One word China, EFFICIENCY! Part 2

Heading back to Gwangzou:
Back through the Health check stand, up to the deceivingly fancy Immigration counter:

Officer: Passport and Boarding Pass please.

Me: Our flight leaves at 9am tomorrow in nearly 12 hours. (It's 10pm) We only have an itinerary. (hands itinerary to officer.)

Officer: No boarding pass?

Me: No, just itinerary. (points to itinerary in officer's hands)
Officer: You must have boarding pass first.
Me: Ok, where do we get it?(Officer points to a single empty check in counter across the way.)

Me:...There's no one there.

Officer: Just go wait, they come.

Me: Ok thank you.(we go and wait in line at the empty counter.

Meanwhile, other people from our flight and a few other flights start lining up in the immigration lines. Vanessa and I inform them that our officer told us we needed boarding passes first. After 5 minutes or so, most of the foreigners have formed a line at the single empty check in counter. A girl in purple then walks to where we are and asks the couple at the front of the line;

Purple girl: What are you doing?

Couple: We were told we need boarding passes first.
Purple girl: Did you go through immigration check?
Couple: No, they told us to get boarding passes first.

Purple girl: No, no. Immigration first, then board upstairs. Immigration first.

(Group sigh from all the foreigners as we disperse to get back in the immigration lines.

Purple girl walks off, talks to an Officer then walks back to the check in desk and starts typing on the computer. An officer walks over to a few foreigners and tells them to get in line at the Check in desk with Purple girl. The foreigners stutter a few buts and protests but get waved off by the officer who keeps pointing at the check in so we all start to head back over.)

Once we are back in line, we wait about 10 minutes. 4 people get their boarding passes and a very angry looking officer comes over and starts directing us all back to the immigration lines. At this point we are all getting grouchy and are feeling like a heard of cattle. We get through the lines only to be rounded up again in our little holding corner and this time have to wait for nearly an hour before receiving our passports, again with someone calling out names for the officer.

Now most of us were expecting to be lead back upstairs to our departure gates but instead we are told that we should proceed downstairs and that we can check in at the counters down there tomorrow morning. We later found out that we had been given 1 day entry visas which aren't very common in China and usually cost a bit. Regardless, we really didn't know what to do at this point but figured that being the well traveled and resourceful teachers we are, we could fend for ourselves. Check in was at 7 which gave us about 10 hours so here's what we did:

9pm: Scoped out the airport looking for a good place to rest our rumps.9:30pm: Picked a spot with some decently comfy chairs but no carpet, talked about building a fort and busted out the snacks. But decided to get some McDonalds as Pringles weren't cutting it.
11pm: After running around trying to buy something at the golden arches (they wouldn't take any type of credit card and wouldn't exchange money. Between us we had five currencies; Korean won, Thailand baht, Philippino pesos, American dollars and the little bit of Chinese yuan. We somehow managed to buy enough nuggets and fries to feed our group with about 10 dollars worth of Chinese money one guy had left over from his last trip here.

12am: A group of Philippinos that were on our flight inform us that they found out about a free hotel for people who's flights have been delayed. We debate about how sketchy this feels and whether or not it's worth the risk of being taken off to an organ farm or labor camp. The van driver keeps yelling at us, "no money, no money!" and some other things in Chinese no matter the question. A few decide the dude is just too shady but most of us decide to go and hope that there really is safety in numbers.

1:30 amish: We arrive at the hotel about 20 minutes away from the airport in what feels like the armpit of China. Huge neon lights welcome us in to what at first felt like a skanky love motel. 45 minutes later, they let us check in after making copies of our passports and itineraries and we head up to our rooms that are surprisingly comfy and clean. Truly one of the nicer hotel rooms we have stayed in in Asia and while the beds where hard as rocks, we slept well for the next 4 hours. We got a wake up knock right on time and were handed boxes of warm milk and a half loaf of white bread for breakfast. We got fast curbside drop off right on time in the morning and didn't have to pay a dime. Just goes to show things aren't always what they seem. We checked in, did the stupid immigration check one last time and headed off to our gate to meet up with the rest of our foreigner crew and crashed on the carpet in front of our gate for the next 2 hours before heading back to the amazingly clean and efficient South Korea.

It all made me wonder if this is just a symptom suffered in that part of China alone or if it was a byproduct of a more systemic lack of efficiency and critical thinking in the big red country. I'd like to believe that it was just a fluke but something tells me that in a country of over a Billion people who all need jobs, sometimes they just gotta find ways to look busy and at least pretend like they know what they're doing.
Whatever the case, it sure gave us something to write home about.

One word China, EFFICIENCY!

I've always heard that Communism is great on paper but bad in practice and to a cynic like me, that's always made perfect sense. Having never actually stepped foot in a communist country however, this has always been one of those "so they say" things that I myself have tossed out there a few times without having any first hand experience to back it up. Well after this past week, Van and I can now officially say that we've seen the effects the big red machine can have on a place and let me be the first to tell you, it ain't pretty. Just so you know, this isn't going to be some Anti Commie rant, but I think that the story I'm about to tell you serves as a shining example of how truly dumb people can get when formalities are considered more important than people's well being. At the time our experiences were frustrating and a bit nerve racking but now looking back they just seem too funny to keep to ourselves.
Arriving in Gwangzou China:
As we got off the plane and walked through the terminal toward Immigration, I noticed something rather peculiar. There were smoking rooms in the airport, which in and of itself is not so outlandish but inside the smoking rooms were stands that somewhat resembled water fountains. However unlike a water fountain that supplies you with nourishment, these stands were lighter fountains intended to help the 2000 people who die each day from smoking get there just a little quicker. Nearly 3/4 of all men in China are smokers and smoking fountains are a true sign that a country smokes too much.
A bit further down the road, distracting us from the giant body temperature gadget intended to catch all sickos coming into China, there was a nice bulletin board describing the dangers and effects of Dengue Fever with a GIANT, and rather nasty looking mosquito. A very pleasant welcome sign indeed! And just a little further was the immigration check. Now at first glance you might think that China really has it's act together here. There are a good 12 maybe more lines for you to choose from and they move relatively quick. At the desk itself there are nifty looking cameras that resemble giant Iphones that take your picture and confirm that you are the person in your passport. Then something caught my attention as we were waiting in line. A slowly growing group of people were standing around just past the immigration check with some not so happy looks on their faces. They also all happened to be western looking. Once we got up to the counter it all became clear. The pimply faced "police" officer took our passports, looked them over, looked us over, wrote something down and pointed over to the growing mass of foreigners. If any of you remember our little debacle in Chile, you will understand my reluctance to leave my passport in his possession but seeing as there were nearly 30 foreigners in the holding pin already, I figured there wasn't much point in making a fuss about it.
About half an hour later the team of immigration officers turned their stacks of passports over to one of their crew who began looking at each passport individually and trying to find the person to match the picture. Now we had a long layover ahead of us but I wasn't really looking to spend another half hour in our little corner of the airport and a few of the foreigners had connecting flights that were scheduled to leave in 15 minutes so I offered my assistance. She held them open and I read off the names and congratulated each person on their official non threat status. Then we proceeded up the stairs to the international departures where we had to stand in another line to be x-rayed again. Not sure what they thought we could have picked up in the 100 yards between our last airplane and this one but safety first I guess.

Once we got to our gate, we met up with some other English teachers heading to the same place we were and had a nice little party, ranting about the silliness of the Gwangzou security system.
One pleasant surprise, however, was the gift we were given for filling out a survey for purchasing anything within the country of China, including in the airport. Pringles and a beer constituted as enough to fill out the survey for a nifty little gift.

to be continued...