Tidbits From the World

I’m back in Montreal, very far from Xi’an and China. As always, since my journey in Latin America in 2007, I am putting up here an article about my way-back journey, full with pictures of each place that I visited. This time, I traveled by plane and I was blessed with clear skies all the way to Montreal. I took some very beautiful pictures of astonishing sceneries from the top of the world! So, here it is: my return journey to Montreal from Xi’an:

The night before departure, I bid farewell to some friends.

Ying and Ganbat.

An American English teacher from Minnesota, a Chinese student in software engineering who is preparing to leave for the USA to study a Master’s degree and Shawn, an American, blurred on the photo by his movements.

My luggage in my large 100m² apartment… A rolling suitcase, a backpack and a camera bag.

I left the bedroom in a complete mess…

The cab ride from home to the airport usually costs 100 yuans. However, because the driver was waiting for a Korean Student who was also going to the airport, he offered me the shared ride for only 50 yuans.

Ying came with me to the airport.

There is no direct flight between Xi’an and Montreal, not even from Beijing or Shanghai to Montreal (as far as I know). So I had to take three planes to get to Montreal. The first leg was between Xi’an and Shanghai, then Shanghai-Vancouver and finally Vancouver-Montreal. Last year, I opted for a different route: Xi’an-Beijing, Beijing-New-York (very long!) and then New-York-Montreal (45mins).

My first meal, in this short flight: noodles and beef.

The person next to me on the flight was an Indian doing business in China. He comes from Bangalore and he owns a hi-tech company. He has his parts made in China. I asked him whether of not he was afraid of having his technology stolen by Chinese entrepreneurs. He said that he manufactures in three different workshops, each one located in three very far apart Chinese cities. Besides, his master part is made in India and the blueprints are all in Bangalore…

A good old Chinese plane. Three seats on each side and merely any legroom… (in economy class).

Shanghai Pudong Airport. There were very few people on that day.

Outside the airport.

The control tower, from afar.

A better view of the control tower…

At one end of the airport, there is this fancy waiting room.

My luggage on a small cart…

A plane is rolling past the airport, I don’t know if it’s parking or going to position itself on the runway.

An interesting find.

“Fire Escape Masks”. To protect against toxic fumes coming from fires… But there are only eight of them…

In a bookstore inside the airport, a clerk is promoting a new Chinese characters input system for use on a computer. This system is probably not new, but it is not widespread. Actually, the most widespread system for inputting Chinese characters uses a phonetic system called pinyin. You write the pronunciation of a character, using the Latin alphabet on a qwerty keyboard, and then you get a list of the most probable characters to choose from. In my opinion, this is a very bad system because many Chinese forget how to write the characters because they got used to using the Latin alphabet. Some sinologists are predicting that the characters will one day die out because of this input system.

The method proposed here works with only five keys. One key lets you draw a horizontal line, the second key lets you draw a vertical line, then with the third key you can write a tilted line… each key allowing you to draw five of the fundamental strokes of Chinese characters. As you combine the strokes of your desired character, the computer gives you a list of the most probable characters to choose from. I, myself, wouldn’t be able to use this system, and I’m sure that many Chinese would struggle to get used to it. It is a system that requires some training, but I think that on the long run, it would be beneficial for Chinese culture as a whole to use this system instead of the phonetic one. Maybe the Chinese Government should start teaching it to children in primary school.

I had no problem at the Chinese exit customs. I had a question to ask, and I could meet a customs director who answered very well. Then the agent who stamped my passport asked me how to pronounce my name, he looked really amazed. On this photo, you can see the queue for boarding the plane to Vancouver.

A 737, if I’m not mistaking.

With monitors behind each seat.

The security instructions were presented first in English, then in French, all with Chinese subtitles. Air Canada has to respect the Canadian law on bilingualism, therefore all of its employees must, in theory, be bilingual in both French and English. (I didn’t do the test).

The people next to me on this flight: a Chinese American, holder of an American passport. She emigrated in the US in her teenage. And an American who studies medicine in a Shanghai University. Both were on transit in Vancouver; their final destinations were both in the US (New Jersey for the former and Los Angeles for the latter).

Declaration card for the Canadian customs. The travelers on transit in Canada who were heading for the United States could directly fill in an American Declaration Card… there are actually American customs officers in Canadian airports! Is this a breach in Canada’s sovereignty? Very strange… even more so that nobody seems to care…

Meal: beef and rice, noodles and mushrooms, bread and butter and a dessert. Strangely, on Air Canada, they provide chopsticks, but on Air China, they only provide knives and forks…

The traveler next to me asked me if the photo of my meal was for a blog… she then offered to take a portrait of me.

A meal at 30.000 feet up in the sky.

A Chinese city at night.

I saw three movies during the flight: Frost-Nixon (the story behind the interview that president Nixon gave to a British television broadcaster David Frost), La Grande Séduction (a Quebec movie that won many international prizes) and Memento (a man with amnesia tries to find the murderer of his wife, by tattooing the clues he finds on his body).

