One Night in China as an American Hobo

 

 

 

Wide eyed and ready to be amazed by the market force of billions of workers clawing their way into the middle class at foxcon factories, I crossed that structurally innocuous but altogether terrifying barrier that divides the airport between “in” and “out”. And I was “out”.

Mission one: find luggage storage. Info desk: “that way, sir” off to a great start.

The girl staffing the luggage counter was adorable, so happy to be speaking English with a westerner. She explained that it was so-many Yuan per/hour and that I could use cash or two different payment apps. I said, “Great! Will the payment apps be helpful elsewhere?” and she nodded enthusiastically. “But wait, my Thai sim card doesn’t work here and I don’t have internet access.”

What followed was an attempt to explain how to access the airports wifi system. This was beyond the capacity of her English to explain to me so this sweet kid set up a hot-spot so I could download the Chinese translation dictionary and Google Translate could help out. She talked me through the process, but her eyes had the same look that the security guard I first met did, which was basically, “This isn’t going to work.”

But at this point looking past the doubt was a montra. So I went to register for the airport wi-fi. This process involved getting a ticket from a particular airport information desk, then finding a giant computer kiosk a few hundred meters away, working through some prompts on a giant screen, scanning my passport, then my face, and recording my voice and ultimately being rewarded with a password for the airport wifi. It took about 30 minutes.

I’m sure that the Chinese government can smell when I’m ovulating before it happens now, but I did, in fact, get a wifi password for the airport wifi. The only problem is that it just didn’t work. I asked information about why it wasn’t working and they said it had “operational hours during the daytime.” So, you know, the wifi has a bedtime.

China doesn’t have an airport sim-card game like Thailand does and honestly I wouldn’t have wanted to buy a months worth of data for a 2hour trist, just to have internet. Also, I didn’t want to put a Chinese chip in my phone because at this point I was pretty sure I’d gotten an implant and one was enough. Also, I didn’t have any money.

So cash was the next frontier. No bother. I had spent extra time before this trip started setting up an international debit card that could take money out of almost any country on the planet. I just needed an ATM.

It’s worth noting here that the Guangzou airport has 25ish pre-boarding terminals. The structure spans easily a half-mile. It’s huge. Airport information told me to go to an ATM at pre-boarding Terminal one. Luggage storage was at terminal 25. So I walked the length of the airport in search of some cash, dragging my luggage and still not insignificant sense of hope.

What I found after my walk to gate one, were the walls of a cubicle-like structure covered with the international advertising language of banking: happy families, looking relieved, arms stretched to the sky in the full glory of a sound financial portfolio. And these walls were impenetrable. The ATM was closed. So I inquired at another information desk. They sent me to the airport police, who apparently had the only ATM open after hours (10pm, 15 million people in this city, FUCKING 10pm!!). The police station was at gate 25 where I had started. My hope was lighter on the second pass, small victories.

The accommodations of the “out” section of the airport are austere and I got to view all of them. “We don’t know you yet… and maybe we don’t want to.” Is at the heart of the design narrative in the “out” section. Just a few hundred feet away behind an impenetrable wall of youthful militarism was the lush corporate cloud-land I had abandoned, here there were hardened steel seats that only hinted at the vague suggestion you should sit in them. Laying down is not something the “out’ group is allowed here. You will sit, and it will hurt, and you will be thankful because it is literally better than any other option. Need water? Oh sorry all the water facilities are reserved for people who have been normal and made it inside. You can buy some, but you’ll need cash or one of the two digital payment options available in China. Just download the app.

And I did need water. What did not have a bedtime before 10, was KF fucking C, of all things. A KFC was the only operating food stand in the airport, but you better believe they will take my international credit card, no problem. So eventually I paid $14 for THE BEST CHICKEN SANDWICH IVE EVER HAD IN MY LIFE, and some water.

