I go through these ring-notebooks at a pretty good
clip, and not all of the contents make it any further. This entry had
potential, I thought so anyway. We’ll see how it goes. A lot of new writing was
added along the way, and at the end.
I took a trip to America in the Spring of 2016, and it
was life’s customary mix of interesting, boring, and horrible, with more
emphasis on the horrible than usual.
I am a creature of habit, almost ridiculously so. For over ten years, I had the identical breakfast: Kellogg’s Corn Flakes (from the factory in Malaysia), with half “zero percent” milk and half orange Dutch Mill yogurt drink; two cups of coffee; and a few cigarettes. I recently instituted a program of lifestyle modifications, and I substituted one cup of tea for the coffee and cigarettes. (That was a pathetically inadequate substitution, by the way, but it is, I am advised, more lebensgemuetlich.) As a rule, I don’t like change. I like the accustomed ways. I like to keep my life ritualized.
I had been going back to America for a visit once every
year, and for the previous six or seven years I had flown with EVA Air, a good
outfit out of Taiwan. I flew with the same flight numbers every year that I was
with them. I liked the arrival and departure times. This year I needed an
emergency ticket, on short notice, and I ended up on Korean Air Lines. I have
to say that they do a good job.
From Bangkok to Seoul I had an aisle seat. This was a
surprise, actually, because the website displayed the seating plan of a Boeing
777, with its “3-3-3” seating in Economy, with the “F” seat being exactly in
the middle. In the event, the plane was an Airbus A330 with a “2-4-2” configuration,
putting “F” on the aisle. That flight is five hours and change, so I was very
happy about the equipment discrepancy. The plane was very comfortable; my meal
was “the Traditional Korean Rice Bowl,” called Bee Bim Bom, which is very
complicated but delicious; I watched the new Star Wars movie.
The connection in Seoul was unremarkable.
The Airbus A380
From Seoul to Los Angeles we flew in an Airbus A380,
which was much less exciting that you may have been led to believe. I’ve seen
photographs and video of the plane, and it is very impressive on the outside,
very big. The videos and advertisements for airlines only show the First Class
and Business Class cabins, which do look nice, as would be expected at those
prices. When you take one of these flights, though, you cannot see the plane at
all, and I entered the Economy cabin through the Economy entrance, so that’s
all that I saw. Seeing only the Economy aspect of the aircraft, it all looks
surprisingly typical. In comparison to the A330, there are identical seats,
with identical legroom, identical overhead compartments and lighting, and
windows, and the entertainment system is exactly the same. The seating is “3-4-3,”
for a total of ten across instead of the A330s eight, but this bit of
information is not immediately noticeable in any meaningful way. There is no
impression of greater space. It is rather a disappointment, after all of the
hype.
As one explores the environment, many great differences
become apparent. The huge A380 has the smallest bathrooms that I have ever seen
on a commercial aircraft. And that’s “ever,” smaller not only than on todays “regional
jets,” but also smaller than the Lockheed Electra or the Douglas DC-6. On the
A380, in an Economy Class bathroom, you cannot put one hand in a pocket without
banging your elbow on a wall. The bathrooms on the A330, not to mention the
much nicer Boeing 777, are roomier and more accommodating.
All of the Economy Class common spaces, and all of the
crew spaces too, are seriously cramped and claustrophobic on the A380. I walked
past a galley while four stewardesses were preparing a meal service, and they
could not move without bumping into each other.
But the round trip cost the same as the EVA, about
$1,300 for the round trip (Bangkok to L.A.), even though I flew two days after
buying the tickets. And the comfort level was about the same an EVA Boeing 777,
too. Same seats; same space allotment; lavish and fully functional
entertainment systems; very good food and plenty of it; beautiful and cheerful
staff; and on-time performance.
Los Angeles
I’ve been living and working in Bangkok for ten years
now, and it is a shock to go back to America at this point.
The first shock is the weather. This was in April, and
the temperature at about 7:00 p.m. was seventy degrees. Even though I was
wearing a substantial sports jacket, I was freezing. I was shivering. Becoming
accustomed to the weather in Thailand will do that to a person.
Many foreigners complain about Bangkok taxi drivers,
but I find most of them to be friendly and efficient. Driving in Bangkok is a
difficult and exhausting job, and they do it with a minimum of complaining.
Driving a cab in Los Angeles is difficult for several very different reasons,
and there is a lot more complaining from the drivers.
My taxi driver was a recently arrived immigrant, of
course, and he was chatty. I was only his second ride of the day, both were
airport pickups after longish waits in the taxi line. His first ride was a
shorty, a ride to a hotel in the immediate area for the minimum charge of $25.
That’s for a six or seven minute ride, so the price is kind of a shock in
itself. Upon arrival, the passenger, an attractive woman, simply informed the
driver that she had no money. She just got out and entered the hotel. I don’t
think that she even apologized. The driver shrugged it off and returned to the
taxi line at the airport.
