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China Reloaded Chapter 1
The long-awaited sequel to ‘The ‘Guangzhou Experience’ – the report of my first visit to China. If you haven’t seen the first one it might be a good idea to read that post first.
Second trip to China, organise by the Foreign Office – was so comfortable it wasn’t funny at all and didn’t merit recording – but, lulled into a false sense of security, the next trip bit back.
This visit to Chongqing – organised at short notice to run an Institute of Export exam preparation workshop for British Consulate staff in Chongqing, including some staff from Beijing and Shanghai who have been studying for their exams with distance learning notes and an online tutor.
Chongqing – in the wild west of China – population 9m (and growing by the minute) permanently foggy and proximate to the biggest cess pit in the world – formed by the Three Gorges Dam – a hydro-electric facility opened in 2012 – breaking records for power production but at a severe environmental cost.
Depart Manchester
Saturday 29 May
Leaving Manchester 09.10 Air France (Business Class – FCO policy for long haul!) via Paris and Guangzhou. Will be my first time back there since the last traumatic experience – but only there for 2 hours – and I intending to wear a disguise.
Arriving Chongqing midday Sunday – probably.
On time out of Manchester – my bag checked through to Guangzhou. Charles de Gaulle not my favourite airport. I should have known something was wrong when I got my tickets showing changeover through terminal 2e – a couple of days before 2e collapsed.
Went out of 2a – where they hide the Air France lounge right in the last place an English person would look – well that’s my theory – couldn’t be further away from where you arrive. However, found it eventually and almost two hours late out of Paris – so I did get the FCO’s money worth at the help yourself bar.
Guangzhou
12-hour flight arrived Guangzhou about an hour late. Uneventful flight – wine and food pretty good – male steward took a fancy to me and tried to get me drunk –kept bringing brandy and sodas when I didn’t ask for them – flight wasn’t long enough obviously (to get me drunk, that is).
Only highlight was the films – I can highly recommend ‘Second-hand Lions’ – Michael Caine, Robert Duvall and that kid out of ‘Sixth Sense’
Needing to clear luggage at Guangzhou for last stage into Chongqing – waited as the bags came through – no sign of mine – after 30 minutes increasingly worried – it can’t happen can it. Empty belt and still no bag – I am definitely worried. Waited there until about 09.30. My next flight 10.25 – feelings of impending doom.
Started looking for the complaints desk – then approached by a woman in uniform, waving a piece of paper my name on it. Her total English vocabulary appeared to be ‘bag come tomorrow’ – so she had difficulty handling my – ‘I am not chuffin here tomorrow – I’m in Chongqing tomorrow, supposedly delivering a bloody seminar and everything I need is in that flaming bag’!
I had only what I was stood up in – polo shirt, pair of shorts and beach bum espadrilles ! and my hand luggage with my laptop in – at least I wasn’t daft enough to put that in my case – just all my seminar support materials, sample documents, my course notes, text books, business clothes for three days and LCD projector!
At least they had my name on a piece of paper and must have known where the bag was – although an explanation was obviously out of the question. Filled in the form – luckily its mostly pictures – address in Chongqing – bugger only knows etc. Now about 09.45 – waved my ticket for Chongqing at her (10.25 flight!) and she apparently indicates that departure is the next building on the right. Through Customs – nothing to declare obviously – find a way out, turn right and gallop up the street to the next building.
Enter next building – turns out to be an indoor market – seeming to specialise in fresh fruit and veg (I admit I did not take a representative sample at this stage).
Little panic setting in now but I stay calm – back out on the street – realise it must be this building because there is nothing else remotely likely within sight – but no signs (well OK Chinese ones but they don’t do me any good) Back in – smart trot past the root vegetables, forest fungi, aromatic spices, underwear (?) and cooked meats (boiled fox, crunchy frog, sliced badger’s bum etc.) – about to give up and just go back home – when I see what looks like about 6 check-in desks wedged between a cake shop and a cobblers.
To Chongqing
Gallop over – and see my flight number – queues everywhere (although some of them could have been for the cake shop) Jump the queue – being (relatively) tall with white hair helps – it was like a parting of the waters (would have been a fist fight in Britain) – my aura of panic might have helped as well. Now about 09.55 – she checks me in and then laboriously writes a card with my name, flight number, age, next of kin, inside leg measurement etc. which turns out to be my invitation to the first-class lounge!
I do the universal sign language for ‘where the hell do, I go now’ and she seems to point upwards – I assume to the next floor (although she could have just been giving me the finger)
Now just after 10.00. Ticket says Gate 133 (yes – it did occur to me that that seemed a very high number for a provincial airport that majored as a shopping centre)
Had spotted a big escalator going up to the next floor and as I ascend I find out that at the top is a large screen (not at the bottom where anybody who needed it could see it) which seemed to alternate between a list of flights and the special offers in the mall. See my flight number against a number 21 – have to guess that it’s a gate number – certainly looks more likely.
