Chicago vs Beijing

In one corner: Chicago, City of Broad Shoulders.
In the other: Beijing---because a revolution is not a dinner party.

Saturday, August 26, 2006

Round One: PEK vs ORD

I know I'm the PEK expert here, so I'll mostly talk about that. But a quick note and photo on ORD: you know how you always have to take off your shoes at security now? This time through was the first time I had ever seen disposable booties to be worn while the shoes are off. With apologies to the environment, I took a pair! Just for the humor value, you know?

As for PEK, the airport was pretty standard when we first got in from the plane. In no language is there the phrase, "as pretty as an airport." Who wrote that, Douglas Adams I think? He was on the mark. But Beijing wasn't the ugliest I have seen. It's hard to say much about an airport until you depart from it, but I will say a few words about arrival. Of course the walk for arriving international travelers is interminable. There were people-movers, but the very first one was incredibly slow--much slower than walking pace. A guy whose traveling companion had got on while he did not actually had to stop and wait. I believe if it hadn't been completely clogged with motionless people, I could have walked back, got off, and walked its entire length in less time than it took me to ride to the end. The other ones were normal speed, however.

The airport art was pretty neat: Ming vases, an interesting sculpture (black, of a startled and startling animal) that was either really modern or really primitive, a display of bronze bells--surely imitations, but really cool anyway--and farther down, along a branch I didn't take, some terra cotta horses and men from the Qin emperor's tomb, full size.


Of course all the signs were in Chinese, but it didn't have a particularly alienating effect on me as it had in Taiwan (2000) or even in Paris (2003)--er, the latter having signs in French. Neither did the sound of Chinese people chattering. I guess when you concentrate so much of your effort on something, even if it's a very foreign language, seeing or hearing it in a strange land can seem like coming home to a place you've never been before.

All the paperwork went very smoothly, not problem at all there. The lines were fast and efficient, even the foreigner ones. Nothing much to say about that, or perhaps it's a contrast to the US. Last time I crossed into the US (from Canada, Niagara Falls) the immigration official was awful to me, asking all kinds of questions about the car and whether Colin and I were married. I looked at the uniform of the Chinese immigration official. It said, POLICE. He looked very professional, young but not excessively young, not bored or beset, just a little bland.

I went to the bathroom and forgot to put the paper in the basket provided. (Another comparative peculiarity: you can't flush toilet paper in either China or Taiwan. You have to put it in a basket, usually a small plastic step-can.) That's a really hard habit to retrieve!! But the toilet did not immediately clog and overflow, so it was okay. I'll just have to remember in the future. There were two bored young bathroom attendants, much prettier than they usually are.

Not much else to say except that after the last bureaucratic hurdle, we went along a sort of exit run-way. Behind a rail, there was an absolute riot of faces--faces and signs and taxi drivers jostling for business. People packed three deep, all with different sorts of expressions on their faces. Holding up all sorts of names. If that happens in the US, I never notice it. I either train in immediately on the person I know will be meeting me or I ignore it all and go my own way because no one is meeting me.

I was expecting someone, but for all those faces and signs, no sign with my name on it and no face that seemed to recognize mine. I curtly refused the aggressive taxi drivers. They are illegals trying to rip you off. Legal ones wait at the cab-stand outside. I stood in front of a Starbucks, looking conspicuous on purpose. I also eyed the payphone signs. All the banks of payphones were recessed and blocked off by fully-staffed tables of pretty girls selling phone-cards. They spoke good English too. I was just about to buy one to try to call the person meeting me, when circumstances intervened. But she spoke to me with barely an accent. Clearly I look like a foreigner here. Good!

Not much else to say, except the line of cars to get out of the parking garage was intense! I was so glad it wasn't me driving.

Yeah, I know Pocket of Bolts' prose leaves mine in the dust (if we're comparing that too) but hey, I'm all jet-lagged and bewildered, and barely have time to think!

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