HAINAN FLIGHT 7876 (Patreon)

“No, I’m sorry – business class is fully booked.”

Damn it. 

My genius plan to arrive at the desk agent’s counter in nice shoes and good makeup and request to pay for an upgrade has failed. 

Thirteen hours in economy class it is, then. 

We make our way to the boarding lounge and enter into the most orderly line up for an airplane boarding I have ever participated in. I mean, seriously – have you ever flown on a Canada —> US flight? Or even a US domestic flight? It’s like a mosh pit. Boarding zones are a mere suggestion. 

If it’s a flight from Canada, it’s probably a passive-aggressive mosh pit of people slowly creeping closer and closer to the airline agents scanning passports and giving each other cut-eye for cutting (but not saying anything – that would be impolite). 

If it’s a domestic US flight, there’s no such pretense. It’s just every human for themselves, lest you be caught at the back of the line and be forced to do the dreaded “gate check” of your airline-compliant-sized carry-on, because they’ve overbooked the flight and Americans seem to be able to get onto planes with carry-ons the size of a 7-year old child with no one saying anything (don’t even think of trying that shit in Paris – when I was coming back from Cirque de Demain my bag was literally – LITERALLY – a half pound over, and they told me to exit the line and go make it a half pound lighter before I tried going through security. Super strict.)

Anyways, this line up is the line up that rule-followers can only dream of. It might have something to do with there being more airline staff present in the Hainan Airlines lounge than I’ve ever seen on a Canadian or American carrier – they’re directing people, making sure you’re not getting up until your zone is called, etc.

As we move forward in a calm, orderly fashion, I realize that we are literally a full head taller than nearly everyone else in line.  I wonder if that’ll be the experience this whole trip.

Passports and boarding passes successfully scanned, we walk into the tunnel leading to the plane – which is BRIGHT yellow – into an interior cabin with the plushest, most red carpet I’ve ever seen in a plane. There are tiny, swirling cloud patterns on the floor. The stewards are dressed in elegantly cut pale grey waistcoats and dress pants. The stewardesses wear stunning silk dresses with mandarin collars; each one has a neat bun on the back of her head and a decorative stick with a silver ball dangling off the end, tucked into the side of their hairstyles. 

While I am trying not to be slack-jawed at the fashion-model airplane crew, there is a brief moment where I wonder – could it be? Could I have the whole row to myself? – and then a father with his 21-month old son tap me on the shoulder to slide into the middle and window seats. 

Damn it!

I sense something to my right, and half-turn to look out at the centre row of seats on the plane. There is a Chinese woman who looks to be in her mid-60s in the middle seat of the row, leaning waaaaay out past her husband (who is in the aisle seat) just . . . staring at me. 

I smile politely.

She remains impassive.

Okay. That’s cool. That’s fine. I figure that she’ll check out my funny little peach fuzz head and my bright pink shoes and then have had her fill of me. 

No. 

No, no, no. 

This woman proceeded to lean past her husband for the majority of our 13 hour flight just . . . staring at me.

Every time I stood up to stretch my legs or use the washroom, there she was. Looking straight at me. 

I stopped smiling at a certain point. Not because I was irritated by it or anything – it just seemed to be a futile social gesture, and thus I dropped the pretence. 

The other thing that happened every time I stood up to stretch my legs or use the washroom, was the man in the seat behind me would swiftly and sneakily re-set the pitch of my chair, which – THANK YOU VERY MUCH – I tried to have the decency to recline only halfway (the woman in front of me had no such qualms about slamming her seat into full recline the moment the plane reached cruising altitude). I suppose it became a game at a certain point. A very passive-aggressive one. He kept re-setting my seat; I kept re-reclining it. I can do this aaaaall night, buddy. 

I won in the end – but only because I refused to get up in the final hour of the flight, to win my petty internal battle with whoever this shameless seat saboteur was. 

We land in Beijing; we transfer to a domestic flight to Guangzhou with no trouble at customs; and drive about two hours from the airport to the Chimelong Ocean Resort and Circus Hotel, an epic construction of rainbow colours and circus animal statues, with clown paintings, carvings, and generally themed items at every turn. 

Including my bedroom – 

I swipe the keycard to enter, exhausted, desperate to lie down (it is now 4:00 am). I slap the light switch on the wall, and in the soft glow of the bedside lamps I see two children-sized twin beds next to each other; a wallpaper decal of leopard spots and three hoops; a bedside table in the shape of a drum tipped onto its side; and bright red duvet-covers patterned with lions and unicycle-riding bears and – of course – clowns.

I sleepwalk through the shower and lay my weary head down on the pillow, rolling over to turn off the bedside lamp. As I do, I see the giant framed portrait on the wall – a particularly creepy clown, staring out at me in a way that I’m sure is intended to be charismatic and playful, but somehow . . . slightly misses the mark. 

Good thing I’m not scared of clowns, I think to myself. I set my timer for 5 hours of sleep – our translator has told us we have a full day of rehearsals tomorrow.

Wait – today. 

It’ll still be the same day.

Oh god.