A Flaw in My Thinking and the Possibility of Deportation

One of the foundations of our big sweep through Asia has been the ability to make it up as we go along. Have laptop and smartphone will travel, just look for agreeable fares and hotels and go to that place like a modern vagabond and plot out the next leg based on the same premise. But I almost got caught up in a major flaw in this kind of thinking, the kind that rubs governments the wrong way.

When we went to pick up our boarding passes for the flight from Xiamen to Manila on China Southern Airlines the agent noticed that we only had one way tickets to the Philippines. she asked to see a ticket to our next destination but we told her that we didn't know where we were going after a month in the Philippines.  My wife was born in Manila so the airline wasn't concerned with her but the China Southern agent had me fill out a form absolving the airline of any financial responsibility if the immigration officers in Manila decided to deny me entry and have me immediately deported. Eleanor spoke to the agent in Mandarin but she wouldn't budge.  The concept is sound, what would prevent me from entering the Philippines on a 30 day tourist visa and never leaving? In modern American lingo I'd be an undocumented immigrant. I'd be an illegal alien national and on the lam from the Pinoy la migra.

When we landed in Manila I deposited my form attesting that I hadn't visited west Africa and that I didn't have Ebola and I moved on to the immigration windows.  Eleanor spoke to the immigration officer in Tagalog and convinced them that since she's entitled to a one year Balikbayan visa I should be too.  The immigration officer agreed and I avoided having to pay for my own deportation to China.

The weather in Manila is hot and steamy.  I'm told that the best way to cool down is to enjoy a big bowl of cheese and corn ice cream.

Want Free Internet in a Chinese Airport?

Don't have a Chinese phone number?  Good luck!

I checked "around Gate 10 or 12" and found nothing.

On the Rail Road Again

On the way to the Hangzhou East Railway railway station the security check in the Hangzhou Metro finally found my Swiss Army knife. Bags and luggage all get x-rayed and and sometimes inspected at Chinese subway stations but my knife had so far avoided detection on the Beijing, Chengdu, Chongqing and Nanjing metros. Often the cops are bored and one behind the screen in Nanjing was sound asleep but an on the ball policewoman in Hangzhou saw my knife on the x-ray scanner and wanted to see it. She asked me something politely several times in Mandarin until I finally pointed to Eleanor. “She wants to see your knife”, Eleanor said. I dug the knife out of my suitcase and presented the contraband to the police woman. She looked at it briefly, smiled and returned it to me. Uighur terrorists bent on butchering Chinese railroad passengers are known for packing bigger blades and don't look anything like Fat White Uncle. A similar security check at the Hangzhou East Railway station either failed to detect my knife or they racially profile and just didn't care about Fat White Uncle and his puny multipurpose blades. I got a quick wanding and was turned loose to get my bags and wait for our train to Xiamen.

We took a few 2nd class high speed rail trips from Nanjing but this time we were headed south from Hangzhou to Xiamen. It's a nearly 7 hour and 540 mile journey so we sprung for an extra $16 US for 1st class tickets. Now that I've seen 2nd class and first class I know that in China 2nd class is the way to go, at least on a CRH train. The seats in 1st class are a bit wider and there's more legroom but our fellow passengers in 1st class seemed a bit more arrogant. They hogged all of the overhead luggage space above our seats leaving none for us which meant that our extra 1st class legroom had to used for some of our bags until the owner of the suitcase over my head relented 2 hours into the trip. If anything they were yelling at each other and bellowing into their cell phones even louder than their comrades in 2nd class. All of their phones were ringing, for awhile it sounded like a telemarketer office. Wall mounted screens were playing a loop of car commercials, an ad for a seafood supply company with a toll free number, shorts extolling the virtues of taking the high speed train; all with a loud soundtrack. My idea of 1st class is leans more to having my pillow plumped and clinking champagne glasses, not that I would know from actual experience.

But this time I had a clear window and could see China whiz by. What I saw were tired looking factories, cranes building gigantic apartment complexes often in what appeared to be the middle of nowhere and a forest of belching smokestacks. All of those smokestacks explain the thick smog that I've seen everywhere in our China travels that cuts visibility and most likely also cuts years off of the lives of the average Chinese citizen.

