How China is making me into a worse person, #1A
Recently I mentioned that the Hobbesian nature of public life in China was bringing out parts of my character I would rather leave concealed. I have received a variety of responses, ranging from "stop whining" to "you don't know the half of it." Here is the strangest complementary anecdote, from an unexpected source.
Several days ago I was taking a commercial flight from Hong Kong to Ho Chi Minh City/Saigon, in whose general vicinity I now am. This leg of the flight was on United, which I take when possible (a) because I have a bazillion miles piled up over the years, and (b) because of its "Channel 9" audio broadcast, which allows you to listen to the chitchat between the plane's pilots and air traffic controllers. (It allows you to listen, that is, unless the pilot on a given flight decides to suppress it. Note to the majority of United pilots who allow the broadcasts: Thanks! Note to the minority who don't: Bad policy, it makes it seem like you have something to conceal.) With my own flying career in abeyance for now, it's a way to re-visit one of the interesting aspects of flying: namely, working in "the system" and responding to all the requests and instructions of the controllers. Also, hearing the varieties of English used by international controllers is exotically fascinating in its own way. You have to be pretty jaded not to pay attention when you hear something like, "United 869, Ho Chi Minh control, go ahead."
What I heard on the ground in Hong Kong got my attention in a different way. The main ground controller was telling the airliners when they were authorized for "engine start" and "push" -- starting the turbine engines and pushing back from the gate in preparation for taxi to the runway. Amid all the routine traffic, largely in Chinese-accented English, a voice came over the frequency from an airline that was not based in China (or, for that matter, in the United States) and from a pilot who was a native speaker of English and was apparently shaking with rage:
Aggrieved pilot: Hong Kong ground, this is ForeignAirline XXX, question.
Hong Kong Ground control: ForeignAirline XXX, go ahead.
AP: Did you seen [Chinese-based airline] YYY? They nearly hit us!!!
GC: Say again?
AP: The [Chinese-based airline] cut a corner and went right in front of us! Their wingtip came within a few meters of our cockpit. (Cultural note: As Tom Wolfe noted long ago, and as is still true around the world, pilots are supposed to affect a "nothing could faze me, even if both my wings are on fire" tone when talking to controllers. This pilot, whose accent suggested that he had grown up in some part of the old British empire and been schooled in the concept of "queuing up," had been rattled into a completely non-pilot-like "Holy Moley!!" tone.)
Voice on the frequency: Have you ever been on a lift in Hong Kong?
I have paraphrased this slightly, but this is completely true to the spirit of the discussion. Also, I am presuming that the Chinese airliner did not literally crowd ahead of other planes in the assigned sequence for taxi and takeoff, which anywhere in the world would be a unforgivable violation of air-traffic rules, but instead came too close for the other plane's comfort in taking shortcuts on its taxi route.
Still: it appeared that not just in lines for airline tickets, but apparently even in lines of airliners trying to get to the runway, the idea of every man (or airplane) for himself seems to apply. The surprise to me is that the voice on the frequency was making an analogy to elevator etiquette in Hong Kong, which compared with many cities in mainland China seems a marvel of rule-obeying, turn-waiting behavior.
