Chinese Buffet – Part 20: An Air China Ending

by Kelly Amabile on

This is the final installment of the 20-part Chinese Buffet series that chronicled the travels of an American woman visiting China for the first time.

Before I begin this story, let me clarify that the airline I write about in this post is Air China, and NOT China Airlines, which has been in the news this week for its frightening runway explosion. However, it should be noted that Air China has received its own share of bad press in recent weeks too.

I had read some of that unsettling news just days before I boarded an Air China flight to Beijing in early July. I was a little leery, but too eager about my trip to lose any sleep over it.

The flight to China on CA982 was fine — once we got off the ground. We were held on the runway at JFK for almost an hour before taking-off, but I blame that on the airport and not the airline.

Three weeks later, I took another Air China flight to leave the country, and this time, it was the airline’s fault that we did not depart on time.

I was headed to Melbourne, Australia. A one-way ticket on Air China was the cheapest I could find without having to make three or four plane changes. In fact, CA177 was a direct overnight flight — ten hours straight to my destination while I slept.

Too good to be true, huh?

I should have been on alert after my ticket purchase fiasco a few weeks prior: I booked over the phone, and arranged for an Air China messenger to deliver the paper ticket to where I was staying in Shanghai. There was no e-ticket option available, so the messenger also brought a credit card machine so we could complete the sale on the spot. That proved to be quite an ordeal, since he could not get a signal for the portable machine, and subsequently spent an hour walking around the parking lot of the Green Court apartments in Pudong trying to get the transaction to go through. After several phone calls and lots of pacing, the sale was eventually completed.

I didn’t want to admit it, but this seemed a warning sign that things might not go smoothly. If it was this complicated to buy an airline ticket in China, what was to be expected at the airport and on the flight?

Uh….this:

I showed up at Pudong International about 3:30 pm on August 1. The flight was supposed to start boarding at 5:30 and I think this sign (with the wrong airline name on it!) was posted at 6:30. “Mechanical Trouble” is so much worse than a bad weather or air traffic delay — suddenly there were a bazillion unknowns, and nothing to do but sit around and wonder about all of them while we waited for flight status updates.

In this case, no news was certainly NOT good news.

About an hour later, with no further announcements, dinner was served! Passengers started lining up in the boarding area for dishes of warm rice and pork — the actual meals that we would have received on the plane:

At this point I was happy to have befriended a great gal from South Dakota (of all places!!!) named Emily. A photographer, world traveler and blogger too, Emily and I soon learned that we had much in common and plenty to talk about. Which was a wonderful distraction from the fact that we had no clue whether or not we’d be boarding a (possibly “malfunctioning”) airplane.

About an hour after they fed us, there was an announcement made in Chinese and everyone started to move. An airport staff woman approached Emily and I, explaining that, “The shuttle will now take you to the hotel.”

We were corralled back through immigration into China again, then bused off to our “Super 8 meets Motel 6” airport hotel:

Thank goodness I had a cool roommate that kept me laughing, and well-connected with her high-tech travel gear. Emily, who had recently moved to Shanghai, was headed to Sydney on a business trip (CA177 flies to Sydney after Melbourne), and was traveling with a GSM mobile and laptop. She let me borrow the phone to contact my friends in Australia, and use the web to shoot an email to family back home. We chatted about blogging, looked at each other’s photos online, and laughed at our freakishly similar sleeping attire — a Kodak moment, no doubt:

The only instructions we received from the hotel staff was to stay put in our rooms and wait for a call in the morning to return to the airport. Needless to say, I did not sleep well and was on alert when the call finally came at 6:30 am:

“Hello, please come quickly! The buses will leave for airport at 6:30!!”

I looked out the window to see folks already boarding bus number one. We frantically gathered our belongings and hopped on the third shuttle bus within ten minutes. Back at the airport, we then went through immigration again and resumed the waiting game. They directed us back to the same gate where the same “mechanical troubles” sign still stood.

It was hard to tell if I was uninformed because of the language barrier, or because Air China was keeping us in the dark about what was going on. I think it was a bit of both, because I definitely saw Chinese passengers complaining and asking questions. I just had no clue as to the specifics of the scenario.

Eventually, boarding began, and as passengers went through, an Air China official gave each person 500 RMB as compensation for their troubles. But lots of people were still not happy — there was all sorts of discontent among the crowd. We asked for someone to translate. Folks were questioning the safety of the plane, demanding more money back and refusing to board.

