Tidbits From the World

I hope you all had a nice Christmas!

Even if you don’t celebrate Christmas, for religious, cultural or geographical reasons!

For Christmas, the CEO, owner and son of the founder of the company I work for, came to see the workers at the cafeteria. All employees – except one – got a free meal. We could talk to the CEO, if we wanted to. I asked him if I could take a picture of him alone and he said that we could take a picture together instead. This picture was taken last year, although it could have been taken this year, as both of us were wearing exactly the same clothes (furthermore, I had the same beard and he was wearing the same necktie!). Everyone was glad to get a free meal which consisted in traditional Quebec cuisine (beans, potatoes, omelette, bacon and ham, all covered with maple syrup). We were all loudly enjoying our meal, while the only employee who did not get the free meal was working inside the cafeteria. He is the cook. He cooks food for the workers. He is the bitch of the company, or to be more polite, a “paid slave”. He works on minimum wage. His shift starts at 5am, so he has to get up very early in the morning to get to work. He cooks omelettes and toasts bread, he spreads butter on them, and sometimes, he talks to the girl at the till, who is his only coworker. He never smiles and has no contact with anybody inside the company. I cannot try to talk to him, as our schedules don’t coincide. Actually, to say the truth, he doesn’t work for the company, but instead for a subcontracting firm. Anyway, I am talking about him here because I think it was very interesting to observe in the same room two people with completely different backgrounds. The multimillionaire, owner of one of the biggest companies in Canada and the poor guy who probably struggles to make both ends meet. They both ignored each other. Magical Christmas only exists in Disney’s fairy tales.

Mmm, pizza. This is one of the things I miss most while abroad. A good, hot and delicious slice of an all-dressed pizza, that just came out of the oven. They seem to only be available in North America… and there I am now! Back in Montreal.

The journey started in the morning, December 12th at Xianyang International Airport in Xi’an. My first flight, to Beijing, was scheduled to depart at 9am. I took the taxi from home to the airport and paid 100 yuans (15$), for a 50km-course.

It was in a plane like this one, operated by Air China, that I went to my first destination. The flight attendant kept speaking English to me, eventhough I was replying to her in Chinese. But at least I could practice my Chinese with the passenger sitting beside me.

I arrived in Beijing Airport at 10:30 am. The airport was very nice and modern. My next flight, to New York City was scheduled to depart at 1pm. So I had some free time to take some pictures and change some money (100 yuans to 15 canadian dollars, for a bus ticket in Montreal).

Because of the time difference between Beijing and NYC and also because the airplane went through the opposite direction of our planet’s rotation, we were scheduled to arrive only 30 minutes after the departure time. Therefore, the departure time was 1pm, December 12th, Beijing time; and the arrival time was 1:30pm, December 12th, NYC time, but the flight had an actual duration of 13 hours and a half.

The passengers entered the Boeing 747 from the outside, by climbing a stair.

Inside the plane, there was a screen showing movies and also our actual location on the globe, our speed, our altitude and the outside temperature, in English and in Chinese. In English, the Imperial System of units was used, while in Chinese, the International system was used. The distance to be travelled was a little over 10000 km. The plane flew over Russia, went over the Arctic Ocean and then over Nunavut, Quebec and the USA.

Visibility was unlimited. One could see the ground and the horizon.

Somewhere above the Arctic Ocean, North of Canada.

The sun is setting in this December 12th night… In a couple of hours, the sun will be rising again and a new December 12th will start again. At that time, I realized that my watch could not go back one day. So, I had to make the hands of my watch rotate some 60 times in order to get to number 12 from 13 as the date.

One of the two meals served on bord.

The sun is rising again.

We are almost there.

We are flying over Manhattan before landing… Can you see the Empire State Building on this picture? Hint: in the lower-right corner.

New York City, at last. In this place, I was not in the minority anymore! There were very few Chinese people.

Last flight of the journey, to Montreal. This one had a duration of 45 minutes. We arrived in the evening at 7pm, December 12th. I took a shuttle for the 15 dollars, that I had changed 100 yuans for, that went directly to the central subway station in Montreal, Berri-UQAM. The following day, I was eating pizza and watching TV… in French.

Almost all Chinese words are made up of a combination of two single monosyllabical characters. By considering each single character in a Chinese word, one can analyse these words and find out some interesting things about how the Chinese people view or used to view certain things. Here is a list of some names of countries in Chinese:

中国 Middle Country (China)
中文 Middle Language (Chinese language)
汉语 Language of the Hans (Chinese language)
法国 Country of the Law (France)
德国 Country of the Moral (Germany)
法语 Language of the Law (French)
德语 Language of the moral (German)
旧金山 Old Golden Mountain (San Francisco)
美国 Beautiful Country (U.S.A)
美洲 Beautiful Continent (America)
非洲 Bad Continent (Africa)
亚洲 Subcontinent (Asia)

The majority of the names for countries in Chinese are simply transliterations using the Chinese script, without any real meaning. For example, Canada is spellt 加拿大 (jia, na, da/add, hold, big); Chile is spellt 智利 (zhi, li/wisdom, advantage). It is not possible to translate these names. Russia is called 俄罗斯 (e luo si: sudden, net, this).

This young boy works at a restaurant in Xi’an. I don’t know how old he is but he certainly is no older than 10 years old. I did not dare to ask him if he still goes to school, or when did he drop out. He is rude to customers to whom he always shouts as loud as he possibly can “DENG YI XIA” (wait a second!), when he is asked to pour some more tea into cups, for example, or when customers are becoming impatient while they have been waiting for a long time and their plates still haven’t arrived. Customers are rude to him as well. They insult him and laugh at him. But he is a strong little boy. He replies to these attacks, and he doesn’t let these customers disrespect him, as he knows he can be as bad as anyone else. I am wondering, where will he be in 10 or 15 years from now when this whole place where the restaurant stands will long have been demolished and replaced by modern buildings or new highways? (This area will be demolished within two years from now).