Today I took a flight from a relatively small city of JinJiang to another domestic city of Shenzhen. Jin Jiang was definitely the smallest airport Ive ever been to... Which made it incrdeibly easy to find my way to the appropriate places. Only two check in counters, and two gates. One waiting area... Which made it easy to run into someone you know. The shoebiz is a bigbusiness but a small world. I ran into somebody i know from another shoe company... We all go to the same cities, same hotels, same airports... Being on the other side of the world is not so far away after all.
Its also weird to see people casually smoking inside at the airport.
Anyways, flying in china is a test of your personal boundaries. I had an aisle seat... Which means that both of the middle seat passenger and the window seat passenger decided not to wait for me to get up and let them in... Butto crawl over me with many body parts brushing my face and nearly sitting on my lap. Then throughout the flight i had to endure my neighbor poking his elbows far into the fleshy parts if my stomach. I also witnessed several fingers disapear almost to the second knuckle inside a chinese nostril.
The stewardess... They try to be all about service but its overboard. First its a hot towel... Which was just an individual paper towel... It was hot and moist though... How did they do that? Microwave? Anyways i motioned that i didnt want it and apparently that doesnt mean anything because they practically forced it upon me... Maybe because they assume i need to wipe my hands after a hard day of picking my nose.... Which, as i soon witness, is customary with the people who surround me. Then its time to give me some kind of snack pack. So, naturally they put my tray table down FOR ME... Which does not go all the way down because my knees are in the way. They dont build airplanes for 6'2 americans here. Well the stewardess sees that the tray did not go all the way down and that im struggling to rearrange my legs to allow it.. And she just pushes on the tray... As if that is going to help..? The tray never fully goes down but its enough because now its time for Drinks! The drink cart goes by and my mouth is desperately dry. I motion for the water ... But they think that if i point at water, then i want coconut juice.... I reluctantly accept. Xie xie... And remain craving water.
Then the landing... Basically i call it the hop hop stop. Its exactly like it sounds... The plane blasts down onto the runway with an alarming crunch and then forcefully glides back into the air. This reminds me of someone sticking their toe in the bathtub to test the temperature only to JERK it back out when its to hot... So the plane tests the waters... But the landing zone is too hot at first... So we glide for a bit... And test it again... NOPE!... Still too hot.. We glide into the air for a second time... And then finally... As if there wasnt enough gas to propel us even one more foot into the air, the plane CRASHES onto the runway and just SLAMS on the brakes.
Now.. All chinese people recognise this third touchdown as the signal that it is appropriate to stand up. So before the plane has even come to a screeching halt they are all clamboring to undo their seatbelts... Jockeying for their position in the exit line. They push and shove eachother and climb on top of eachother to recover their bags from the overhead bins... Pushing old ladies to the floor... Throwing small children to the wayside...its chaos.
I sit quietly in my seat waiting... But then the people in the middle and window seat climb over me and step on my knees to reach their bags.
Then ...all is still.... And they stand there motionless for 20 minutes waiting for the plane to slowly taxi to the building.
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