanxi province and delivers much needed food and medicine.
I can see our philanthropy at work now:
The scene:
A doctor sits at a table in the middle of a sunny, yet frigid cold town center, flanked by two nurses and a large box of medicine and supplies. A tired and sullen crowd of peasant Chinese workers shuttles single file to him confiding their ailments and receiving free medications and food in return. Hope is in the air. True human goodwill is beginning to energize the crowd out of their despair. An old man reaches the desk and whispers his complaint of hip problems and incessant hunger. The doctor thinks not for a second, turns to the box of medicines and goods and removes two packages, handing them slowly to the man while vocalizing the appropriate actions required.
“Eat this flower. It tastes like horseshit but your loins will never be stronger. Ignore the dirt that may still be lodged within its pedals…tis roughage. Then it this meat, after of course you have removed the 3 layers of wrappers. Nothing will nourish your ancient bones like little nuggets of donkey’s hindquarters. Go old man, go and be well.”
As far as I can tell, I may be facing eternal damnation for this one.
Monday, February 4, 2008
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