Although I too had my concerns about the safety of the plane, I was not interested in hanging out with an angry airport mob. I figured that if the pilot was willing to fly it, the plane must be in good condition. I had to believe it was safe to fly. So I boarded, and spent two hours watching these guys remove luggage from the cargo bin for passengers who had decided not to go through with the flight. It was all quite nerve-racking…

And I had lost my new buddy too! Emily and I parted ways when I chose to get on the plane and she called off her business trip to Australia. There was no longer any point in waiting to see when the flight might leave — she’d never make her meeting in Sydney on time.

I think it was sometime around 1 pm when we finally departed. For much of the flight, I fought off a nagging fear that the “mechanical troubles” would return. It was the first time I’ve ever felt afraid to fly, and at one point I did breakdown and shed a few tears of exhaustion. I ate very little of my last Chinese meal since nerves had by now wreaked havoc on my stomach.

But I love flying, and this experience hasn’t changed my opinion. Although I felt clueless throughout much of the delay, Air China did “take care of us” to some degree — they fed us, gave us a place to stay, and efficiently transported us to and from the airport hotel. I sat next to a Chinese man on the flight who was angry that other Chinese passengers refused to board without additional compensation. He was right, it was frustrating — we would have departed much earlier if these folks had not held out for more money. (In the end we each got 800 RMB for our troubles.)

Last I heard from Emily, she was still trying to get a refund for her ticket from Air China. You can read her version of our adventure here. (Be sure to look at the funny Chinglish signs from our motel room!)

After those flying solo tears were done, I took some deep breaths and selected a movie for my viewing pleasure. This delayed departure from China could have happened in any country — it was not a uniquely Chinese experience. Although, I sensed something orderly about the chaos of the airplane debacle that had surfaced at other moments during my three weeks in the country.

It’s challenging to find the right words to close with — because this was simply an introduction, an overview, an appetizer. I left China slightly frazzled, but satisfied with my first look at the PRC. I suspect that so much will change before I return (even if it’s just a year or two from now!), that it might feel like an introduction all over again, the second time around.

Chinese Buffet – Part 19: Visit is Over. Memories Remain.

by Kelly Amabile on
Chinese Buffet is a month-long series that chronicles the travels of an American woman who visited China for the first time in July 2007.

I wish I could have experienced China on a bicycle. Riding through the streets, forced to lay my camera aside for awhile, I’m sure I would have viewed aspects of the country differently from a two-wheeled perspective.

But I am a horrible bike rider!

This was as close as I got to riding my own bike in China. On my last day in Shanghai, we rented a bicycle-made-for-three in Century Park. With four wheels and no traffic, it was smooth sailing during our early morning ride:

And then there was my rickshaw driver in Suzhou, who gave me a taste of what authentic bike riding in China is all about. He did the pedaling work while I simply enjoyed the view and cool breeze. When the ride was over, he totally tried to swindle me out of more money than we had agreed upon, but I couldn’t care less. Just look at the smile on this guy:

He must have been one of the most jovial pedicab drivers in town, and kept me laughing the entire time. And that’s what I’ll remember most.

So what if I didn’t get to do everything I wanted? It’s really all about who you meet in the end. The more I travel, the more I believe that it’s not really about the places at all — it’s about the people you encounter.

I don’t want to spend my life trying to check off sites from a list of places I should see before I die. I just want to visit different countries and see what each reveals to me, no matter if it’s mundane or extraordinary.

Take Maurice, for example. Just an ordinary guy visiting Suzhou the same day I was there:

This tall funny Frenchman appeared like a mirage — walking towards me in his bright qipao shirt with a mobile phone in his hand at the exact moment when I was frantically searching for a payphone. He was such a cheerful champ when I asked if I could borrow his phone. We chatted briefly and parted ways, but several hours later I ran into him again in one of Suzhou’s gardens. We talked a bit more, and I asked for a photo, to capture our memorable meeting.

More often though, it was the other way around — people would approach me and ask if they could take a photo together. When this happened, I sometimes asked if we could also take one on my camera, so I could remember them. Usually I was approached by Chinese tourists who were making their first visit to the big city:

This Chinese woman was visiting Beijing for the very first time with her husband and son. She approached me in the rose garden at the Temple of Heaven.

