Purple and Red Colors

We had to return the car to the pleasant German company I’d used, shopping for rental companies in-the-raw, with no reservation to speak of, upon our arrival, in Paris.  The compay: 'Sixt.' sounds like some word the New Zealanders pronounce different from the Australians.  Lord knows how to assert it properly.  It was a bit like being in a Harvard Business School case study.  Here is a German brand, renting cars in the airport in Paris. What do they have that is different?  First off they have cars that are available.  No one else does.  They have purple and red colors and purple and red outfits and though I notice, I do not care.  How is it a car rental company like Sixt is able to differentiate itself against, Hertz, and Avis and Enterprise and all the other companies that also offer cars across Europe?  Germany Uber Alles, in Germany perhaps, but this is CDG in Gual. Well, if nothing else, they were friendly. 

Returning then from the drop off at the Avignon train station we rolled up to the cab queue.  A pleasant cabbie welcomed us in and humored me and my limping French.  Just as we arrived a twenty-something Chinese lass with a bipity-bopity hat and oversize sun glasses and an air of assertive confusion rolled up and started asking the next cabby loud questions in broken English.  

Everywhere there are Chinese tourists.  And yes, it’s not hard to find some who might be loud or sloppy, but in general it feels so wonderfully normal to begin to assume they will be hear and to assume I'll hear Mandarin ever more frequently, in the atmosphere. .  China assumes its rightful place among the traveling people of the world. 

Later today, in a museum, I could not resist:  the lady in a another floppy, sunshine hat asked the ticket collector if there was a Chinese version of the recorded tour.  “No. Only English” the gal behind the counter replied.  Uninvited I offered:  “未来的话肯定有。“ The gal, I soon learned, was from Shanghai, but her husband was from Qingdao.

Our cab driver home from the station was particularly patient.  His sister had worked with Motorola in Chicago.  “Ahh, really?  I also worked with them, but in Peking.”  We get into a healthy discussion of what a remarkable trajectory China has had in the last twenty years.  “Yes. An incredible change.  Yes.”  The view from the front seat of a cab in Avignon is unfiltered adoration for China’s extraordinary trajectory.   People had warned me that people in the south would be polite and patient speaking French.