Any train trip or freeway cruise in the US would reveal that much of the housing stock in the US outside of dense cities consists of single family homes. As China has whizzed by on the high speed train during our trips I'm seeing few single family homes. There must be more single family homes somewhere, I'm seeing plenty of big Mercedes, BMWs, Audis, Land Rovers, Porsches and Cadillacs in the cities so there's plenty of money sloshing around in China for nice homes. What I saw are large clusters of apartment buildings with their windows and decks encased in steel mesh that make them resemble a sad vertical prison. Older apartment blocks often have cracked, moldy and fading facades and look like they're falling apart.  From the outside looking in at night the apartments seem dimly lit.

So China is a country of contradictions. One hand there's the new gleaming modern infrastructure. High speed trains, new bridges, subways are furiously being dug in many large Chinese cities. The stores are full of domestic and foreign food and the streets are choked with cars, trucks and electric scooters. On the other hand many of the houses and factories are falling apart, some goods are hauled with overloaded and beaten up 3 wheeled trucks. I'm surprised at all the sharply dressed women on one hand and the legions of beggars displaying their open sores, burn scars, amputations and pathetic and grotesque infirmities on the other. I'm more accustomed to American women who all too often dress like lumberjacks and American beggars; either sad drunks or able bodied young men panhandling for drug money.  Chinese beggars are hard core but supposedly often members of begging gangs.

Sondisa Coffee

OK, The coffee here is awful and Sondisa coffee’s URL doesn't work. In fact, Baidu has never heard of the place and Googling Sondisa Coffee just brings up this picture in this blog posting. But I like it here. There's either free WIFI of the ability to poach WIFI from nearby. The staff here is great, they even found an adapter so I could plug in my laptop. But the coffee part of Sondisa Coffee needs some work. A small cup costs a minimum of Y20, that's close to $3 US. It arrives with small container of a white substance. Milk?  Melamine?  Who knows, it has flowers on it and simply says, "ME".

This gives me time to reflect on Guiyang, capital of Guizhou province. Guizhou is a poor province and I can see that just by walking down the street. Peasants with their baskets cruise the streets looking for work. Or pick through trash. They gather in small groups playing cards between jobs or trash picking gigs or wander aimlessly and spit. Normally only Chinese men spit (and spit up a storm they do) but among the poor in Guiyang loud expectoration is an equal opportunity street activity. Like most of China Guiyang is a mixture of poverty and extravagance, only more so. Peasants pick through garbage cans for plastic and cardboard while BMW's, Jaguars, Range Rovers and the usual gaggle of Chinese knock off cars cruise by. There were fewer peasants on display in my previous stops of Xiamen and Nanjing.

Last night 2 young women approached me and asked in English what language I spoke. They explained to me that they were hungry and wanted money for food. This was laughable, they were well dressed and worldly enough to speak some English. In China that's a marketable skill although begging to gullible tourists might result in a quicker and easier Yuan than bothering to do any actual work. And those here who are obviously dirt poor peasants pay me, Mr. Laowai Walking Wallet, no mind.

Speaking of begging, in Xiamen I saw a man by the bus depot at the SM shopping center with his guts hanging out from a hole in his belly. I'm not sure whether this was some sort of parlor trick or not but I don't know how he wouldn't quickly succumb to a massive infection if it wasn't. It looked so awful and pathetic that I couldn't look twice.

Next stop: Kunming

Getting Around in a Strange Land

Getting from place to place when you can't speak the language is exciting and frustrating. If someone can write my destination in the local language I grab a cab. If I'm on a long walk to nowhere in particular I make note of the bus route numbers and just like at home I grab public transit when I can. A ride on a bus here in Xiamen is only 1 RMB. Even with a sinking US dollar that's a little over 4 cents. Sure, the locals stare but they stare at me where ever I go.

Crossing the Street Chinese Style

Crossing the Street Chinese Style Originally uploaded by Don Qua

Where am I? After nearly 24 hours on 3 different flights I finally got off the plane, went through customs and got into a cab. The cabbie cut off other cars, passed on the right, took a few cell phone calls, scattered some pedestrians and drove on the sidewalk. That’s right, I’m back in China! I’m in Xiamen, in Fujian province.