San Francisco via Memphis via Shreveport

I’m writing this entry while I wait at my departure gate at the Shreveport regional airport. I pull out my phone to check the time – 5:30 am. My flight leaves in less than an hour. International flights out of a regional airport like the one in Shreveport, LA aren’t so bad it seems. It took me a whole ten minutes to check-in, get through security, and get to my departure gate. It looks like I don’t have that many people coming to Memphis with me this morning. I also notice that I have a missed call and a new message. Who on earth could be calling at this hour? It’s 3:30 am in Seattle, so it’s probably one of my family members. I dial my voicemail and get a recording saying that one of my old messages that I’ve saved is going to be deleted. I listen to it again and decide I no longer need to keep it. Then it tells me another one is going to be deleted…and another…and another. What gives?? Then I realized that the voice messaging system was probably preparing to purge everything that was in my mailbox since my service was going to be shut off at midnight tomorrow, October 12th.

I picked up the voicemail from my mom and return her call. She had a couple of last minute tax questions related to the business. My poor mom helped me to drag my two gigantic bags up to the check-in counter. The one she pulled out of the car was probably half her body weight. Luckily, it has wheels, so she could just pull it – still, I think it’s kind of funny that she could probably fit inside of it comfortably. At 4’11” and somewhere around 100 lbs, I’m amazed at what she does each day. She is undoubtedly the woman I admire most in my life. I think she was probably up before 2 am this morning as part of her daily routine. As usual, she and two of my brothers, Michael and Travis, head out to the family donut shop in the nearby town of Jefferson (pop. 2300 and about 20 minutes drive away from Marshall) and hardly get to work – I mean, get to their hard work! Today, however, mom steps out of her normal day and leaves the shop after she finishes her opening tasks so that she can take me to the airport. They all have to work extra hard today since my mom has left them for a couple of hours so that she can drive me to Shreveport. In East Texas, the towns and cities are fairly spread out. It doesn’t help that the shop is exactly the opposite direction from the airport.

It was about 4:30 am by the time she got back home to get me. She sets down a tray with some orange juice, a zip-lock bag of our signature pigs-in-a-blanket (a real seller at the shop) and a plate of bacon, sausage, and eggs – all the meats of breakfast, as Razz is fond of saying. Such a mom, I thought to myself. Oh, how I miss some things about living at home! Ah, it was good to be “home” for a week, where I could unwind and mentally prepare for my upcoming trip.

Anyway, back to the airport…so here is this petite Asian lady dragging a gigantic bag-on-wheels to the NW Airlines check-in counter. Darn it, no Sky Cap counter to take care of curbside check-in like at Sea-Tac. I figured that I was trading the curbside check-in for being able to breeze through to my gate and called it good.

My heart did skip a beat as I was going through TSA security. While I was waiting for my stuff to come through the scanning device, the lady at the scanning station came back and said she was going to scan my carry-on luggage again. Uh oh, did I forget a bottle of water in there or something?? I thought I had pulled all those contraband items out earlier and put them into my checked baggage. It’s irritating (and sad) that in today’s world, a bottle of water is considered a potential weapon. I know that it’s all just for our safety, but seriously, a bottle of water?

I breathe a sigh of relief as my stuff went through a second time uneventfully. The lady behind me, however, wasn’t so lucky. They led her to a side table where another TSA agent was busy ransacking what was previously another passenger’s neatly packed carry-on. I grabbed my things and proceeded towards my gate with enough time to pull out a notepad and scribble down some thoughts before an announcement came over the intercom saying that they were about to commence boarding for the flight to Memphis. Not a moment to lose…

I tentatively inched forward down the narrow aisle of my Bombardier CRJ 4400 with room for 50 passengers. A good size for the 43-minute puddle jump from Shreveport to Memphis (well, technically, there isn’t really a significant body of water in between the two cities; just trying to liven up my writing a little bit for all you lovely people!).

I find my seat and see that my neighbor is already there. Great, a window seat (I hate window seats, they make me nauseous and I’ve got to consider my ‘bubble,’you know). He gets up to let me in and makes conversation by asking me where I’m headed. Bangkok. Oh, I’m on my way to the Philippines. Really? What for? My dad lives there (my neighbor is Caucasian). Oh, what’s he doing there? Does he work there? No, he has a vacation home in Manila. No kidding! I was there for a month last August. I really enjoyed it there; hope you have fun. How long will you be there for? Two-and-half weeks. Manila is a great city!

I didn’t bother to give him the nitty-gritty details of the extreme and ever-present economic disparity he’ll see upon his arrival. This is common characteristic of capital cities in growing nations like the Philippines; where, if you stay on a main road long enough, you’ll drive through some slums, into a walled and guarded condominium/shopping complex and back into slums again. Of course staying on one road too long is inefficient in Manila traffic. Still, the pockets of wealth are far enough apart that you can’t help but see the effects of overpopulation and poverty all around you…unless of course, you close your eyes and close your heart.


To Tokyo We Go…

The trip from Memphis was uneventful. But once I arrived at SFO, I remembered some the hassles associated with larger airports. I’ve never been to SFO before, so I had no idea which way was forward, back, or sideways. I followed the general movement of traffic, which led me beyond a security checkpoint. Uh oh, am I supposed to leave the secured area? I didn’t do this in Memphis!

As it turns out, I was supposed to leave but I later learned that you could only keep following the herd for so long before you have to break off towards your own path – somehow I ignored this voice in the back of my head and kept moving with the mass of human bodies down a set of escalators and across one of those “people movers,” you know, those flat escalators – who knows what they’re technically called, you all know what I’m talking about! Then I found myself at the parking garage. This can’t be right… I went back up the real escalators and spied a gigantic sign reading “International Flights.” Brilliant, Hong. I walked in the general direction of the sign and found an information desk staffed by a little old man. A sign on the counter said “volunteer.” This could be bad…long story short, I ended up going back to the NWA gate I came out of. Damn it all to hell! I’m tired, I’m hungry, I JUST WANT TO GET TO MY GATE!!!