As a side snark: Its criminal how much better American fast-food is outside of America. They own us and they know it, but they’re still trying to corner the markets everywhere else so they’re still actually trying everywhere else. I can’t describe it any better than to say that it is ABSURDLY BETTER. It’s not really the same restaurant. We eat the shittiest version of American fast-food in America every day and we generally pay more for it than anyone else.

I finished my walk to the police station to find maybe 20 militarized looking police guys guarding it like an attack was imminent. Five stood up as I walked toward them (to the clear approval of their superiors) and halted the imminent threat of an overweight westerner with a frizzy pony tail holding a debit card and dragging luggage. Imagine the posture of men at a military checkpoint in Afghanistan… that’s pretty close. I showed them my debit card and mimed putting it in the machine, but the slightly stabby motion of that action wasn’t well received. Next I (slowly) reached for my front pocketed phone which also earned a tense response. I typed banking machine into translate and hit the speak button, and like a god damned chorus-line all twenty jackbooted, combat ready police did a little hands crossed and head shaking dance that let me know, for whatever reason, I couldn’t access the banking machine.

I walked reluctantly back to the baggage counter to tell the nice girl my plans were probably kaput unless I could use her wi-fi again, but she was getting chewed out by some superior. She saw me, but immediately looked away and did not look back. I got a dark, but distinct feeling that sharing her wi-fi may have actually been a problem. I really hope her kindness wasn’t what brought that on, but I took the que and kept walking. I walked past one more time that night but she was no longer at the desk.

By this point I learned that the train running from the airport to the city also had an early bed time. Something my researched had clearly missed. Was it a holiday or something? I would have had to navigate finding a taxi and likely would have only been able to pay in cash for that… which wasn’t an option. Enough doors had closed to me, I was stuck on the wrong side of the airport, but I was definitely stuck at the airport.

I don’t know when this airport is actually busy. Maybe before 9m? 6pm? I really don’t know. But they’ve got the space and the cooling towers for a few hundred thousand people on the second floor alone. But at this hour, the witching hour of Guangzhou (10pm), when spirits roam the countryside and abduct bad little communists whose families have banished them to the streets for having critical thoughts, the Madison square garden sized second floor of this airport is empty. Just me and a few travelers asleep in the greasy booths of KFC, which are all basically occupied. There was no escaping the fluorescent lighting, but the place was nearly silent, and I could find a quiet stretch of floor near a bathroom for sure, so that’s what I did.

I laid out my tattered little travel blanket on the gleaming tile, popped off my shoes, set my alarm and snuggled up with my backpack falling asleep almost instantly, but awoken just as abruptly and what felt like instantaneously. An angry little 20 something with a baton kicked me with his combat boot looking anything but camouflaged in the black and grey fatigues of the red-nation-nightmare-future-army in this overwhelmingly white building.

It was clear I wasn’t allowed to be sleeping here. My Chinese being limited to what Frank taught me, and neither “thank you” nor “hello” being appropriate in this situation I made a “what the fuck” sort of face and gestured broadly to the Grand Canyon sized amount of empty space we were surrounded by. This dude really went out of this way to find me. I was tucked in between a cooling tower, a railing, and some decorative plants. I was harming no one and no one could see me who wasn’t looking. He returned my “what the fuck” face with a similar face… I don’t know maybe I was shaming my family by sleeping on the ground or something and I’d never be able to explain that their shame goes so much deeper and this was not of consequence. Eventually he reached for his belt and I thought the baton was coming out, but (arguably worse) he was actually reaching for cuffs. So, being both spineless and practical, I got up immediately, apologized and packed my things – it was about 2am.

It was too early to not try to sleep again, but the KFC was even more packed with sleeping travelers caught in this mind-fuck torture device the Chinese called an airport. It has to be a power play, like: “Yes we have this space, but no you can’t use it, because we’ve decided you can’t.” The same seems true for their public squares and their function in protest movements.

