Some things just don’t go together. Or do you know a junkie with a phobia of syringes? Not me. I’m a kiter. As of today, I’m afraid of kites. Stupid thing. My first contact with China. I’m very intimidated.
The check-in at China Air in Frankfurt takes less than five minutes. A 30kg kite bag actually comes free of charge. At Condor, 1kg more costs 40 euros. The seat on the plane is gigantic. At over 1.93 metres, I don’t bump into the backrest of the person in front of me. On German airlines, if the person in front of me moves backwards, the only thing that usually helps is yodelling. Tai Chi exercises for dinner.
The food is great, but Air Berlin is the only airline that serves sloppy bagels. Every seat has a big entertainment system: video on demand, music and, of course, gaming. Just Chinese. By Novosibirsk I’d seen three films, two of which hadn’t been shown in the cinema yet and one of which looked a bit like it had been filmed. Just Chinese films. Afterwards, I wasted a few hours playing poker against fellow travellers. Rarely has such a long flight been so short. The red dragon makes everything better.
Chinese people reproduce faster than Germans. Well, I mean: they multiply at all. And they make everything cheaper and better. That’s scary. Next to me, a Chinese man is wildly hacking away at his copied iPhone 4G. Fresh drinks are served every half hour throughout the night – including wine. After nine hours, the plane lands in Beijing. You can see the ground from a height of 200 metres because of the smog. Maybe the red dragon will take care of itself after all.
We lie down on a couple of loungers. There’s free WLAN here too. To get in, you have to scan your passport at a machine, which then prints out your user name and password. What was written on the back of the immigration licence? “Aliens shall not be employed in China without permisson of the competent authorities of the Chinese government.” I unpack my Che Guevara T-shirt, shout a sunny “Viva le Revolución!” into the infinite expanse of the terminal, search for (and find!) Ai Wei Wei and get to work, grinning maliciously.
China lets me leave the country that evening anyway. After 28 hours on the road, we arrive in Manila at two o’clock at night local time. The aeroplane door opens. 90% humidity explodes in the cabin…
Frank Woelky, born in 1973. Kitesurfer since 1998. Since 2006, I have been combining kitesurfing and web design on trips lasting several months off the beaten track.