In Search of a Cup of Coffee

I arrived at the Chengdu airport with just enough time to have one cup of coffee before hopping on a plane for Nanchang. The lovely, uniformed girl standing out in front of the coffee and cake cafe expressed a pleasant "Good Morning" in perfect English as she led me to a table in the non-smoking section (meaning this table did NOT have an ashtray--unlike all the other tables in the cafe. The menu appeared. Columbian Coffee 98 Y. Bailey's Coffee 45 Y. Huh?

"May I have a cup of coffee, please?"

"Do you want drinks?

"I would like one cup of coffee, xie xie. "

"Coffee with drinks?"

"What do you mean--drinks?"

She showed me on the menu; Irish Coffee, Bailey's Coffee, etc.

Drinks… It's 8:30 in the morning. It took me a moment for the logic and twisted English to kick in. Liquor.

OK. "No thank you, just black coffee. No milk. No sugar."

She pointed to the Columbian coffee on the menu.

"Why does plain coffee cost so much more than “drinks” coffee," I asked. 

"Because, only coffee, nothing in it."

Yes. The logic is that a complete cup of coffee costs more than one that is diluted with liquor, milk, or sugar.

So, a few minutes later, a cup of coffee appears on a tray…along with a shot glass of whiskey, a teeny pitcher of milk, and a glass of liquid sugar. I take only the cup of coffee, and the waitress thinks I am somehow upset and goes for the manager. I am now trying to explain, by English words, pointing to Chinese words in my travel book, and by my hand gestures, that I just want a cup of coffee without anything in it, but do not want to pay 98Y for it. I can now hear my flight's departure call over the loudspeaker. I smile, drink a complete cup of terrible coffee in one gulp, and pay the discounted price of 70 Y for my morning eye-opener. I arrive at the gate with bag in hand and am ushered out the door onto the tarmac, where I find a busload of people. No one was around to give me instructions, so I boarded the bus.

The bus is full--with people spilling out the door. However, I see that in the middle of the bus, there I actually some space to stand. My error was to think that I could make my way to that space. No one wanted to budge--an inch. So, I stand on the edge of the doorstep and, with my butt hanging out onto the tarmac, hang on as the bus begins to move. Following a pattern that makes absolutely no sense, the bus begins to travel in a circular pattern around the terminal, out onto the tarmac, back towards the airline maintenance barns, and back onto the tarmac; we are now traveling along a row of ladder trucks designed for passenger boarding. We whip around one such ladder and pull parallel to it. People begin to leave the bus and rush to the first step of the ladder. Everyone is now crowded around the bottom step. The bus pulls away and heads toward the terminal. I stand alone, looking at the scene before me. Here we are fifty-plus people standing in the middle of a runway. Facing a passenger boarding stairway. … There is no plane. Where is a camera when you need one? After a few minutes, the bus comes back with another group of people. The crowd around the base of the stairs doubles in size. The rush of wind and noise envelopes us as a twin-engine slowly moves into place. The whine of the engine subsides, and the door opens. The crowd rushes up the steps.

Now, this is a problem, because the plane has passengers. They want off. The bus is waiting for them.  A voice of authority begins to bark, and the crowd backs down the stairs. The disembarking passengers move off the plane in an orderly fashion. 

Well, I am so enthralled with the bizarre nature of the events unfolding that I am now standing on the tarmac alone. A flight attendant yells at me from the door of the plane. I pick up my bag and board.

Even though I have an assigned seat number because I did not board early enough, my aisle seat was taken by someone who was sitting in the middle seat. They claim their right to it and motion me to sit in the middle seat.

Now, let's pause a moment and capture the image. The plane has six seat rows split by a middle aisle. The seats and seating space are adjusted to the average size of a Chinese person. If I raise my arm to shoulder level, everyone, and I do mean everyone in the plane, can walk underneath my arm without ducking. My sitting in the middle seat would be like stuffing a Big Boy tomato into a toothpaste tube.

The astute and friendly flight attendant motions for me to come forward. The first row of seating is "First Class." four seats instead of six. All empty. I am now seated in first class.

"Would you like coffee?" she asks with a smile.