Shadows of a Chinese Conversation

Checking in on my flight I was certain I’d been upgraded.  I had an email that said as much.  The tense German pixie lady who checked me in was quite certain that I had not been upgraded.  But I have this email I showed her, somehow knowing that it wouldn’t matter.  It didn’t matter.  This is only notifying you that you were under consideration for an upgrade.  It occurred to me that I would have played this out differently in the shadows of a Chinese conversation.

Up, up and away, the gal next to me is a fidgeter.   I try to be accommodating.  She wants to type.  So do I.  She wants her light off.  I still want mine on.  She shifts her elbows.  I don’t want to press her but she mustn’t think she gets the shared arm rest for the next twelve hours.  A short British guy and his family of three seem to take up the space needed by eight, as he moves around from one aisle to the next.   I try to do some typing after dinner but I’m quickly off to sleep.

Thousands of miles later, somewhere over Siberia I finish up the lead article in the Economist, which I always seem to buy when I depart from San Francisco.  The irresistible cover story is about China’s “sharp power.”  Apparently there has been an outcry about Chinese interference in Australia.  It strikes me that it won’t be long before something similar boils over in the U.S.   It also strikes me that this new term for what China is apparently doing is quite reminiscent of precisely how the U.S. exercises power, in much of the globe. 

Back in Beijing the line for immigration is long, customs short and the taxi longest of all.  My driver is not happy to see me.  He let’s me know that I should use a car service instead of a taxi for going to a place as close as mine is.  This is the first time in twenty years I've ever heard such a thing.  There is traffic and he won’t be able to get back in time to beat the clock and cut the queue.  Don’t worry, if the service is good they’ll be a tip, I say, trying to be encouraging.  He suggests that the tip won’t matter.  We’re both quiet for the ride, which is interminable on the road over the bridge to Tianbei Road.  Arriving I tip him and he refuses the money, which is well over 20% of the total ride.  No one needs your fifteen yuan he tells me.  I am too tired and too laden with luggage to care enough to say something smart and cutting back to him.  He stains my evening.  

Thursday, 12/21/17