The sun is rising… the day that was coming to an end is starting all over again! That’s what happens when you travel from China eastwards.

Breakfast: porridge and bread… not very good.

When the sun was completely up and visibility was good, I made an unsettling discovery.

The light that should only be used at night had not been turned off… I thought to myself that if the pilots didn’t think of such a small detail, would they think of all the details for landing the plane?

We finally arrived over the North-American continent. We were flying over Vancouver Island (not to be confused with Vancouver, the city, which is not located on an island). When one thinks of the great Canadian wilderness, its gigantic forests and clear streams, Vancouver Island is one of the places in Canada that best represents this conception.

Unfortunately, this forest is plagued with two enemies: the forest industry and the Mountain Pine Beetle.

Water is so blue, so clear…

Beautiful snow-capped mountains.

Clouds come and go.

Approach to Vancouver.

Vancouver is located on a plateau in the middle of mountains and islands, right on the seaside. It’s probably the most beautiful metropolis in Canada.

Some farmlands a couple of kilometers from downtown.

We are making a U-turn to reach the runway.

Landing…

Here we are… There was no problem, my fears were unfounded.

The Canadian customs. One day, in Quebec, I told a friend that all customs officers must bilingual in both English and French… because it was a pre-requisite to get the job. My friend replied to me that you would be hard-pressed to find a bilingual customs officer in the middle of nowhere in Saskatchewan (an agricultural province). I wanted to test my theory. So I came to the counter and greeted the officer in French: “Bonjour!”. She replied in English “Hi”… and then she asked me if I needed the service in French. She was about to press a button to call in a French interpretor, but I declined her offer and we spoke English.

That was probably a mistake. She asked me if I had cigarettes. I had four packs and I said so… the problem is that she probably thought that I chose the wrong word because one doesn’t have to declare four packs. So she wrote four cartons on my Declaration Card, and then she told me to go to the cashier to pay taxes. I didn’t understand what was going on, and I didn’t know why I would have to pays taxes for four packs of cigarettes. I saw that the customs officer wrote “cartons” on the Declaration Card, but I was unsure about its meaning. I thought it was just another word for “packs”. I went to the cashier and she told me to pay $65 for four cartons of cigarettes. I thought it was very expensive for packs that got for only $1 each in Xi’an.

I decided to discard my packs to avoid paying the tax. As the cashier saw that I only had packs, she sent me to have my luggage inspected… Then at the inspection room, I was told that I needed a stamp from the cashier to get in… so I came back to the cashier who said she couldn’t stamp my declaration. I told her it was all a misunderstanding… that I said “packs” to the customs officer, not “cartons”. She said she couldn’t do anything and she called the inspectors on the phone to let me in the inspection room.

So, I entered the inspection room. There was a very long queue… and people with huge suitcases. My flight to Montreal was departing only three hours later and I was afraid to miss my connection. In the end, I could pass in front of everyone, when I told an official about the misunderstanding. She didn’t check my luggage, she only asked me one question: “If I open your luggage, all I will find are four packs of cigarettes?” “Yes.” “Alright, you are free to go”. By law, it is a federal offense to lie to a government agent… so she took my word as a legal guaranty. As I was leaving, an official taunted me saying “Ah! Here’s the one who keeps changing his declaration!” Grr.. I guess some officials enjoy their position of power over people. They enjoy venting their frustrations on travelers. The official who helped me replied to him that it was all a misunderstanding and he left. He had other people to nag.

At least, in my misfortune I learned a new English word… “carton”!

Waiting hall for the flight Vancouver-Montreal.

Vancouver airport.

Departure.

The sun is setting now, and time is going faster. (The duration of a 4-hour flight is 8 hours because of time difference).

At Air Canada, unlike Air China, on short distance flights, they only serve free drinks (and paid meals).

I was reading the National Post, a Canadian newspaper. This article was about Pat Robertson’s declarations on the earthquake in Haiti. He is an American born-again Christian, one of the most outspoken ones and one of the most extreme. He basically said that the reason for Haiti’s troubles from independence to this earthquake are due to a deal that the Haitian people made with the devil. They asked the devil to get rid of the French occupiers. So the devil accepted and the French went back to France… however nothing comes for free when you have a deal with Satan. So the Haitian people lived in abject poverty ever since the French left the country. Haiti is one of the oldest countries of the Americas (0lder than Canada), it is the first Black country to reach independence.

His declarations are fortunately not taken seriously outside of his sphere of influence. This article reminded me that I was coming back on a Christian land, full of extremists, foolishness and ramblings, that don’t exist in China, a proud atheist land!

The traveler next to me was a Quebec businessman.

Montreal! In the middle of the picture, you can see the Olympic Stadium and behind it, the Maisoneuve Park.

And my room… I was getting used to living in a 100m² apartment in Xi’an, now I am living in a 2m² room in Montreal.