I turn my head and squeeze Feng’s hand a second later, but I catch myself before whispering, “French tourists!”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
We’re in France. People speak French. That’s… normal.
We landed in Paris two days ago, closing the Chinese chapter of the summer. Since then, I’ve been doing a great job of pretending I can effortlessly slip back into my French life and trade chopsticks for a fork. Except I’m jet lagged, Feng and I keep joking in Chinese, and I still launch the VPN before Googling anything.
Who am I kidding. Some part of me is still on that plane, somewhere over the Gobi Desert, refusing to land.
And what French life, anyway? I’m supposed to be living in Canada.
Argh.
Love it or hate it, China is a madame (or should I say a tàitai, 太太) with personality.. She dresses in red, wears distinctive, intoxicating fragrances—an educated nose might pick up a hint of soy sauce, vinegar, hóngyóu (红油), star anise and jasmine tea carried by the hot, humid air. She speaks so fast and so loud you don’t dare contradict her. She’s stubborn and maddening at times because her logic escapes you. You don’t hang out with her to have your deepest beliefs and innocuous daily choices validated. Quite the opposite, actually: she makes you question everything you once took for granted and considered obvious. But if you follow her—don’t lose her in the crowd!—she will take you places you didn’t even suspect existed.
I fell in love with her in 1999 and I’ve never been quite able to leave her, even though I cheated with many other countries and started a love affair with Brazil.
Excuse me. Like I said, I’m jet lagged.
We’re in France again.
It took a while to get there.
Obviously, I didn’t want to leave China. The immigration officer found it odd too.
“Why are you going to France?” he asked in Chinese. “Tourism?”
I wasn’t prepared to be questioned in Chinese, much less to be asked why I was leaving the country in such a kindly concerned tone.
“I’m… French,” I replied.
He raised an eyebrow, glancing pointedly at the Canadian passport in his hand.
“We live in Canada,” I explained. “But I was born in France. So we’re flying to France first and eventually to Canada.”
He stamped my passport and I stepped away, past the booth and the yellow line, stopping exactly where the sign said “do not stand on the yellow line,” waiting for Feng and Mark to go through.
“What did he ask you?”
“If I had a Chinese name.”
“Your name is literally Feng Pan,” I laughed. “How much more Chinese can it get?”
Clearly a thorough Chinese immigration agent.
At this stage, we had nothing else to do but walk to Gate 8, board and pass out on the plane. It was already 9 p.m. Worker’s Stadium, change at Dongsishitiao, then at Dongzhimen, and finally the Capital Airport Express, which got us to the airport so fast Feng and I were practically dizzy. The train was flying, much faster than the cars we passed effortlessly, but it was hopelessly wobbly.
Then we checked in, which involved dropping off the luggage, signing a sheet swearing we didn’t carry explosives, batteries, lighters or other inflammable devices, then waiting for the luggage to be scanned.
“You’re cleared.”
Security was over the top. Every piece of hand luggage was scanned, then sent for secondary inspection, then scanned again.
“Anything can be a weapon or a threat if you look closely enough,” Feng muttered.
A group of Iranians were repacking their bags in the middle of the terminal.
A group of Russian passengers were lost in translation—they couldn’t understand that they had to throw away their lighters, which weren’t even allowed in their hand luggage.
A group of Chinese travellers was doing everything right, but every single umbrella had to go through secondary inspection.
Mind you, it kept us busy. We boarded shortly after arriving at the gate.
Feng and Mark started playing around with the entertainment system. I just watched real life—the takeoff. It was pitch dark, but China is never dark, and the city lights below created an interesting pattern with a bright orange line running through it. A road, probably. What was this road? Why hadn’t I been on this road? Where would it take me? Why am I leaving, already?
Eventually, the lights disappeared beneath the clouds and there was nothing left to look at but the inside of the plane.
“I love Chinese passengers,” a steward told me later during the flight. “They just… sleep. Okay, they get up to grab food from the back galley, that’s annoying. They’re not supposed to help themselves.”
“Which flights do you hate?”
“The US. Americans and their damn food allergies! We have to serve special meals for half the plane. And India. Most passengers are very old, like old enough that they have to be wheeled to the aircraft.”
I went back to my seat and did the Chinese thing—I slept all the way to Paris. There’s nothing else to do during a 13-hour flight.
It was still dark in Paris, and the airport was still asleep at 5:50 a.m. We found a coffee machine and a quiet spot to wait for the day to begin—which day, already, and what time?
The final step of the journey was the three-hour TGV ride to Nantes.
And this is where I started seeing French “tourists” everywhere.
Did I mention I’m still jet lagged and smelling ghost soy sauce?
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