I note a few strange people today; naturally many of them are Korean as it is after all their airport. But there are many others, the pasty faced European (or American or Russian or …….. whatever) has just upset a whole gaggle of Koreans without even noticing. I looked up from my endeavors to successfully hack into a wireless network without paying, something that I have so far been unable to achieve, to see this pigtailed 40yr old playing with one of those strategically placed television sets that inappropriately provide advertisements on the country that one is leaving! Her rucksack sort of blocked half the families view and the fact that she had in her play turned the screen 90 degrees out of alignment made certain that none of the family could see the finale to an advert on holidays in Inchon!
Whilst sitting here I have made some startling discoveries, that although I have just left an Island where Koreans and Russians live in surface harmony they are as different from each other as Robin Hood was to Freud! In the Russian airport all passengers went through the ‘communist’ leftovers of bureaucracy and long queues without murmur, minimal exchanges were made at check-in and apart from a few people asking if “a seat was vacant” the passage from entering the airport building passed by with plodding and unsmiling grimaces. Here though life is on a different track! Korean check-in girls are smiling; they never stop smiling even when nobody is looking.
They smile and they nod their heads and they smile a little bit more ……… and wow do they panic. In fact the whole airport seems to be in one state of panic from one end of this large concourse to the other. In normal airports if a passenger is a bit late for boarding an announcement goes off, and then another and then, well, he’s missed his flight! Here if a passenger is a bit late the check-in girl’s start shouting out names, if they receive no reply then they will widen the search area to include the rest of the airport, initially by running quickly down moving walkways, then shouting loudly and hysterically over loud speakers and recruiting the services of other check-in girls to cordon off the whole airport. I decided that if my name was called, the intensity and scale of the name calling would cause me to bolt for safer ground! When I first saw the result of being late for a plane I felt like hiding behind the nearest potted plant, I assumed that the plane was being hijacked, that a passenger needed medical assistance or that Queen Elizabeth had lost one of her Corgi’s. Nope, just a passenger who couldn’t decide between Marlboro Lights or Red, or between a Chivas Regal and Vodka and had forgotten to look at his watch! Wow, you’re in trouble mate!
Other people though have also been panicking! Two youths rushed past, faster than I have ever run and I immediately assumed that the one in the lead had stolen something from the one in chase but then soon realized that they were just on their way to their gate! They did in fact have plenty of time, another hour or more but ……. why walk calmly and slowly when you can rush hysterically around and not be out of place?
At last! The grossly inflated man behind me has given up snoring! At one point his exertions in the nose arena caused him to fall off the four seats he was stretched across but without falter he picked (or did he bounce) himself up and continued to snore as if nothing untoward had occurred. He must have had a long flight, no wait, a closer look reveals a uniform – he works in the airport and so do the other three or four sleeping people around me! Must be tired after chasing a particularly awkward passenger who was five minutes late in reaching the gate!
Looking out the large glass panes that lilt gently ………….looking out the window I cannot help but wonder why Korean Air (the largest player in Korean Aviation market) chose a faded colour of blue for their planes.
They all look tired and worn out, as if the once strong paintwork has faded over time, the colour seeping out as the miles are piled on – thankfully I am flying Asiana (the lesser but by no means small player in Korean Aviation) today who have tended to go for an unremarkable gray, one that has not yet faded away.I had to pay 10000 (10 US Dollars) Won for a coup of coffee and a strange sandwich that fell apart once the packet was open! Wow, that is expensive. I had asked for a cappuccino to take away but it came in a cup and saucer. I then asked the bespectacled, not yet woken up lad that I had asked for a take-away cuppa! Without pause he just emptied the cup into a plastic container, leaving behind half the froth and thumped it on the counter in front of me. Wow, half a cup of coffee for 5 dollars, just makes me want to have another one. I cannot though complain too much, airports are the same the world over and all rip the “at a loose end’ passengers off.
I wonder if it is true that well over half of Koreans have had plastic surgery of one sort or another. I can’t look too hard as I might get a slap for my efforts but certainly many of the younger girls around are seemingly perfect in every detail, so perfect in fact that they can hardly move, probably afraid to crack the make-up or disturb the hardened and well shaped moulds that they carry around like breasts. I even wonder if some of the smiles have been permanently etched on but then that would be cruel to their wearers. It is nicer to see a smile on everybody’s face, even if the smiles are forced and don’t reach the eyes. In fact, even pretending to smile must be better than the constant scowls of the Russians, at least in time the forced smile may grow to become real. “Smile and the world smiles with you, cry and you cry alone”!
The other feature of life in Korea, apart from the spending of billions of hard earned money on cosmetic appearance is the spending of billions of hard earned money on electronic gadgetry. And this I can see for myself without peering too hard. Everybody has a mobile phone; in fact the large Korean family who had previously been disturbed in their television watching endeavors all have a mobile phone each! Looking at them now it would seem that they are talking to each other through their phones as they animatedly chat in a group, together in body yet miles apart in soul! Nobody has a small camera here, it has to be the largest available on the market or it’s not worth showing off! And I suppose I go unnoticed as I tap away on my laptop – just another connected with his fingertips to the world outside, except I am not connected to my fridge just yet!
Like green and striped chairs would look out of sorts in a Burger King I sit here watching life go by on my pink seat. One of thousands waiting for a flight to somewhere else, just another person on the move! My battery is running low, my flight will soon be called and I am going to stand as close as I possibly can to the boarding gate so that the possibility of my causing a hysterical rush and the calling of my name over the PA system will not occur. Let it not be me to frighten the living daylights out of all non-Koreans here today.
Have a safe flight!
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