I hate this shit. Delayed again. “The plane will be delayed due to air traffic
delay.” I can’t absolutely verify if the announcement sounds quite as
Kafkaesque in Chinese. I’m staring up at Gate 40. The plane is right outside, sitting there,
empty. Stewards walk up and down the
ramp out to the vessel. The surly little
squirrel-faced fellow who unenviably man’s Gate 40 confirmed, that the flight
is delayed. There is no other news.
I always ask when I check in, automatically now, “is the
flight on time?” It’s a dumb question
because it doesn’t really matter how it is she or he answers. Today I was told, with confidence that I
should expect an on-time departure.
Walking over here to Gate 40 I had errant epiphany: “I’m flying China
Eastern today. China Eastern’s home
airport is here in Shanghai. If I were
flying Air China today, like I usually do, I bet the flight would be
delayed. Perhaps I should take China
Eastern more often if they are better about delays.”
This naïve loop is now on repeat in my head, mocking
me. I get a text that suggests we might
get out of here three hours later. I’m
getting more irritable. The young woman
next to me begins to play her TV on her phone audibly. I look at her once. And then again. She is oblivious. I don’t care: “Hey?” I ask in Chinese: “do
you have earphones?” “Oh yeah, there out
of battery.” “Huh. Well, it’s kind of
loud.” My face certainly looks rather unpleasant. She turns it down. Later she moves.
Squirrelly man makes an announcement in Chinese which I
can’t quite discern. It’s about the
departure of our flight and people are now mobbing the counter. I walk up and see that they are now handing
out boxes of rice and meatballs. I stand
in line for moment and the stewardess asks me in English if I would like food.
I bark back in Beijing-brogue Chinese: “Of course I do. Why does this guy only make the announcement
in Chinese? How are other people
supposed to figure out what you’re talking about?” I’m showing off. I’m being an asshole, on purpose. The other people around me laugh at my
insult.
Me and my plastic box return back to where I’d been
sitting. I concede in my mind, that were
this to happen in the US, no one would ever think to make any secondary
announcement in any other language, ever.
The rubber band shoots off as I open the food box. The young guy next to me, as if on cue,
begins to watch a comedy show with canned laughter on his phone. “Don’t you have ear phones?” “Oh. No.”
“Can you turn it off?”
The meatballs aren’t bad.
I don’t want the canned corn. I
take a walk over to the bathroom. As I
urinate the short little cleaning man, begins to yell at the sort of volumes
that should otherwise be saved for life threatening situations. He’s yelling in Shanghaihua at someone back
in cleaning people’s galley. I try on
for size how to yell tart Chinese phrases at him: “what the hell are you
yelling for?” Zipping my fly, I continue
in my mind: “your cultural level is so low.” Just like how the Chinese love to
say it. But I don’t. I wash my hands and head back to Gate 40.
Friday 06/02/17
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