China did not want to let me go

I write this from the extraordinary comfort of my living room, having just roused myself from  my last activity – two entire hours flat out on my back on the living room floor.

We left China in the wake of the approaching superTyphoon Meranti, which hit Taiwan and then came ashore in China during our last 24 hours in Shanghai, but I had been fervently watching the news and it seemed that the massive rain and expected flooding was going to occur/accumulate in the hours after we had left on our Delta flight to Seattle and it would have worked out fabulously if only our Delta flight had actually left on time and headed to Seattle.

I pause here to describe Chinese airport security to you as it will come in handy, from an information point of view, later in this story.  First you walk up to the doors of the airport and you go through a security screen of your bags and your identification.  Then you approach a check-in counter and you show your passport again and get a boarding pass.  Then you go to the extremely intimidating immigration line, which easily took us 45 minutes.  Once you’re through, you go through another security line, where they x-Ray everything and open up your bags and ask questions.  (It was at this point that some police officer confiscated part of my dearly beloved Geisha tweezer set from The Great Wall and wrote my name and passport number into some logbook, which means that I could be  some watch list in China now, I think).  Then you go to your gate, where there is ANOTHER passport check.  And then, just when you think you’re done – you’re walking down the jet way to get onto your flight and there is YET ONE MORE security check and you have to hoist your suitcase up onto a table and they make you open it one more time and answer questions.

So we did all this and we got onto the flight and I was in a chipper mood and sat right down in my comfortable Premium Economy seat and started watching movies.  For my first choice I picked Keanu – a heartwarming tale of two cousins who pretend to be gangsters in order to rescue a kitten they are fond of and, in testament to my low airplane IQ, I watched that thing all the way through.  But after about 45 minutes I noticed we were still sitting there at the gate and I became a little concerned.  We finally made it out to the runway but just sat there while other airplanes got to taxi around us and take off and I thought that, perhaps, this was an extremely passive aggressive Chinese display of discontent with the American government.

After about 3 hours, the pilot came onto the PA to tell us the hydraulic system had failed and he was “on the phone to Atlanta” to figure out what to do and about an hour later, we drove out to some far area of the airport and some mechanics came on board (let me add here that the bathrooms had ceased functioning at some point, which is important to know in light of that fact that the flight attendants had handed out water bottles to everyone at about the 3 hour mark).   The mechanics fixed the hydraulic system, only to have it short out a few seconds later, and while I really really needed to pee by then, I had serious misgivings about flying with a temperamental hydraulic system – I don’t know what it does but it sounds integral.

We took the opportunity to make friends with a German man near us and a non-traditional flight attendant who was about 70 years old and looked like she belonged at a Miami retirement community playing canasta.  But boy did that woman have the deets on what was going on.  She made it clear to us that the flight was going nowhere and, sure enough, 5 hours in, the pilot came on and announced the cancellation and a bus came to take us back to the airport.

It was at this point that I made the first of my spectacularly good decisions of the day.  I called Delta before we even got off on the plane and got someone to book us on a flight to LA and then on to Seattle.  We got 2 of the last 4 seats on that flight and our German friend got one of the others.  When we got back to the terminal, we ignored the Delta representative who took the other 300 people on our flight back to the check-in area of the airport and instead went right to the gate for LA.  (This was my second good decision.)

I am not sure why I was surprised when the Delta agents refused to let us on the flight.  First they claimed that we were not on the flight at all.  But I knew we were, since I had woken Melisa up 5000 miles away at 2:30am and made her check my reservation.  And, since I was already on the Chinese terror watch list due to my Geisha grooming items, I figured I had nothing to lose and so I argued with the Delta people and finally got them to look on-line and they agreed that we were indeed on the flight to LA but they would not let us on unless we went back outside immigration and all the security to have some boarding passes printed – they would not print a pass at the gate.

In desperation I relented, but I demanded a Delta staff member escort us through the whole process as the inefficiency of Chinese customer service in all areas I had witnessed this week was pretty staggering and we only had an hour before our flight left. (This was my third good decision)  And they actually gave me a staff member, who we promptly comandeered and he was incredible.  His name tag read only “trainee” but boy did that kid have some nerve.  He talked us back out of the secure area, “uncleared” immigration for us and led us out to the check-in counter, where the other 300 people from our flight were crowded around about 3 customer service agents, looking angry and confused.  Our Trainee took us away from the melee and got us new boarding passes and then escorted us back through all that security and immigration, using special lines reserved for diplomats.

There is no way we would have made that flight to LA without this young man and I am beyond grateful to him.  Everyone else remained stranded in Shanghai for at least another day and it’s not clear to me if they’ve even left yet but I hope they have.  Sure we got home 12 hours late and had terrible seats…center seats!!??!!!….but those other 300 people….ugh.

All of which is not to belittle our trip to China at all.  But long-distance travel does take its toll.  Would I do it again?  Ask me in January when we’re supposed to head to Egypt.  Ten hours to Frankfurt and then 4 hours on to Cairo.  What could go wrong?

Here’s a few parting shots for you.  They’re from a town called Suzhou, 55 miles from Shanghai – 2.25 hours of travel time to cover that 55 miles due to traffic.  Notice the rain – and it was just getting started.    It’s supposed to be a charming smaller town, the Venice of China…population only 2 MILLION!!