“Excuse me? You take picture with me?”

“Sure.”

“Thank you. And welcome to China! You are a very beautiful woman.”

I’ll miss these unsolicited “beautiful woman” compliments!

I also met Heng Yi Ling at the same park, a sweet 18 year-old visiting Beijing with her dad. While we listened to women singing opera, Heng Yi’s dad encouraged her to practice speaking English with me. Talking to Chinese children was especially amusing and enjoyable.

In Shanghai, a woman making her first visit to the city sat next to me while we ate dumplings. When we were finished eating, she asked for a photo…and I asked for one too:

There was usually limited conversation with the older Chinese tourists I met, but they were encounters just the same, and interactions with people always seem to linger longest in my mind.

As I type this, I’m remembering other folks too — there was Cedric from Philadelphia, who I said hello to at the Forbidden City because I noticed he was wearing a tee shirt from the school I used to work at. After chatting for a few moments, he snapped a photo of me too!

I met lots of expats also, and was grateful for the perspective they shared — my Couchsurfing host, the folks at The Bookworm and True Run Media, my Shanghai friends and their network of international pals.

So… I didn’t get to ride a bike through the hutongs of Beijing, or try some hot pot, or visit a tea house or do the touristy thing and buy a latte at the Forbidden City Starbucks in the final days before it closed!

But I met a whole bunch of interesting people. And learned that the world is full of a lot of snappy happy folks, including myself! Which is not such a bad thing, because I now have a virtual memory box of faces, names and interactions that shaped my first look at China.

There is one more special person I met on my way out of the country. I’ll wrap up the Chinese Buffet series tomorrow with a story about the adventure we shared…

Chinese Buffet – Part 18: Xi’an Excursion Day Two

by Kelly Amabile on

Chinese Buffet is a month-long series that chronicles the travels of an American woman who visited China for the first time in July 2007.

(Note: Read Day One of the Xi’an Excursion and some recently announced news about the Terracotta Warriors upcoming visit to the USA!)

After a filling breakfast at the Hyatt’s massive buffet, we piled in the car with Bob and headed out for another full day of sightseeing. The Banpo Museum is on the eastern outskirts of the city, along the way towards the Terracotta Warriors. It is the excavated site of an ancient neolithic village that dates to 4500 BC, over 6,000 years ago!

Discovered in 1953, archaeologists have determined that the village was inhabited by the Yangshao, and each section of the dig site exhibits different aspects of how they lived. We walked through several rooms full of relics – ceramic bowls, clay pots and ancient tools used for fishing and hunting.

After this quick stop, we drove about an hour to the site of the Terracotta Army. The road was jammed with tour buses and we sat in traffic for awhile. Bob navigated us there as quickly as he could, sometimes using the access lane to pass other vehicles — our daredevil driver!

A golf cart was our next mode of transport. The Terracotta Army complex of excavated pits is quite far from the parking lot, so we decided to splurge on the round-trip golf cart ride that stops directly in front of the actual museum entrance. A visit to the Terracotta Army costs 90 RMB (about $12 bucks) and the golf cart was an additional six yuan — no big expense.

But be warned!! The ride, although cheap, is advertised as round-trip — which it is NOT.

I’m jumping ahead here for a moment…

After spending several hours walking around the warrior museum, we boarded another golf cart for our ride back to the parking lot. But the return trip only goes a short distance, before passengers are asked to disembark and walk through a huge new pedestrian shopping strip lined with vendors hawking souvenirs. For some reason this really bugged me:

I can’t say I was surprised to see this commercialized exit extravaganza, but I was irked that we were forced to walk through it. We thought we had paid for a ride back to the parking lot…which would have been nice, especially for a four-year-old and his pregnant mommy!

But I digress…

The actual viewing of the warriors was wonderful, so let me get back to that.

