MegDesk

At one time I was a little disappointed that I wouldn’t be in Beijing for the Olympics.  It sounded like a grand adventure to have a front-seat view of one of the most hyped Olympic celebrations in years.  These days though, based on what I hear from those still around, I’m actually kind of glad that I’m not.

This morning, during my morning coffee-and-RSS-feed break, I happened on a piece about ex-pats’ perspectives of the changing pre-Olympic Beijing.  The part that particularly amused me was that one of the ex-pat compounds has started requiring residents to sign in and out for security purposes.  One resident’s remarks:

“It’s a bit crazy,” he says. “The guards and I know each other by sight – I’ve lived there longer than some have worked there. But we have to play the game. I generally sign something like “Mickey Mouse” “Osama Bin Laden” or “Tim Horton” (a popular Canadian coffee house chain). They can’t read it anyway and it gives me a little lift.”

Ah, that makes me smile, because it’s just so China – following the rules just for the rules’ sake.  One of our own examples that came to mind recently was our experience at the Beijing airport, just after the US instituted its No-Liquids policy.

Lucas, Lan, and I were all on the same flight to the US, and when we got to our departure gate, they had a quick bag search set up for the US-bound flight.  Lan had a tube of lip gloss in her purse but no ziplock bag to put it in.  The Chinese security agent refused to let her take it, since it was “not in a plastic bag.”  The agent explained in broken English that Lan would be welcome to take it on board, as long as it was in a plastic bag.  I was thinking that I’d just put it in my own ziplock liquids bag until we were on the plane, but the security agent gestured to the Subway sandwich bag I was carrying.  I moved the sandwich to my carryon and gave her the bag.  She dropped Lan’s lip gloss into the (much larger than 1-liter) bag and Lan was welcome to board!  Now the rule had been enforced, and the offending lip gloss was “in a plastic bag.”  Of course the original intent of restricting the total amount of liquid was completely lost, but it’s the rule itself that’s important in China!

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