<A> Getting to China

I am one of the lucky ones who got a summer’s trip to study in China to be paid for entirely by a grant from my college. Knowing this, I expected parse accommodations and the usual frugality that made Ramen noodles seem like an upgrade over dorm food. I was, however, surprised and excited to find out we would be flying from O’Hare to Tokyo to Hong Kong on Japan Airlines.
JAL (as its crane-encrested tail art abbreviates it) is the Cadillac of Trans-Pacific flying. It is also the worst thing to prepare you for traveling to China. Let me explain myself. I can’t imagine a much more comfortable way to spend 12 hours forced into the same seat (46H for me), its just that Japan and China are so very different. China, while modernizing itself faster than any other technical revolution in the history of humanity, still has an old world feel. The streets still get swept by happy, toothless old women who made their brooms themselves. The Chinese wear endearing non-designer clothing. It is not at all uncommon on a humid summer day in Wuhan to see nearly a thousand people on a long walk. Yet, almost every single one of them, except for those in the odd and ever popular hair salons, are wearing a simply colored, one pocket tee with a pair of equally un-hip work slacks.
This is not so on JAL. They fly the most technologically advanced 747’s in the world. Seriously, I think the makers of Air Force One need to check out JAL for tips. Even in my humble economy class seat, I had ample room for stretching and sleeping and adjusting for comfort. I also had at my disposal an LCD TV screen built right into the head rest in front of me. Furthermore, I wasn’t limited to the dreaded “in flight movie.” Built into my armrest was a detachable remote control that let me flip between twelve different movies of varying genres. I could go Western, pop, classic, Japanese, Chinese, even an up to the minute news show! It was a wonderful respite from thinking about how much longer we were in the air (which was always a long time). Someone can only watch movies for so long, though. And after about eight hours, one yearns for something different. Never fear, JAL’s handy remote also lets you listen to nearly thirty audio channels or flip the screen to show you one of seven different cameras positioned on the outside of our plane. It also had neat maps and simulations to explain where we were and how fast we were going.
I say all this because the plane was very fancy and, for me ( a twenty something American male), one of the coolest things, ever. But that. Doesn’t even compare to the wonder that are JAL air hosts and hostesses. These people never stop smiling. No doubt, they have reason to. But I really don’t think they can. They might have been physically altered or something, but they never stop. They are all versed in English and Japanese and always have at least one Chinese speaker on board as well (they don’t always have the luxury of having a Cantonese and Mandarin speaker, but you can count on at least one speaker of the Pu Tong Hua). They never stop working to serve you. In fact, it is almost annoying. I was actually wanting to fall asleep once and the hostess woke me up to give me a pillow and a blanket that I hadn’t even asked for yet. They wear very nifty uniforms as well. They look a bit like the “Stepford Wives” in Dress Air Force attire. And get this, they change outfits when it’s dinner time! They take of their nifty uniform jackets with the epilets and put on equally nifty (and matching, of course) aprons before they parouse the Aisles with the Japanese or American Cuisine that we chose at the beginning of the flight.
All in all, flying JAL is an incredible experience, but it in no way prepares you for China. China, in all ways is more incredible because of its authenticity. The people will not smile at you if they don’t have a good reason to. They won’t wear uniforms. They probably won’t have movie channels in built in LCD screens anywhere. (but they will have LOTS and LOTS of illegal DVDs!) But this is the beauty of it. JAL is so fancy and tech-savvy that you are almost weary of it by the end of your flight. It’s a bit too commercial. I think Disney executives would really like JAL. Because, then, when you finally get off the plane and walk down the stairs to the thick and smoggy heat of Hong Kong, the hustle and pollution and maniac drivers seem a welcome change of scenery. They seem real. And China, with its 1 billion people, half of them starving while the other half build skyscrapers, is as real (in the sense that it is both mystifyingly beautiful and shameful all at once) as real gets.