This grand army of stone statues was discovered in 1974 by peasants who were digging a well in a field. They uncovered the burial grounds of Emperor Qin Shi Huang, a now famous World Heritage site. There are three main pits and we spent about two hours moving through them. The first building, essentially an airplane hangar, houses the most impressive collection of the life-size soldiers and horses. There are more than 1,000 figures, and amazingly, only one fifth of this site has been excavated:

Archaeologists have determined that no two soldiers are the same. They wear various coats of armor, display different levels of rank, and have unique facial expressions and hairstyles:

The second pit we visited was much smaller, and full of headless warriors and guys in pieces:

And the third pit is still largely unexcavated and said to possibly hold more warriors than the first two pits combined. In total, estimates predict there may be over 8,000 warrior and horse relics buried in the area. It really is incredible to see them all together like this and thing about what went into the process to create this life-size army. We took time out for a touristy moment in this third building:

And then began the journey back to the parking lot to meet Bob — a short golf cart ride followed by a long walk through the new Terracotta Warriors International Shopping Plaza, full of signs like this one:

An authentic experience — until the end, in my opinion. I’m just not a fan of consumerism shoved down my throat, and after viewing such an ancient and sacred memorial, the barrage of souvenir stands and yells from store clerks just left me feeling grumpy.

Bob next offered to take us to the actual tomb of Qin Shi Huang, located just a short ride from the Terracotta Museum. But we decided to pass, since we’d read that it’s just an artificial hill with not much else to see. We ate our lunch in the car as he drove us to our final stop, the Huaqing Pool:

The hot springs and imperial bathhouses located at the foot of Lishan Mountain were very popular with the emperors, who would spend the winters here keeping warm. There is a lift that goes to the top of the mountain, but there would not have been much to see on such a hazy afternoon. We got a kick out of the restrooms, formerly the site of the Imperial Toilet:

We took another golf cart here, because, well….we were exhausted:

We had hit a wall. And knew that it was time to stop:

Ryan had surely had his fill of “adult things”, as he often referred to our sightseeing adventures. He had the right idea for how to spend the hour ride to the airport:

Beth and I were happy to be done with “adult things” for awhile as well. I felt like a slacker for even admitting that I was tired — she’s about five months pregnant and responsible for an active four-year-old as well. What was my excuse for feeling like a weary road warrior?! We joined Ryan for an afternoon siesta, which gave us just enough energy to make it through the uneventful flight home.

It was a jam-packed journey. I don’t usually travel that “fast” but it wasn’t a horrible way to see the main attractions in a short amount of time. Overall, Xi’an is surely worth a visit, and I’ve read that there are lots of other scenic side trips that can be taken from the city center. For me, what made the trip special was my traveling companions. I’m not sure I would have enjoyed the visit as much if I had done it solo. In fact, I know I wouldn’t have. What’s memorable is that we conquered Xi’an (but not it’s city wall) together!

It’s Monday. What Are You Doing Driving Your Car?

by Brett Atkinson on

The 2008 Olympics in Beijing might still be blighted by bad air pollution, but at least the organisers are doing their best to ease the lungs of marathon runners, long distance walkers and overseas visitors. Already China has restricted the number of planes in the air, and a new grassroots solution involving two wheels has just been announced.

Beijing is already a city of bicycles, but during the Olympics an additional 50,000 brand new two-wheelers will be available for rent at more than two hundred outlets handily placed near subway stations and Olympic venues. It’s the latest initiative sponsored by the Beijing Environment Protection Bureau. The Chinese capital has just finished a four day trial where private vehicles with even numbered license plates were banned from roads on Friday and Sunday. On Monday and Saturday odd-numbered cars had to stay in the garage.

Like anything to do with China, the numbers were impressive. An estimated 1.3 million cars were taken out of circulation each day, and subway traffic increased by 200,000 passengers each day. Beijing 2008 should be quite a show.

Thanks to TravelMole for the lead.

China Airlines Paints Over Burnt Logo

by Justin Glow on

I’m sure that by now you’ve heard about the China Airlines plane that went in up in flames last week. Luckily, passengers were able to slip-n-slide out literally seconds before the plane’s burning fuselage exploded. (Check out the video after the jump.)

What you might not have heard is that as soon as the fire was out, officials from China Airlines covered their logo with a thick coat of white paint.

“Before painting over the name and logo, the airline sought permission from the Land, Infrastructure and Transport Ministry’s Aircraft and Railway Accidents Investigation Commission,” according to the Mainichi Daily News. “Officials granted the request, judging that it would not hinder the investigation into the accident, and the airline painted over the markings following inspections carried out on Tuesday.”

I can’t say I blame them. When your airline averages over six times as many fatality incidents per one-million flights than the world-wide average, you need to do whatever it takes to save the few remaining customers who were in a cave this past week and didn’t hear about the exploding plane. If they were really smart, they would have painted a rival airline’s logo on the side instead. [via]