My flight to Huizhou, an hour or so from where Wu lives, was due to leave at 1905. After going to the gate, 1905 came and went, with no action at all. There was no change on the screens or any announcement of a delay. After an hour or so, during which my fellow travellers were getting a little agitated, I asked the guy what time the flight was due, to which I got the response "no time." So the long wait started. In another half hour, I tried again, knowing I should tell Wu, who was going to be meeting me at the airport. Admittedly I was using English, but it was Beijing and also an airport, so I hoped it would be ok:
Me: What time does the plane leave?
Airline representative: No time.
Me: Why is the plane delayed.
Airline representative: Yes.
Me: *Why* is the plane delayed.
Airline representative: Yes.
Me: *WHY* is the plane delayed.
Airline representative: Yes.
So I bought a phone card and called Wu. That in itself required three people's help, the problems initially started as although two people were maning the phone card stall, they didn't actually have any phone cards left to sell...
After calling Wu I settled back into a routine of waiting, periodically asking how long it was delayed - still 'no time' - and phoning Wu. One of the most frustrating things was that there had been no announcements, no available explanation, and the flight wasn't even indicated as delayed on the board although clearly no aircraft were leaving the terminal. By this stage the airport staff were under a steady barrage of questioning from Chinese people, which occassionally got pretty angry.
Then one of the gates next to ours had some food brought to it. That caused a bit of a stir, but they had been waiting for longer than us. Twenty minutes later the gate to our left had some food brought to it - picture UN food parcels at a refugee camp (except without the order provided by the odd solider with a gun). No 'women and children first' this was a matter of wrestle for food, or starve (and by 'starve', I mean miss a free meal, but it might as well have been starve to death going by how people bundled for the food).
The arrival of food for the second gate was too much. They, after all, had a later flight than ours, and a large croud surrounded the desk at the gate and there was much shouting and banging of fists on tables. The clerk kept making worried phone calls and then dared to leave his desk to ask for help from the main reception desk, this was a brave move and meant that the angry croud decided to take over the desk at the gate. People went behind it, impersonated staff, and maintained the occupation for the remainder of the delay.
After much to-ing and to-ing we eventually got some food, which was hailed by a huge cheer. Unfortunately it didn't even reach the gate as the trolley was surrounded some twenty metres away. Now there had been some order during food distribution of the other trolleys - with people's tickets being marked when they wrestled their way to some food, however we had now reached anarchy. People were running off with boxes of forty meals which were then emptied in less than twenty seconds. A physical fight started between two guys, presumably over the last tray of overcooked airline food. I didn't get any food, but later on another trolley arrived and a very kind Chinese guy came and gave me two meals, before getting his own. I then gave away one of the spare meals to a family who hadn't got enough and I became their friends for life!
By around eleven in the evening (four hours late) people were getting agitated, and someone discovered a loud-hailer (the sort used at political rallies, sports events, etc.) This was then used to launch into all sorts of rallying cries, to which people cheered, stomped and applauded. Then the main reception desk was surrounded by about fifty people who decided to start pounding their fists on it in unison, forming a drumming that filled the hall. Eventally the whole waiting room was participating, and the staff looked very nervous (I have all this captured in video incidentally). I even saw one member of staff remove his tie and epilettes, such that he looked like a normal person in a white shirt and could sneak away. Any other attempts to leave made by the staff were pointless as they would instantly be surrounded by thirty angry people giving them a piece of their minds. There were definitely some ring leaders who were keen to keep up the disobedience. It was always one guy on the loud hailer, one who started the drumming, and one woman who as soon as she spotted an ember of resentment, would stoke it up encouraging fury, shouting, and banging.
By one AM (after many waves of shouting, banging, loud hailers, lootings of the reception desk, a few people fainting, and doctors being called) the demonstrators decided the best strategy was to barricade ourselves in the terminal, such that the airport authorities couldn't make us leave. Whole rows of seats were dragged across the hall, to block the ramp to the main building. At this stage the ten or so westerners catching another flight, got a bit scared and made a run for it. In the photo, they are the people breaching the barricade (taken as I was on the way back from the loo, I had gone there at an early stage, anticipating crossing my legs for a long time, if the demonstrators realised they could make a much more inpenetrable barricade if they put the seats on end!)