I found another spot and repeated the same basic drama of the above paragraph again. The same security guard found me a few hours later, presumably tracking my heat signature with infrared, but time had passed again and it was about 20 minutes before I could start to board. He was really going to arrest me this time. Cuffs full-on out and open, angrily muttering things at me, all authority and peach fuzz. I quickly dug for my ticket and showed him my boarding time, which thank god Mao, he understood and great Lenin in heaven he let me go.

What followed wasn’t amusing at all, it was only terrifying. Definitely the most scared I wound up feeling during the whole trip and some dark stuff was about to go down in Nepal.

I had to get it back through security to get to my gate. This process always sets me on edge, but being groggy and very-recently very-narrowly avoidant of arrest I was maybe especially on edge. This is going to sound stupid, but really it’s not. I have a bottle of miscellaneous pills in my backpack. It’s just the four or five things I use most regularly, all over-the-counter. Ibuprofen, antacids, allergy pills, Tylenol PM. Some are branded, some just look like pills. I have them separated by a couple baggies so they’re easy to identify. And that’s it… I can hear your judgment through the screen, “You brought unlabeled baggies of pills through security in China?” Yes. I did that. I have allergies and sometimes… heartburn. They have not been a problem at any other airport, but oh boy they were in China. My bag was flagged, gone through, and I was forcefully escorted to a tiny little room where another set of nightmare-future-army thugs repeatedly asked me about the pills from behind black/grey camo masks and reflective sunglasses. I didn’t know how to answer, or what to do. I think I remember miming things, but I don’t remember what.

And then there was a knock on the door, and one of the men left. The rest remained in angry silence staring at me. When the fourth returned he handed me my bottle of pills and opened the door.

A long past memory surfaced of my sophomore year of high-school, picking up a girl named Kim to take to some unimportant spring dance. I was a year older than Kim and her father insisted that I come in for a quick drink before we left for the themed gymnasium in 1953. Relatively speaking it was a very innocent night out, but I was a teenager and was actively engaged in thinking about touching whatever parts of Kim’s body she was comfortable with so I figured this was pretty normal pre-dance dad behavior. Kim was still getting ready, so he set some glasses for just the two of us. Right after pouring a couple cokes, he handed me a gun. It was a rifle or maybe a shotgun with a wood stock, large and heavy, long barrel. He spent the next 10 minutes showing me how to clean it by having me hold it while he demonstrated his expertise in handling firearms. I felt basically the same way holding the pills the Chinese had handed back to me. There were so many mixed messages going on and I had no idea how to respond. I didn’t know if I should take them and leave. I didn’t know what was happening.

Kim eventually came downstairs and yelled at her dad, who relented and put the gun away. I remember she was embarrassed and so was I because she looked amazing and I didn’t know if I could look at her or not. Her tits were the size of watermelons and unavoidable in a judges cloak, but in a glittery evening dress they could be viewed from space. So I just closed my eyes and bumped into walls until we were outside. Which is pretty much exactly the effect her father was looking for. What did the Chinese police want here?

So I sat there. Eventually the cop put the pills in my bag and they collectively shoved me out the door. I went to my gate and spent two hours waiting for the hammer of Chinese justice to drop, but it never did. I boarded the flight like it never happened. I have no idea how close I came to a really terrible time, but that was the anti-climactic end of it, I was back in the air.

What follows in the air between Guangzhou and Nepal will sound tame in comparison, and it’s worth considering with how shocking and terrible this exit from security in China was, I was still deeply annoyed enough to write all about the remaining flight to Nepal. Keep that in mind before you judge me.  

I couldn’t see out the window when we took off, but I imagined 15 million people locked down like there’s a curfew, even though there isn’t. Maybe the city is lively at night and the airport is just a ghost town. Maybe the Chinese just like fucking with travelers from the US. I could get behind that for the laughs. But, I still think about the guy I left with 1% on his phone. I really wish I hadn’t done that. I hope he’s not still in China. I don’t think whatever they were holding him for was a laughing matter. I think I narrowly escaped a really bad joke.