After another wait in line, he got me. Another short
ride to an airport area hotel. This was after a total of three hours of waiting
time, so he’d been working at least four hours at that point with zero money so
far, and having burned up some good gas money, which comes out of his pocket. The
fellow, God bless him, never made me feel like any of this was my fault. He
just told me the tale of woe in a rather friendly, conversational tone. I know
that he was hoping for a ride to Newport Beach or something, to put him back in
the money, but no, another shorty for the minimum fare. I wildly overtipped him
and he was good enough to appreciate the gesture. I drove taxis myself, in the
distant past, in New York and Los Angeles, so I understand.
American Prices
I am, at this point, quite the little Rip Van Winkle
when I visit America. The last time that I was fully adjusted to American
prices was 2003. The acceleration of prices for everything has been swift since
then.
Renting a baggage cart at LAX cost $5.00! Preferably on
a credit card, thank you. A weekday L.A. Times is $2.00, and that’s while the
content has been whittled down to almost nothing.
It’s all very neo-liberal, you know, a multiplicity of
contracts with short durations for contracts. So the hotels have out-sourced
room service, that will be a new customer relationship with orderinn.com, thank
you. “Order Inn is highly recommended by, but not affiliated with this
property.” You know, for liability purposes. The prices were pretty high, $8.00
sandwiches, a $16.00 12 inch pizza, plus tax, with a minimum order of $15.00
and a fee of $3.50 for “packaging.”
How about watching a movie in your hotel room? Want to
watch Deadpool, maybe? That will be $17.95. Doesn’t that seem punitive?
All paperback books now cost at least $10.00. Am I the
only one who notices that that is thirty times the cost of a paperback in the
early 1960s?
And get off my lawn, you kids! I’ll stop complaining
now. It’s a bit shocking, though. Maybe one needs a bit of perspective to
really notice. I don’t know how people do it. I know that I would be mightily
hard-pressed to afford living anywhere in America at this point. Thank all of
the Gods that there are alternatives all over the world, and there are many
very nice places where you give up almost no comforts while saving a fortune.
More Americans are trying this solution, according to my reading on the
subject.
The Take-Away
That trip in 2016 was my second worst trip to America,
ever. My trip in 2015 takes the prize for worst. This has all ill-disposed me
to return to the country of my birth ever again.
Why bother? It’s not like I get a warm welcome from my
children. There are a few people that I’d like to see, but America is a huge
place and travel is expensive. It’s not like it’s easy to arrange a trip where
you could spend time in California, Arizona, Philadelphia, New York, and
Oregon. I’d like my wife to see some of America, meet a few of my friends and
relatives, see my favorite places and maybe where I grew up, but America is
presenting big problems for such a trip these days. My wife is an English
learner, with limited skills, especially in hearing-comprehension. She’s also
handicapped; she has mild cerebral palsy. She’s not used to being pushed around
by the TSA gestapo, like we Americans are by now. Am I the only one that feels
like I’ve woken up in the old Soviet Union when my government wants to put
hands on me and require information of me? We read the stories, the TSA crowd
is happy to slam handicapped people on the floor if they don’t “comply” fast
enough.
Not to mention that average, everyday American citizens
these days are liable to object strenuously to an interracial couple that is
not speaking English, in a 7-11 or a restaurant or something. “This is America!”
they shout, “We speak English here!” I don’t know about you, but usually I
listen to these folks and think, oh honey, you’re hardly speaking English at
all yourself. But in the meantime, they’re out there terrorizing “foreign”
looking people, citizens included.
Not to mention that having to watch family and friends
find it generally amusing to even consider trying to communicate with a
marginal English speaker is extremely distasteful to me, and has been for a
long time now. If the unfortunate guest speaks slowly in broken English, a
group of Americans will zone out after a few words and begin to joke among themselves
about the experience. I have witnessed this behavior in many Americans whom I
know to be otherwise considerate, reasonable people. It is disgusting.
And really not to mention, I really hate to even
mention, the creeping horror that is in the act of destroying the entire
American government, American culture, and the very American way of life. Most
Americans do not seem to be concerned about this process at all, and most of
those who do seem concerned to some degree are only involved to the same extent
that a bystander is involved while watching a good sized apartment house fire.
That is a bad attitude to take, and there will be a price to pay for it.
Why throw good money at those prices, the creeping
horror, and that bad attitude? Who needs it? My wife is better off in her home
country, and frankly, I’m better off here as well. There are other places to
visit.
So, where are we?
1.
Do seriously consider flying on either EVA
or Korean Air;
2.
Do not go out of your way to fly on an
Airbus A380, but don’t avoid doing so either;
3.
Remember to tip your taxi drivers. They
work hard to help us;
4.
Don’t feel trapped in miserable, overpriced
America! There are plenty of nice places that you could move to without placing
yourself in any danger; and
5.
Do not let this creeping horror completely overtake
the United States without at least noticing. Doing something about it would be
great. At the very least don’t just start WORKING FOR THE CLAMPDOWN, like so
many Americans are doing.
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