My three-hour layover in Beijing was not something I looked forward to. It's a long story, but let's just say today I was indignant because of the treatment of the airline en route to Beijing by one of China's airlines. Yes, I am one of those travel snobs. I've not yet mastered the art of lowering my expectations from airlines where my status is supposed to make travel more pleasurable. Because it was Air China that said "No" to things most other airlines says "Yes, of course" to flying into China I was already seething. Cue three hours in Beijing where nothing is open (I landed at 5am) I plunk myself down in a chair ready to vent. In e-mails, on Facebook, writing, I wanted to air my angst. Having done so, I wanted a good cup of tea, some food, and to browse the news online. Of those six items on my list, I got two: e-mail and food.
I get my access code for free Wi-fi by giving some large Chinese organization (government?) my passport number. I wonder after the fact if that was a good idea (will they now track all of what I read/write/browse?), will they have my passwords? Am I being paranoid? Yes, likely to all. The tea is Lipton (no), the peaches hard, the sandwiches iffy, so I go for bottled water and ... what are these?
Wife cakes. Cakes made of wife? Hang on. The characters actually read "old bag cakes." Here we go again.
My husband finds it hilarious (because he knows finding humor in this irks me) I struggle not to refer to him in public in Japan as my lord person, the word Japanese women commonly use to refer to their husbands. I've asked him not to refer to me as his inside-the-house, the typical word for wife in Japanese. I've shared with him our son is allowed to refer to me as honorable bag, but he's not actually to do so. Not in my presence. I make a quick mental note. At least in Japanese mothers are honorable bags. In Chinese, evidently, it's not the mother who's an old (but not honorable?) bag, but wife. When did women become bags? (Note: no typo here. The word is bag and not hag.)
Is it because we carry bags? We were gatherers when our men were hunters back in the day, and the bags we carried then turned into our purses today? Surely not. Are we kangaroos, carrying our young inside our "bags"? Is this a good thing, being thought of as a vessel, a holder if items, precious and sacred? Do bags symbolize our wombs? Am I reading too much into this?
I have the time to contemplate all this because from Beijing's airport I cannot access Facebook. The links from Washington Post, CNN, and other major news outlets also don't work. Is the Chinese mega-machine that is airport-government-and more controling what I have access to? Wanting a good cup of tea but not willing to settle for Lipton, I make my way back to the small food stand and decide the old bag cakes warrant a photo, if for no other reason, my husband will get a kick out of this. I take out my phone from my bag (my most honorable), open the glass door where the bag-cakes are kept cool, and snap a photo. "Sorry, please. No photo," the young woman standing next to the case tells me. I look around. This display of food is the only one with a guard. Why no photo? Because I'm surely not the only foreigner who thinks food should not be referred to as old, or baglike, or made from parts of a spouse, thus I'm forbidden to take the photo. Someone like me will surely post it on Facebook once they get to a place where accessing social media is allowed.
"Uh huh," I tell the pretty, young, professional, but clearly intimidated guard-of-all-things-pastry and walk away, thinking "If you really don't want me to have this photo you should be asking me to delete it," or hide those old-bag/wife cakes. But, that's the Air China flight fury residue talking.
Remembering back to the security line where only non-Chinese were taken aside for a pat-down I decide this is China. When in China cakes are wife-bags, internet access is limited, the country where one would think I would have access to wonderful tea is clearly not the case, it simply is what it is.
Some day I will ask a Chinese friend, lightheartedly mind you with no judgment attached, what those old-bag-wife cakes are all about, but today I'll post my indignation and resolve to avoid at least all things Air China and leave it at that.