Good news is that the next floor is not a shopping centre – it’s a restaurant! Weaving between the tables – and see what must be, security control surrounded by a lot of uniforms and the entry to the gates.
Made it – drenched in sweat – about 40C and high humidity – have not slept at all on the flight – and have no luggage – but I managed a little smile – might even be time for a cold beer in the First-Class lounge.
Why do I kid myself? At security – I am stopped and turned back by a jobsworth in a uniform shouting ‘tax, tax’ and pointing across to a desk with the first English sign I have seen in the whole place – ‘Airport Tax – Yuan 50’. They can’t translate any signs that would actually convey any useful information but one that means you have to pay for something – that’s in English!
Now about 10.05 – and I realise – with a sound in my head like when the shark appears in Jaws – that I have only got 30 Yuan in cash! (OK – lack of research/ planning – but I am travelling Business Class and, in the lounges, you don’t even have to buy a drink – and I am sure I had read somewhere, that airport tax was just in the International airports.)
I go to the tax counter and wave a credit card at her – she looks at me like I am deranged! I am now ever so slightly desperate – galloping around looking for my only chance – a cash machine.
Strange how the mind works when the adrenalin is pumping – I have this image of walking past one near ?? the underwear stall?? Back down the escalator – running back the way I came – there it is – an ATM machine (all signs in Chinese so I am guessing a bit – but somebody pressing buttons and the body language looks good) Eased him out of the way with an elbow and a look – as he examined every note in detail whilst still standing in front of the thing (why do people do that when somebody is waiting)
Stick my card in – thinking ‘if this doesn’t work, I am stranded in Guangzhou with no luggage, no accommodation, no visible means of support, and a ticket for a flight which I have just missed.’
It works – I get 500 Yuan – nearly cried.
Back up the escalator – she obviously prefers a 50 Yuan note to a credit card – throws the voucher at me.
Running to the security check – now about 10.15. Bag goes through the x-ray machine – another jobsworth in a different uniform grabs the bag and says ’you have laptop’. I said ‘that’s about all I do flipping have, pal’ or words to that effect. Laptop comes out of the bag and the bag goes back through the x-ray machine – haven’t a clue why. Stick it back in the bag and off?
No such luck – he says, ‘you have wine’. Realise he means the carrier bag which had by now become a permanent extension of my left arm and contains a bottle of duty-free brandy – purely medicinal. He takes the top off and smells it – then says, ‘you must check it in’ and points back downstairs. I have no idea exactly what I said but it was something like –
‘So you expect me to go back and check in a bottle of booze at the f**ing invisible check-in with the f**ing suitcase that I haven’t f**ing got to check in anyway because them f**ing French bastards have f**ing lost it –and for a flight that leaves in five f**ing minutes – well no I f**ing won’t – and if you don’t let me go through right f**ing now – somebody is going to die’. All without swearing.
Don’t think it translated very well – but somehow, he understood – he actually looked a bit frightened. He carefully puts the bottle back in the bag and gives it to me – I am off – I hear him shouting after me – ‘you must not dlink it’. Luckily, I had no intention of dlinking it.
Made it to gate 21 – at 10.25. Joined the end of a fighting mob squeezing through the exit door onto a bus – I fight my way in – wrestle on to the bus – out to the plane – sit on the tarmac next to the plane for 15 minutes in a packed bus with no air conditioning paddling in sweat surrounded by people with parcels that twitch now and again and make clucking noises. Fight on to the steps with passengers who seemed to think that first one on gets the best seat – into the aircraft and in to seat 1C First Class – hallelujah!
Then sat and watched the other first-class passengers arrive from the first-class lounge in their air-conditioned minibus escorted to their seats by a bowing hostess walking up the stairs backwards.
Had a beer!
Air China – Guangzhou to Chongqing – less than two hours but still time for an in-flight mea and a beer. Seaweed in congealed sperm and twitching fish tails with aged tripe.
Had another beer.
Arrival Chongqing
At some time, it had become –
Sunday 30 May
Arrived Chongqing 12.30 local, and a driver was waiting for me – my name wrong on the card but it was close enough – ( Chinese names are listed the opposite way to English – that is – the family name comes first and the first name , or names come next – So I was often politely referred to as ‘Mr. Jim’. I am not daft – it was for the right hotel) – things are looking up. Slight confusion when he tries to send me back in because I have obviously forgotten to get my case – but I was firm, and we are off. About 45 minutes’ drive to what I know is a decent hotel – Harbour Plaza (did just one night there on my last trip).
Arrive at hotel – bellboy getting me out of taxi and opening the boot for my suitcase – perplexed look, ‘where’s the case?’ – I say ‘Paris, I think’ – realise this doesn’t help him much but really can’t be arsed.
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