In hindsight, the baracade plan was rather flawed. The airport staff didn't actually want us to leave, the wall of chairs could easily be stepped over, it made going to the loo a bit annoying, prevented trolleys of water from getting through, and many people didn't have anywhere to sit down any more. Still, it kept people occupied and added to the atmosphere of chaos.
Incidentally, I had decided to stick it out, as although the airline clearly had no intention of putting us up in a hotel overnight or giving us compensation, the idea of getting a taxi back to Beijing, over an hour away, then finding a hotel and trying to organise another flight seemed a much worse idea. Also, although the protests were major, whenever they reached the stage they might turn violent, or things might get broken, they didn't. Somehow the people were still reserved enough not to break the law, probably through fear of the repercusions.
I was not alone in videoing and photographing the whole episode. There were five or ten people dedicated to preserving the whole episode for digital posterity. Including flash photographs of really ill people, who were already helpfully surrounded by thirty or so people making sure they got no space or air!
At about one thirty a plane arrived at our gate, much to people's joy. Then they moved the flight from the gate to our right, to our gate and then they deleted our flight from the screen. Fortunately, by this time I had found a Canadian living in Hong Kong, and a Chinese student who could speak good English. Apparently our gate had moved downstairs. Thus we waited there. Occassionally a bus would show up, everyone would rush to form a 'queue', it would linger a few more minutes and then it would drive off. Over eight hours late, at three AM, a bus came and took us to our plane and we took off.
As for the reason for the delay, this was never given. There were rain storms in Beijing according to the airport Wu was waiting at, however the only storm had been for ten minutes at five o'clock. (Fortunately I persuaded Wu to go home at one AM, he would have stayed all night, but the company driver who had taken him there had an exam at nine the following morning). Apparently the Chinese government have a tendency to close down airports for internal flights if there are VIP's flying into the airport, or just because of military excercises. The arrival of both Condalisa Rice (sp?) and the current Chairman of China were popular culprits for the former theory. Either way, I think China needs to do a lot to improve internal air travel if it is to encourage tourism and survive an olympics. If nothing else they need to stop preventing all flights at the governments whim, to provide some information, and produce contingency plans for giving people accomodation in the event the flight doesn't leave until the next day.
Visiting Wu
I got a bus to Huizhou city, where Wu lives with his wife, son, and mother-in-law. After I had a shower and a nap, the family took me to a fantastic restaurant, where you get an entire room to yourself complete with its own television, fish tank, toilet and, seemingly unneccessarily, microwave. The food was fantastic.
In the evening, we went to a Karaoke club, this was the real macoy (sp?). As soon as you entered it was decorated like an 18th century European palace. Gold everything, chandaliers, huge paitings, sculptures, waitresses in ball gowns - extraordinary. On one floor there was a night club, very much like a western one, on another floor there was karaoke. Here you could sing with other people in the main area, or have a private room - which we had. In the room you have a crate of beer, fruit, nuts, and your own karaoke machine. We shared it with some friends of Wu's.
Unfortunately, they only had three English songs, one of which was actually Chinese, the second was Celine Dion 'My heart will go on' and, the third, a song I had never heard in my life.My hosts were very keen for me to join in and insisted I sang the Celine Dion - they were very polite and applauded frequently, as I discovered that I can't sing remotely in tune and didn't know the song so well. Unfortunately, that whetted their appetites and I then had to sing the song I really didn't know. So I just made up a tune, which was again greeted with much gusto. This still didn't satisfy the keeness of my hosts that I have a good time and sing karaoke, and they ordered a new machine, with a thousand English songs. By midnight I must have done eight or nine, all greeted with much polite encouragement and applause. Incidentally the others also sang Chinese songs, however I'm not going to have nightmares about them, only about the ones I sang.
Today Wu took me to visit the factory he is an engineer at. It was really interesting to have a look round and see all the cool robots and machines they use. This afternoon we're going to the gym and for a massage, and afterwards I'm going to get my hair cut. The latter sounds a little scary, but it's really cheap, and as We puts it 'the worst that can happen is they cut all your hair off', although to be honest, I think that's pretty bad! :)
Well if you made it this far through the posting, you're doing very well!
Cheers,
Ali
