Familiar and Exotic

Fast ride up here with plenty of time to spare.  But there were no economy seats left for my ride home tonight.  The business class seat isn’t terribly expensive and I don’t intend to stay here another night so I’ll take the two-hour ride in style.  Air China “style” that is.  Still, I should have a window seat.  With two people packed in between you and the bathroom, the window is an economy class compromise.  But in biz, it’s to be requested. 

An hour ago I had to be on a call.  The tired was grinding.  I tried to learn about what it was someone was presenting.  But I faded in and out.  The bed beside me called out like a raven haired Siren.  I resisted the call of horizontal abandon, but not the pull of sleep itself.   But, as happens, by the time the call was over I wasn’t especially tired anymore.  All this to say, I believe that I will not be long for things, when I hit the comfy chair, thirty minutes from now. 

In the Air China lounge now.  A glass of red wine that was poured, tortured press by press from some ridiculous machine.  The wine is Great Wall grape juice, slightly turned.  I filled a bowl with cucumbers and chicken.  On my knee one Chinese newspaper XinMin Wan Bao.  It’s still kind of quaint to have the evening paper, as if the People have been waiting all day to grab a copy on the way home as they once might have.  The other is the strident English paper “Global Times.”  President Obama and Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi are leaning into one another.  My flight’s final boarding call is being called.

And that was a very nice ride.  How much is a substantive, intelligent conversation for two hours worth?  I had every intention of reading and typing and then swiftly falling asleep on that ride.  Instead I talked for the duration with a woman my age, who hailed from Taiyuan in Shanxi and had lived the last long period of her life with her family in Stockholm.  A lawyer, she was responsible for helping Chinese companies conduct business in Sweden.  Her child spoke Swedish better than she did Chinese.  It all sounded rather familiar and exotic at one and the same time.  The communication rituals in business class are really rather different, most times anyway, than they are when you’re crammed into economy.  We are now connected on We Chat.