“Snesh nursh yaaargh garble fzzpt wargh Shenzhen”
The announcement crackled over the PA at Shanghai’s Hongqiao Airport, and for the nth time Alex glanced up from his book to see if his flight was boarding. It wasn’t. It was delayed, again, making it now more than three hours late. He wasn’t annoyed, however, because in a moment of Shanghai serendipity, he’d found book two of the Song of Ice and Fire in the airport bookshop and was now happily immersed in Westeros.
Still, these delays were getting annoying. Hongqiao Airport is an oldschool Chinese airport, with no shops but ridiculously overpriced teashops and souvenir stalls, poor duty free selection, terrible local restaurants and trench toilets (bring your own toilet paper!). He’d wandered the entire airport at least a dozen times, and was beginning to get hungry. Sighing, he stood up and looked around again, then grabbed his rickety luggage cart and set off once more.
Pausing in front of a flashy-looking “cafe”, he thought briefly about a coffee. Then, as before, he looked at the menu:
Fabulous exotic coffee! 108RMB
Precious foreigner coffee! 118RMB
Golden Boss exquisite coffee! 168RMB
Outrageous. Almost 15 bucks for a small cup of coffee- and looking over the bar he could see the waitress surreptitiously pouring Nestle 3+1 into a fancy cup, before ostentatiously topping it up with hot water from a fancy Italian espresso maker.
China.
Shaking his head and moving on, he passed the souvenir shop, teeming with fat Americans buying overpriced stuffed pandas and fake Yixing teapots, and the shop full of cognac and cheap smokes. He’d already picked up a bottle of scotch and a carton of ciggies, so another trip through would just mean risking the perfume counter chemical warfare lady. He was sure she was a very nice woman, but at about four feet tall she was invisible behind the shelves until she suddenly popped out and sprayed anyone within range with her sampler of choice. Today’s was Gucci for Men, and most of the males in the area (and a few unlucky females) had been dosed heavily enough to smell like a Russian mafiosi heading out on the pull.
Onward.
Finally, at the end of the terminal, he got to The Cheap Restaurant. Officially called Love Food Experience, it was where all the stuck resident foreigners eventually ended up, simply because it served food at a mere 3x multiplier, instead of the 10x closer to the gate. Its shabby tables were filled with hunched, miserable travelers like Alex, flying local air and stuck, once again, for unexplained reasons. Resigning himself to getting screwed, he went up to the counter and looked over the menu.
“En, ni hao. I’ll have the bacon sandwich please.”
The girl at the counter smiled uncomprehendingly.
“Bacon sandwich? Pai kon sandwich?”
“Ah OK. 45 RMB. You wait five minutes OK?”
Handing over the money, he grumpily went to the end of the counter to watch the show. In its way, it was a hell of a performance. The counter girl was joined by two older, uniformed ayis, and they bustled about the prep area, with all of them trying to do everything at once and achieving very little. After a few minutes, he turned to the windows, watching the planes taxi and wondering once again what the hell he was doing here.
“Hello sir, pai-kon sandwich!”
The voice from behind broke his reverie, and he turned to take his paper wrapped sandwich. Wandering back down the terminal, he found an empty corner seat by the window and settled down to his book. As he read, he unwrapped the sandwich and without looking took a bite.
Into a unusually flavored combination of sweet bread, sweet mayonnaise, cold tomatoes, and… raw bacon. Slimy, cold, raw bacon. Gorge rising, he spat the mouthful out into the paper and stared at it. Even after four years in China, there were still some things that he just couldn’t understand, and now the China rage was beginning to escape.
He’d been patient. His flight was delayed, the airport sucked, and he’d paid too much just to have one familiar-ish thing, and it was raw. Uncooked! Full of trichinosis and whatever other nasties lived behind the counter at The Cheap Restaurant. It was time, he thought grimly, for a laowai fit.
A quick note on the phenomenon of the laowai fit. China is a difficult place for most foreigners, and no matter how hard they try, they carry around within them a little seed of rage. Once in a while, when all other options are exhausted and they are feeling particularly put-upon by the system, that seed erupts into the weapon of last resort, and a massive, screaming, laowai temper tantrum emerges.
Socioculturally, the laowai fit is a very potent means to getting things done, if done correctly. The Chinese are very face sensitive, and when someone loses their temper, all parties lose face. As foreigners have no face to lose, erupting into a righteous rage very often will get them what they want- and let off the tension at the same time. Done incorrectly, they do occasionally end up in jail as a result, but as they say, that’s China for you.
So, as he felt the rage bubbling up inside as he strode purposefully back to The Cheap Restaurant, Alex was expecting a catharsis, an escape from the frustrations of the airport. This wasn’t just about a raw bacon sandwich- this was the opening shot in a cultural war!
“Snergle blarth skreebo Shenzhen werkle lai!”
Jolted from he reveries of vengeance, he looked up at the departure board. His flight was boarding now, and he hadn’t got his money back yet! He hurried to the restaurant, waving his sandwich at the counter girl.
“This is raw! I have a flight! I want my money back”
She looked up quickly, because “I want my money back” is a terrible thing to all Chinese shopkeepers. She smiled and said “What’s your problem?”
“It’s raw. Bacon needs to be cooked. You gave me raw meat!” He took out a slice of greyish bacon and wobbled it at her. “See? I can’t eat that!”
“OK, no problem. I cook for you now.”
“No! It’s too late. It must be cooked BEFORE it goes in the sandwich. Just give me my money back, I need to catch my plane.”
“No money back, I cook new for you.”
“No, money back now, or I get the police! You served me raw food, you lose your license!”
For some reason, all conversations like this end up in pidgin English.
The argument went back and forth, and volumes got louder as the departure time approached. Finally, seeing a group of new potential customers heading her way, she gave in, on the principle that she could screw them out of the difference, and having a screaming laowai complaining about being fed raw bacon might scare them off.
Finally victorious, clutching his money, Alex ran to his plane and his appointment with Shenzhen.