Whenever I see official info coming from China, I pause. They have the best propaganda machine on the planet. So even during this #COVID2019 crisis, I find myself questioning everything.
Let me share a short story of why.
Let me share a short story of why.
A few years ago, went to China for a business trip to a resort town. Everything was perfect. Most beautiful airport I had ever seen, roads, cleanliness, infrastructure but few people. We had a ‘minder’ accompany us everywhere. She knew our entire bios. Super friendly and helpful.
This we were taken to a five star resort by the beach which had everything, including a full basketball court. We were there with a number of top CEOs, most of whom had flown in private. One of them challenged my travel companion to a basketball shootout but he didn’t have shoes.
So he asked our travel minder if she could take him get some shoes. She said that there was no shop in town that sold shoes and encouraged him to try the Prada and Vuitton shops in the resort. That was kind of a red flag but we let it go.
Then, in hanging out in the lobby, we met this very famous San Francisco chef who was there for a competition. We were flying to San Francisco after China so he invited us to come to his restaurant after we would arrive.
We were connected to the internet via mobile hotspots that were given to us at the airport. When I asked the minder for her email address, she begged me to send her a message only after we had left.
Upon leaving, we headed to the paradise airport. We were flying from there to Beijing, 4 hours away. Customs and immigration were a breeze. Then we went to the lounge to wait for our flight. Only foreigners were in our lounge. The Chinese were in a different one.
Then our flight was delayed. That’s when all began to unravel. On the board, we could see other flights to Beijing that would have allowed us to make our connection in time. We asked if we could change. Everyone was confused and panicked as if we had requested a private jet.
Impossible to change, they said. You have to wait. But we were missing our connection. We finally got a call through to a travel agent that got us on another flight. The crazy thing is, we couldn’t get to it. No one would tell us how to get there.
We didn’t know this but we weren’t at the airport. We were at a special VIP terminal. This is why we had been driven from the plane and were going to be driven to the plane. The flight we rebooked on was leaving from the normal airport. No one wanted to risk taking us there.
We missed our flight! Finally, another foreign passenger, seeing our despair, explained this to us. He also assisted us in getting rebooked and getting to the ‘real’ airport. It was night and day. Crowded, unappealing and chaotic.
We missed our connection but finally arrived in San Francisco and called up the Chef we had met in China. He invited us to his restaurant. We shared our experience and he laughed.
He said that even the invited chefs weren’t allowed to leave the resort. But he befriended a hotel cook who snuck him out so that he could visit the real town.
While the city we saw was very organized, clean but quite empty, the pictures the chef showed us were different. Highly populated, bustling markets, lots of activities and energy. And yes, pretty chaotic.
Really wasn’t a bad place at all. Reminded me of home. Douala in on a busy day. But it really made me realize the extent to which not just the organizers of our event, but our minders, the hotel staff, airport staff, worked so hard to present a fictitious image of the city.
It’s not as if they called each other to prepare for us. It’s the entire mindset. Never show outsiders the ‘bad’ China. They didn’t realize that we might have enjoyed the ‘real’ China even more.
I just have never seen any country go to such extremes to protect its image.
This is why, since then, I take all news coming out of China with a grain of salt. So #coronavirus over in China? Hmmmm. Time will tell.
This is why, since then, I take all news coming out of China with a grain of salt. So #coronavirus over in China? Hmmmm. Time will tell.
I broke my thread.
