I write this, sitting on the floor in front of Gate 68 at the Hong Kong airport (the ideal location for powering up my laptop), while 6 Chinese guys from Beijing stand behind me. I jest not, they are all staring at my computer screen, less than two feet away from me, engrossed in what is, to them, my completely nonsensical typing. The stench of cigarettes and body odor wafts over me, as I type disbelievingly.
It all began about 15 minutes ago when I was struggling to get my new adaptor to work – it just didn’t want to fit in the socket. One of these Beijingers, about 40 years old, give or take a few rotting teeth, sprang out of his seat, dashing to my rescue. He got the plug to work and, thrilled at his accomplishment, I made the fatal mistake of saying “thank you” in Chinese. That “xie xie” was the demise of my privacy.
The other Beijingers ran over at the sound of my softened Taiwan mandarin. They started to speak to me in Chinese and as I have little I can actually say and even less I can understand, I turned to my computer. What ensued felt truly surreal. For the next fifteen minutes I would pull a word up on Google images and say the Chinese word for it. For example, I would bring up an image of a pineapple and say “feng li.” Then the posse of middle-aged Beijingers do one of the following three things:
1. Agree with my pronunciation and recite the word back to me.
2. Laugh at me, and then recite the same word back to me.
3. Say something that doesn’t sound remotely like the word I just learned in my Chinese lessons.
By the way, after I’ve typed all this, two of them are still standing behind me and I keep hearing some snippets of their conversation that I can make out – “English,” “American,” etc. They’re obviously talking about me quite openly now. The boldest of the bunch just ran over, grabbed my left wrist and turned it to look at the time, asking me in Chinese what the time was. My watch clearly indicates “Ba dian” (8 o’clock) and I said as much. He and his friends were disbelieving. The lack of numbers on my watch obviously confounded them.
The stench of stale Chinese men is enough for me. I need to get out of here and get some space before I get on the long flight to Auckland. Mental note: do not let these men’s lack of respect for personal space, personal hygiene, or privacy influence my thoughts about Chinese people. Or it might be a long three weeks this summer traveling in China…..
1 Comment
April 25, 2009 at 1:09 pm
I feel like I can totally see this as a scene in your movie. I love it. And I’m completely jealous of your amazing travels but have resolved to meet up with you as soon as I can!