by Valerie Savran

Created on: August 02, 2009

I did not truly understand what it means to be fidgety on an airplane until my flight from LA to Hong Kong. 16 hours, on a cramped plane, with people jabbering in a language I don't understand. Lord have mercy. In Chinese, I've come to learn that "Good morning sir" and "You smell like a god damn farm animal" sound almost identical. Thus, I think it is safe to conclude why I was pointed at and looked at funny during the course of this 16 hour torture. Drifting off to sleep was quite the fun. How many people have slept with bilingual din, indescribable air turbulance (so bad that I couldn't keep my rear on the toilet while going to the bathroom), and strange Chinese flight attendants waking you up to a breakfast that looks and smells like innards. Oh yeah, it was that nasty. But I digress....This trip I went on was a program with other high school students from the Orange County and LA areas. Thus, I was so fortunately sandwiched between your archetypal weird kid who doesn't talk and remains glued unhealthily to the TV, and the loud blonde who talks, giggles, and shrieks at NOTHING the entire flight. Talk about two obnoxious extremes. I guess I was luckier than my friend though, who was stuck next to a short little dweeb who slept on her shoulder, snored, and tried cuddling with her in his sleep. A bit audacious and touchy feely for someone you just met on a plane. "Ahhhhhhhhhh...ching chang chow chwah!" That's how they alert us, "Hey fat Americans...the plane is landing!" We got off the plane only after having our temperatures taken, to make sure we weren't bringing swine flu into their highly sanitized country (that was sarcasm, in case you couldn't tell). Why worry about having a malaria epidemic when there is the super scary swine flu? I was elated to get off the rickety, bilingual, smelly airplane that still reeked of those damn innard dumplings. Some kid in the back row had to be poked multiple times with chopsticks so that he got off the plane and did not end up in Korea. Although getting lost in Asia is probably an experience in and of itself. It was a bit stepford how every person in China looked the same, and was androgenous. Well, I guess the big-boobed blondes had to kiss American conformity goodbye. As a shorty brunette, I guess I was safe. Come on weird kid, blonde bimbo, and touchy-feely/ no personal space buddy...we're in China!

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