And so I turned around and went back down the long, long corridor to the International Gates at SFO – like I should have in the first place…I got some lunch at the Il Fornaio café and waited. Naturally, for a flight to Asia, there were a lot of Asian people. What I found quite ironic was that for a flight to Asia, our Airbus A330 featured carry-on compartments that were really quite high up. I’m usually able to reach the overhead storage in a plane without too much difficulty. Today though, I had some slight issues and I am relatively tall for an Asian person. I definitely felt for the little old ladies who were having difficulties putting their luggage away. I helped out the ones nearby as best I could.

So I’m not sure how many of you I’ve told about the Fulbright requirement that I fly a domestic carrier, but there is one. I was a little put out because I had such a great experience flying China Air to Manila that being limited to American carriers brought back many of the less than stellar memories from previous experiences. Here’s an example that might help you understand why I was less than enthusiastic. First, imagine “airplane food.” Undoubtedly, some of you are already wishing that this were more of an abstract concept than reality.

Ok, now imagine airplane food with airplane food service (this is in no way intended as an offense to the airline workers in the audience, as I know there are some =) – and I’m sure that some of the descriptions I’m about to give have nothing to do with you!). So it’s dinnertime on NWA flight 027. The choices are chicken something or another or orange beef. My neighbor and I receive curt, no-nonsense service. She and I both have the orange beef. It was when the flight attendant got to the couple in front of us that our story takes place. I’m thinking that they were en route to Shanghai, as so many of my fellow passengers were. Anyway, when the two flight attendants got to them, they asked the standard, “Chicken or beef.” No answer. “Chicken, or beef.” They turn and look at her blankly. “Chicken…or BEEF?!?” She was practically yelling at them at this point. From my vantage point, I could tell they didn’t speak any English. One would have thought that these flight attendants, regulars for flights to Asia, might have been more attentive to this detail as well. When they still didn’t answer, she slammed the shelf she was serving from and (I kid you not) stormed off to the back of the plane. The other flight attendant yells after her, “I’ll get it!” Apparently the more resourceful of the two, she then proceeds to pull out the menu that was distributed earlier from the back of the seat in front of them and points out their options to them. The menu was written in multiple languages and Chinese was one of them. My neighbors point out their selections, she serves them and moves on. The other lady comes back from her “time out” and proceeds as normal. This exchange never would have happened on a China Airlines flight, I thought to myself. One or the other of the flight attendants would have busted out in Mandarin and if that failed, in one of the other of the 4 or 5 dialects she spoke.


Welcome to Tokyo’s Narita International Airport

Everything’s in Japanese! Including the electronic departures and arrivals board … oh wait, it switches back and forth between Japanese and English. I followed the crowd of passengers to the International Departures gate. I didn’t know we were making a stop in Tokyo, as it was not listed on my itinerary, but I was glad to be on solid ground again after the long flight from SFO to Narita. There was nobody waiting at the exit to tell me from which gate my plane would be leaving or when it was leaving. I just stood in front of the information screen long until I could find my flight number. A group of about 5 older Thai ladies looked confused as well. I asked them if they were headed to Bangkok and they said yes. “Gate C6,” I told them. I locate C6 and see that the I have about 45 minutes before the plans starts boarding. I wander around a little bit and look at some of the shops in the airport. I spy a McDonalds a few doors down. Ah, some things are the same no matter where you are in the world. I walked past a café and set my stuff down near a table and some chairs that looked like they had been made for kindergarteners. But alas, a grown Japanese man and his girlfriend sitting nearby told me I wasn’t in fact, in the kiddy corner. I make my way back to the departure gate and see the same Thai ladies. Where are you going, dear? To Bangkok. Oh! Really? Yes. Are you Thai? No. How come you’re going? I’m going to school at Chula. Is this your first time? Yes. The smiled and made their way to nearby seats. They began boarding shortly thereafter. My Thai lady friends saw me heading to the bathroom as they were standing in line. Come on! Are you going to stay here? No, hah hah, I’m just going to go to the bathroom.

I get to my seat and find that they are my neighbors. This is going to be an interesting trip. Later in the flight, a different one among them strikes up a conversation by asking me what I will be doing in Bangkok. I’m taking up a research grant at Chulalongkorn University. It’s my first time in Thailand. She proceeds to give me a detailed description of exchange rates and how they work in Thailand. She says I should be watchful because although people in Thailand are not out to get me, I should still be careful.

She then tells me how she is going back to Thailand after about 25 years in Florida. Her husband recently passed away and she was “going home to her country.” She’s tired from her years of working three jobs and felt lonely in her big house by herself. Where are you from? Seattle, WA. Are you mixed? Excused me? I then realized she was asking me about my ethnic background, something that is of great interest to Southeast Asians, or Asians in general, I should say. I tell her that my parents are from Cambodia and that I was born there. She asked me if one of them is American (white). No, they were both born in Cambodia, like me. We’re Chinese. Ah hah! You don’t look Cambodian. A lot of people think I am Vietnamese. You look like you’re mixed, like Cambodian, Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese…do you speak Cambodian or Chinese? Yes, but not very well. Ok, well you’re still young, you still have lots of time to learn. English is the most important, then Chinese, then Cambodian. Right now is time to learn, you can make money later. I wish my mom thought like you, she’s been wondering why I haven’t decided to keep a job with steady pay yet. How much longer will you be in school, Hong? Don’t worry, you can make money later. Ok, thank you for your advice!

Six hours later and we’re at Bangkok’s brand spanking new Suvarnabhumi airport.