The plane circled around Guangzhou for over an hour. There was a weather event the pilot said and looking out, the sky though was clear and the city below sparkled. But who knows- the weather everywhere has been strange. Then there was another announcement; the plane was being asked to fly and land in another airport an hour or so away.
So by the time we headed back, it was well past 3am and our connecting flight was canceled. When the airport staff started talking in barely incomprehensible English, my stomach lurched. You sort of realise that language universality is arbitrary; they can choose to not learn English fluently.
It felt like one of those disaster movies where people who were minding their business on the plane and keeping to themselves, suddenly start reaching out to one another. Earlier, when the plane was doing loops above Guangzhou, my seatmate who was a Filpino dairy farm hand working in Hastings started talking to me and we were hopeful, expecting it even, that no matter what happened, we were flying home to New Zealand. But it was not meant to be.
And in the chaos and babble of sleep-deprived passengers and mask-wearing airport staff, it was every man to himself. Or maybe that was just me. Growing up, I wasn’t reliant on anyone. I had to figure things out by myself whether I did a good job or not. I had to sort my shit first especially when to my shock, I was handed a boarding pass that indicated my flight to be nearly 24 hours away. The only thing I understood from the airport staff was ‘transit visa’ and ‘hotel’.
The other Filipinos were families and the Caucasians stuck together which didn’t help much as they thought that Googling the situation was better than trying to make sense of what the staff were saying. The Pinoy dairy farm hand vanished.
I managed to get the transit visa (how the officer understood my handwriting I would never know); then went through immigration where inexplicably, most of the Caucasians failed to even fill up the declaration card before getting into the queue and were asked to step out and do it first. Then I got through and it was finding the airline counter next so that they could give me accommodation.
The Filipino groups were seemingly wandering around and my first thought was that, well you do your own thing and I’ll do mine. I have never been a team person. My focus was getting out of the airport so I walked past them and left them to it. I thought briefly about my luggage and I assumed that since I was already given a boarding pass, my luggage would be delivered to that plane. If not, well, fuck it, there’s insurance.
I had my backpack which had my meds, my toiletries, and my electronics. Unfortunately, the only clothes I had were the clothes I wore for the flight, but there was nothing I could do about that.
I realised when I went through customs that we weren’t the only flight canceled. There was a queue several meters long to the China Southern counter. At this point, my hoodie was hot and my eyes were watering from being up so late. I went straight through to the counter and no one was paying attention; everyone was on their phone.
The staff were besieged by angry passengers; one even reached out to try and grab one of the staff’s keyboards. I felt sort of nauseous at the thought that this was hell, and that the worst fate of all, was being trapped in a situation not of your own making where you don’t understand the context of what was happening and where you can’t speak out.
But I knew what I wanted though - I wanted a bed. I wanted to wash my face. I didn’t want to sleep in the airport. I didn’t want to wash my armpits in a public sink. I didn’t want to amuse myself wandering into duty-free stores daydreaming of stuff I couldn’t afford.
I also was able to speak out - in the best American English I could muster 😂 - and the staff was more than happy to assist someone not screaming into her face in Mandarin or Cantonese or whatever.
In 15 minutes, I was on my way in a shuttle to the Marriott.
