Landed in Beijing on to Changchun

Saturday, December 29, 2007 4pm Landed in Beijing. I’m a lot more scatterbrained than usual on this trip. Most trips I go days with the feeling that I forgot something and it usually turns out to be some minor thing. This trip, I left home without the Mandarin Chinese book and cd I bought. I have a gift for picking up survival language skills quickly with the aide of a translation book. After a week I can usually pick up enough of a language to get into trouble, but not enough to get out of trouble. As the saying goes in French, “Je parle a assez francaise pour creer des l’ennuis, je ne parle pas a assez francaise pour sortir de l’ennui”. I realized the Mandarin Chinese books were at home as my wife and I were sitting at the gate in Seattle, getting ready to fly out. Then when I landed in Vancouver, I left my coat on the plane, the flight attendant chased me down with the jacket. Then after I wrote the first blog, which I spent a little too long doing and had to hurry to the gate, I left my laptop at the bar. Helen brought it to the gate just before I boarded. So when I landed in Beijing, I took several minutes double checking all the contents of my bags.

Clear, cold day in Beijing. Here's a view of the approach into Beijing. Flat, brown and a huge layer of smog. I've added a video of the landing in Beijing on this post. Just under freezing on landing. Met a girl getting off the plane who is a mathematics student at Umass and was heading to central china for a month. She had an unusual name, Macrena or something like that, didn’t get the spelling. We teamed up to successfully navigate immigration and customs and search the concourse for flights. I had to head to another terminal for the China Southern connection to Changchun. I had two hours til departure. As I was walking the concourse, an ‘official’ looking fellow asked me for my ticket, “Ticket, sir”. It was pretty random. Turns out his name was Kong and he would take me to the right counter. Funny thing was everytime a uniformed offical was near, he would blend into the woodwork. Usually I navigate on my own, but I was enjoying his company, even though his English was only slightly better than my Chinese. After about 20 minutes of strolling together, hitting a cash machine, buying a water bottle and trying to converse, he got me to the counter. It was five dollars well spent.

At the China Southern counter things took an unexpected turn. Turns out my ticket didn’t have the $10 Beijing Airport departure tax. The China Southern ticket counter and check in counters are in two different areas. When I got to the ticket counter I got my first take of Beijing culture. If you stand in line waiting to be helped, you’re going to grow old before you are helped. After the fourth person slid to the counter in front of me, I pulled my ticket out with the Chinese writing on it that said I needed the departure tax, stepped up to the counter and held it out to the ticket agent. I was the next person helped. When I got back to the check in counter, the line had exploded. I now had 40 minutes til departure and it would take all of that to get through the line. I saw the guy who first sent me for the tax, I slid sideways to his line through another line and showed him the tax. He nodded and pointed to the end of his line. Through a stroke of good luck, the next guy in line spoke fluent english and asked what the problem was. When I explained it in detail, he motioned for me to go ahead of him and I got checked in just before the 30 minute before departure cutoff. I thanked him profusely.

Turns out it didn’t matter. The flight was delayed two hours. But I did meet a guy from Kitchener, Ontario, Nick, who was on the same flight to Changchun. He was returning from Christmas in Canada. He’s lived in Changchun three years and teaches. I learned a lot during the layover. He taught in Korea before he moved to China. He had some interesting insights into the order or lack thereof in the Chinese society. He was pretty dead on in explaining how things would go on the flight. It was amazing how many people were coughing and sneezing on the flight and not one person covered their mouth. It was just bombs away. He said that’s really common. Waiting for the flight, I walked around the terminal a bit. I had read that the Chinese were converting a lot of their signs to English in preparation for the Olympic rush in 08. I also read they were having some interesting translations. I got a kick out of this one, hope you can read it in the photo. The bottom line says to "use this emergency medicine kit when only you incur the trauma".

Landed in Changchun just after ten pm. Lots of snow on the ground. Cold, really cold. Minnesota midwest cold. Nick said ten below freezing, but I think that was celcius. Didn’t ask, was too cold. The name of the hotel is the Redbuds in Changchun, but it’s a different name in Chinese. Nick helped with the translation with the cabbie, a round of thanks and farewells and off to the hotel.

The roads have lane striping, but that really is of no consequence to the drivers. Horn honking is constant, but it’s used more of an alert to drivers in front of you that you’re passing and also to warn pedestrians and even bicyclists in the snow that their demise is imminent. There is no malice in the honking, it generates awareness sot of a form of being socially responsible.

The Jilin Tigers are returning from a road trip. I’m sitting in the hotel bar just after midnight writing and Tom expected to be here a couple of hours after I arrived, which should be just about any minute. They have a home game Sunday, which I’m really looking forward to seeing and catching up with Tom.

SUNDAY, MORNING 9 AM. Cooooollld Changchun. I'm having a little trouble getting onto the blog, hopefully the posts are going through, I can't confirm it by viewing it. So we'll fly by blind faith. Got an e-mail from Tom, the Jilin Tigers basketball team got back to the hotel at three this morning. Tom and I are going to hook up in an hour and hit a brunch. I took a photo out my hotel window just after sunrise this morning. Lots of snow on the ground. The Tigers have a game tonight, at home, starts with a team meeting at four this afternoon. Really looking forward to that.