Beijing is now a forbidden city for the White Monkey. I've had
four connecting flights through Beijing airport, and I've had serious hassles
all four times. On my first trip, soldiers stood on either side of me holding
machine guns because I didn't have an entry visa for a five-hour layover and a
"transfer ticket" for my suitcase. A counter clerk at Beijing made a
stink. When I started the trip and checked in at Ho Chi Minh City airport, I expected the suitcase to go
through to Dulles in Washington, D.C. -- I'm such an embezzle and maroon, as
Bugs Bunny would say. Some shirt-and-tie official intervened, sent the soldiers
away and in poor English said I had to retrieve the bag, check in, get another
ticket and go through customs, immigration and bag scan again. I nearly missed
the connecting flight to D.C. despite the five-hour layover. Really. The second
time was a simple three-hour delay and gate change without any announcement in
English. The gate change was noted on the schedule board -- the muffled
announcement over the loudspeaker in Chinese didn't help. I learned my lesson
from hassle #1 and kept checking the board. Hassle #3 was a missed connection
due to weather -- we were told by Air China that the plane would wait for us
(ha ha, it was one of the few connecting flights that took off on time). The
missed flight was followed by a long wait in line for hotel vouchers that ran
out, and to make a long, long story short, I got a flight to D.C. the following
day. Hassle #4 last week was a simple 2-hour delay and long wait to go though
customs and bag checks (again). This layover was also noteworthy for the
remarkable rudeness of the staff. I asked the immigration official who checked
my passport and ticket: "Where do I go from here?" He responded in
what I considered a sharp tone: "You go away. You go away." I
get it. There's a serious language barrier. I'm an ugly American so there's
going to be serious cultural differences. But if China is the No. 1 power in
the world as some English guy at my former language center once said to me in a
snarky tone, the world is in deep trouble. (It seems headed that way with Trump leading the U.S.) I love China -- I'm a devotee of tai
chi and one of my tai chi instructors is like a hero to me. The food is OK --
not dazzling, but OK. The Air China flights I've taken have been fine for the
most part with good movies, but Beijing airport and the massive amount of
people shoving their way through lines there ... come on, this place is out of
control and needs an organizational and politeness overhaul. And oddly enough,
it's gotten a teeny, tiny bit better -- no more arrival and departure forms for connecting travelers, so maybe there's a teeny, tiny bit of hope.
* * *
It's difficult to describe how happy I was when I saw Phuong at
the airport when I arrived at 2:40 a.m. instead of the schedule arrival time of 12:20 a.m. My wife has the most infectious and
beautiful smile in the world, and we both smiled the entire, one-hour ride home
in a taxi. Other than losing a present for Joanna and the charger for my
MacBook Pro -- God knows how -- the trip was pretty much a success for me.
Phuong's mom stayed in the house with Joanna, and it was difficult for me not
to wake Joanna up and hug and kiss her when I got home. Joanna seemed really
thrilled to see me when she woke up and has been showing off for me since I got
back. She speaks constantly, and most of it is intelligible -- of course I
think she's smart, charming and beautiful, like my other two daughters. Joanna
changed quite a bit in the month I was away -- she's even taller and her hair
is a shaggy mop. Her language skills are top notch, and her temper and
stubbornness are second to none.
* * *
Phuong and I are waiting to hear from the U.S. Embassy to have a
visa interview so she can come to the U.S. with me and Joanna to live and
work. We hope for the best, but sometimes I expect the worst. No matter.
If she's rejected for what I think would be racist, petty and mean-spirited
reasons, I'll simply return to the U.S. annually to take care of my eyes and
other business, and then I'll return to Phuong and Joanna. I'd be OK with that
because I won't go through Beijing airport anymore.
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