9-21-19 - Beijing - Immigration “Special Line”
/Day 97. Kyle & Leanne joint blog.
We are booked on China Air; the impact of touring the world’s largest country population-wise hits us immediately in the baggage line. The line isn’t just full, it’s around two corners and we are here 3 hours before our flight.
The first announcement on the airplane post-takeoff was equally as eye opening. It went something like this (not verbatim): “This airplane is considered the property of the People’s Republic of China. You are now under surveillance by the People’s Republic of China. Therefore, you may be videoed or otherwise recorded at any time and are subject to the laws of the People’s Republic of China. Any behavior deemed inappropriate may result in fine, penalty or imprisonment.”
That only took 15 mins into to the flight to confirm that Big Brother is watching. Our seats are split up in different parts of the plane so we’re hoping the kids aren’t making inappropriate jokes about the Chinese government as we don’t have a line item in the budget for the cost of getting the kids out of a Chinese prison.
Oh my. Leanne is officially scared out of her mind now! The farm girl says to Kyle, “we aren’t in Kansas anymore, Toto. Welcome to China.” It was a good reminder that not every country operates like our own. Of course we are highly aware of Trump’s trade war and Hong Kong protests for the last four months negatively impacting American-Chinese diplomatic relations. Still, we want to see the Great Wall of China and have dim sum. Kyle is even too scared to ask for a beer as he says there might be a law we don’t know about that it is illegal to drink on the plane for anyone aged of 48 traveling with 5 kids.
We make it through the flight on our best behavior and proceed to the finger printing kiosks. All foreigners must be fingerprinted before proceeding so we go through the process and reach immigration / passport control. The line is massive. We are guessing with 1.4B people plus tourists, there are going to be masses of people everywhere we go in China. We have settled into our place on the end of the line when after about 30 seconds, a woman walks up to us and says, “you all, come with me.” Talk about your heart skipping a beat (or 16), we look at each wondering what this is all about. Could it be they got our fingerprints mixed up and have mistaken us for another family of seven on the most wanted list? Is this retaliation for Trump’s trade war? Either that or it has to be Kyle’s solar powered charger that is always causing us airport problems.
We follow the woman as she walks away from the line to another area. “You go on special line,” she commands us a she points to a passport control booth that is not near the other ones with almost no line. At least we aren’t in a back office interrogation room in handcuffs (yet!). We comply and the kids are firing questions from all directions, “why are we on a special line? Did we do something wrong? What is the special line for? Are we going to jail?” We respond that we have no idea and we’ll just have to wait and see.
Kyle is doing a mental checklist – we have passports, we have proof of onward travel, we have the Chinese visas that took an arm and a leg to get, we are using a Chinese tour company. Having done that, he concludes “everything is in order, there is nothing to worry about, we are going to sail through the special line and have saved two hours waiting in line.” The kids are looking at him skeptically. Shortly, it is our turn and Kyle goes first to see what tough curveball questions they are going to throw our way so he can warn the others. Kyle walks up and hands his passport through the window slot. The officer checks the visa, stamps the passport and waves him on. That’s it. Seriously, not one question. Everyone else sails through and Kyle pronounces “I’m not going to say I told you so.” “But you just said it,” one of the kids responds. It turns out that Leanne saw a sign after we went through that the “special line” was “The Second Line and Road Forum For International Cooperation.” An accelerated line to foster good international relationships, hmmm…maybe the Chinese government actually is worried about Trump’s tariffs after all if it’s pulling American tourists into that line.
We meet a representative from the tour company at the airport. For several reasons (language and safety being the two biggest), we have invested in a tour company to plan our itinerary and help us navigate China with a guide. As we are driving to the hotel, she tells us that we are NOT allowed under any circumstances to leave our hotel tonight per governmental order decree. Why? The Chinese government is preparing for their 70th Anniversary of the founding the People’s Republic of China, a National Day country-wide celebration with the parade and ceremonies to be held in the downtown Beijing area on October 1st. This sounds a little fishy but after the day we’ve had, we aren’t about to violate a Chinese governmental decree on our first night in China. Between the plane announcement, the immigration special line and the governmental decree, China is living up to the billing that this will be no ordinary country visit.
As we approach our hotel, our first impression is….did we time warp back to the US? Granted Beijing is a very large city and our hotel in is the main downtown area, but we see in the space of 2 blocks next to our hotel: Burger King, McDonalds, Starbucks, KFC, Pizza Hut and even a Haagen-Dazs ice cream store, not to mention The GAP, Nike and a whole host of other American clothing brands stores. Maybe the kids won’t have such a hard time finding something to eat.
After check-in, Kyle, Justin & John head out at 4pm to get a “snack” before the 5pm government lock-down while the rest sleep off the jet-lag. The boys end up at Burger King. The employees don’t speak English but we have gotten better with our “point to a picture of food and hold up the number of fingers” skills. When we go to pay, we discover that they don’t take credit cards and it’s either cash or electronic China payment (such as WeChat Pay). We will discover that this is way most of China works.
The hotel has a pool table and the kids are excited to play so staying in and eating dinner at the hotel ends up being a good thing as the boys play pool before and after dinner.
Trying to shake off our jetlag, we WILL tackle Beijing in the morning.
