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.