The Journey Begins
The Journey Begins
The Journey Begins
August 3, 2008
As a regular traveller, perhaps even a veteran at nearly 300,000 miles under my belt last year, I think you can tell at least a little something about a country by the way it’s people travel. For example, the British have a reputation for being at one end parochial and elitist and at the other drunken and loutish on our holidays. Some say the American’s appear brash and intrusive or completely disengaged and I am told I am told I seem aloof and uncommunicative, in a “don’t-wake-the-sleeping-monster” type way...although I do get along well with flight attendants...anyway, I digress…
With this in mind, I thought I should pay special attention to my Chinese fellow passengers on my way to Beijing. In the months and especially weeks leading up to this trip I have been unduly preoccupied by the attentions of the Chinese authorities and especially my impression that they are looming over me. This is not simple conjecture or paranoia, representatives of the people’s republic have sent emails to people with whom I work and work for, as well as requesting a meeting with me before I left Britain to clear up my “misconceptions” about China. I can only speculate as to the “why” of all this attention, but the effect was to blur my vision, making it temporarily difficult to see my reasons for speaking up in the first place…
I thought perhaps really looking into the faces of the people I arrogantly purport to “help” might focus my thoughts and as I arrived at check in, I decided to begin...
I was checking in for my Etihad flight to Beijing, apparently a relatively new route for this carrier so it took a full 30 minutes to get all my Olympic visa details into the computer so it would spit out my boarding pass. The process was new and the staff were pleasant so I had no complains - that was until I received my £400 excess baggage weight penalty - I know about oil prices, but seriously, one pair of my shoes weighs 5kg! Big people = big clothes = big (and heavy) bags. *sigh*
I then stood in a queue for boarding, somehow I had become lodged between a massive swell of Chinese school children and their minders. I was going to tell you that they were all shapes and sizes, but in reality, they all looked tiny to me - I can only guess at their ages, maybe 10 - 15 years old - it is generally quite hard for me to tell the ages of small people.
They were behaving like most pre-teens, slightly precocious, eating too many sweets, making noise and, when I entered the mix, daring each other in mandarin to sidle up next to me and compare height. I can reliably inform you that this is equally irritating behaviour in any language or circumstance - and generally, all too common.
Mostly, however, these children were as polite as their barely contained exuberance would allow. Full of excitement and the joy of far-flung travel, not to mention strangely laden with duty free bags of Calvin Klein aftershave…I have to assume they were stocking up for puberty.
Seeing so many happy, smiling faces made me doubt further; my conversation with the senior PR representative at the Chinese Embassy in London rang in my ears. He told me only last week of the “96% approval rating...” the Chinese government enjoys. Not to mention the fact that “...almost everyone in the entire country was excited about the Olympics...” as well as “...happy with the direction the country was heading in…” in terms of human rights, economic and educational opportunities. I will try to find and post [link] a link to the online article that he both cited and gave to me as “proof” of my fears regarding the human rights situation in China were simply misapprehensions.
I looked at these children as they milled about me in apparent brownian motion and hesitated a second time. The statistics and reports from Amnesty International, the other human rights organisations and even anecdotes from the mouths of expatriate dissidents themselves did not seem to resonate in their collective faces.
Then I thought to my expectations of the opening ceremony: brilliant, extraordinary... sanitised - just as I fear will be the images of the games themselves brought to us live...with a 10 second broadcast-delay. Perhaps in this way not representative enough for even high definition TV to pick up the reality. There are three designated areas for protest, but each requires a 5-day advance application, and who knows what happens to you as a Chinese citizen when the torch light is extinguished. As any of the children milling around my legs could tell me, the monsters come out when the lights go off. Many reports I have read speak of the “cleansing” of Beijing, not just of cars and smog, but of “undesirables” and dissidents…we outsiders, even on location, may be left with a sickly sweet, but to me, unsettling picture of compliance and conformity...is that what unity looks like?
Can any country, especially one so vast and diverse as China, reach such an overwhelming consensus on anything? Can China be such a Utopia that all but 4% of the populous have no doubts? No complaints? No objections? I believe that in most countries, more than 4% complain as part of their nature, even when there is little to gripe about. Can there be so few kooks, complainers, oddballs and miscreants in Utopia? If that is the case, I have a feeling Utopia’s door policy will preclude my entry on so many levels that I might as well not bother approaching the bouncer.
The group behind me “A-hem”-ed me to make me aware that the queue had reached the ticket desk. I gave the “Oops!” look and stepped forward, handing over my ticket and passport - I smiled as I thought that as long as you can pay your way into Utopia, I might be all right - it can’t be that crazy of an idea, some people practice it every weekend.
I sat down in the departure lounge and scanned those faces again, these kids had definitely eaten too many sweets - their chaperones would probably regret that later…but I moved on from face to face in sequence, but this time saw something new: What if you wanted to be a ‘green’ activist...you a pro-democracy advocate….you a pro-Tibet or Darfur demonstrator...you grew up gay...you a member of Falun Gong...you a HIV/AIDS activist….what if each of you dissented? In my head the faces aged and changed, no longer smiling but grimacing in silent anguish... and then my doubt was gone, I knew for what and on whose behalf I must raise my little voice - I felt liberated to go to Beijing with a shrewd but open mind.
My triumphant revelation was interrupted by the boarding announcement - one of the children dropped a whole bag of smarties, a cascade of colour rained on the terminal floor and a hoard descended to the ground to claim as many as casualties as possible before the three-second rule tainted them forever.
As I ducked to enter the jet way, I looked back to see a row of satisfied children, silently chewing, smiling, mouths full - I couldn’t help but grin - their chaperones will definitely regret that….