Delayed

DING DONG DING DING.

Robot lady voice: “Blah blah blah blah C-Z-SAN-ER-QI-LIU blah blah blah blah. Xie xie.”

Now in English.

Robot lady voice: “We regret to announce that flight C-Z-3-2-7-6 to …SHANGHAI… will be delayed. The new departure time is …WILL BE ANNOUNCED LATER. Thank you.”

Does robot lady really “regret?” She’s not selling me on her sincerity. Something tells me she feels nothing. Something tells me she’s a piece of software purchased from the lowest cost vendor and she’s not sentient and therefore existentially unable to give two shits about my delay of three hours and counting.

Why am I being apologized to by software? I find the pretense demeaning. At least the robot lady could say: “Attention passengers. The flight is delayed. The departure time is …SOME TIME BETWEEN NOW AND THE RAPTURE. Please feel free to …TAKE THE BUS. Don’t blame me because …I’M JUST …A …MACHINE. Thank you.”

DING DONG DING DING.

Oh, did I mention this announcement is repeated for every delayed flight at least once a minute? Did I mention every flight is delayed because of torrential rains? Did I mention the announcement is REALLY LOUD? DID I MENTION THAT?

I arrived at the airport with such great expectations. Have some dinner. Relax at the gate. Maybe catch up on some reading. I’m reading “Cosmopolis” by Don DeLillo. It’s about a billionaire and his malaise and paranoia and AMERICA and other big social and literary themes. Don DeLillo uses lots of elliptical language and cerebral metaphors. I don’t get it. I think I’m too stupid.

DING DONG DING DING.

I was hijacked at the entrance to the airport by a guy on an electric cart – the kind used in the States for old people and the morbidly obese. As the world’s newest, most fully-realized hyper-capitalist society this electric cart was reserved only for me, a foreigner with money. Take a hike fatty!

Like most of my transactions here, action precedes agreement. My baggage was loaded on to the cart and I was driving away before I could croak out “I don’t know if I need a….” The driver whipped across the infinite expanse of the GZ airport, plowing through mobs of Chinese travelers before screeching to a halt at the front of the check-in line. He walked past the dozen or so people in the queue and shoved my passport and ticket into the agent’s face. I had a boarding pass in about 30 seconds.

Not bad for 20 yuan. Yay for being a horrible foreigner. Now all I needed was a martini, pith helmet and monocle to look even like an even bigger white asshole. Maybe we could put little American flags on the electric cart. And the horn could play “Dixie.” And I could have a tuxedoed midget riding beside me to do my bidding.

The driver jumped back into the cart and we accelerated toward the security check. We were doing about 30 mph through the concourse toward the domestic gates when I noticed something. A security guard was running after us. I tapped the driver. “We’re being chased. I think you should pull over.” He didn’t understand. I pointed at the rent-a-cop hoofing down the corridor.

The driver hit the breaks. We slid to a stop on the highly polished floor.

The security guard was joined instantaneously by two compatriots, all looked about 16 years-old. Their uniforms were one-size-fits-none. One of the guards took my bag off the cart and then they took turns holding it. The driver looked bemused.

“Too heavy.” One of the guards asked to see my ticket. They gathered around to inspect it. After a moment. “Too heavy,” he declared again. “Go back and check.”

Good lord. “You know I’ve never been stopped about this bag before and I travel all the time and I know it fits in the overhead bin and…”

The driver rolled his eyes and gave me a crooked smile. Under his breath, “Money.”

What’s the customary bribe to a 16-year-old security guard in the Guangzhou airport? The guidebooks don’t say. I only had 100RMB notes and I didn’t think he would make change. I slipped him a Chairman. (That’s my new lingo for the currency.) In my few brief experiences with petty pay-offs in China, the extortionist invariably feigns surprise when you actually hand him money. It’s this “who me?” expression of innocence that I find to be the only truly irritating part of the transaction.

I suppose I should feel outraged but I don’t.

I can’t blame them. They’re poor and scrounge for a living on the bleeding edge of the new prosperity. Every day it’s an anonymous, non-stop parade of moneyed travelers laughing and smiling and chatting on cell phones, oblivious to the peasants in ill-fitting uniforms watching them as they pass through the concourse to destinations far away from the unceasing grind of Guangzhou.

Smartly-dressed women push carts of shopping bags with designer brand names. Tubby kids in short-pants get pulled along as they whine or screech or stare hypnotically at portable video games. Guys in suits smoke, lug laptops, pull roller bags. Everyone is going someplace except for them.

Deng Xiaoping said “Let some get rich first.” Fuck that noise.

They spot me. An idiot pigeon being squired around the airport on an electric litter. Easy money. To them it’s a week’s wages. For me it’s 12 bucks and a wacky anecdote. Fair enough.

If I were them I would have shaken me down for more.

DING DONG DING DING.

The flight was choppy and unpleasant. The back of the 757 smelled like a toilet. The only food was in a tiny bag labeled “Aviation Snack.”

I finally made it home around 3AM, too exhausted to sleep.