Thinking about travelling, the destination usually comes up with China! I have started one of my dreams to travel around the world, yet this had come to a stop because of my passport. It was issued in 1995, renewed twice in Ottawa. I don’t know why the Chinese Embassy did not offer me a new passport, obviously seeing that the little red book ( not Mao’s book LOL!) was full of stamps in and out of China and Canada 22 times with no empty pages to put any more!
I was trying to go to Europe for my summer vacation in July, but I did not get the Shengen visa because of my too-old passpport. The tickets were bought, a car was reserved and insurance was paid! I was required by the Swiss Embassy at Montreal to get a new passport! To get a new one from the Chinese Embassy at Ottawa, I have to provide a letter from The Immigration Canada to prove that I have not filed for Canadian citizenship. It will take 5-6 months to get this letter!!!! Then it will another 2 months to get a new passport!!! Holy ghost!!! I called my university classmate in Kunming, China and it will take only 15 days for a new passport!!! Damn fast!!!! Isn’t it?
Going through the customs, being checked all over for things we would never bring, taking out the computer with which we can keep contact with my Montreal home and business, removing my boots on which there is 2 zipper heads ( the only metal on me), I handle this redundant but necessary procedure so with ease that it has become a pleasure from a boredom. As my rule life goes, if we can not avoid it, make it fun! Yes, I always make this dull matter fun by joking with the customs officers!
“Toshiba, made in China!” Label on the side of my pc and it was read aloud by one officer.
“Yes, it is! That is why I am going back to repair it!”. Both of us laughed and he gave me a gallant gesture to pass to the other side where 2 women officers were awaiting. Seeing me almost nude( in a sense of having no metal) with only one black long sweater, they gave me a cold chin pointing to the luggage, which means that I do not have to be checked! Don’t you see how i become a gay, not a lesbian?
The plane arrived at Vancouver 2 hours late than the schedule! Late is late, what can I do about things like this? From Montreal to Vancouver, we always have small planes, but from Vancouver to Beijing, we have 767, or 777! My strategy of fighting against the 13 hours’ time change is to sleep for 5 hours and then watch 2 movies. Very unfortunately, after some time of sleeping when I was ready to watch my movies, my screen did not work. Re-sets did not mean anything! So I was allowed to sit on any empty seat for the movies.
Movies on the plane are of “avant garde” or ones we do not usually watch, such as: US Chinese: ” Mao’s Last Dancer” and an Italian: ” I am love”. They are non main stream movies, therefore usually special good ones. The first one I watched tells a story of an excellent Chinese man ballet dancer visiting Us in the late 70s and choosing to stay in US for his dancing career. His choice breaks up the red line between the capitalist US and the socialist China. It seems that his opportunity serves for him as an breaking-through from the dark ages to an new era where he began to feel his spirit and the freedom for his soul which are the essence of his art! He knows well that his family will have big troubles back in China, but this yearning for freedom stands firm for his choice! Free our spirit is forever and ever the thing we need for our life, no matter how much it costs in many occasions such as the one the story is telling…Wonderful movie!
” I am love”, English sub tittle! There is no music in the movie except only when there appears emotional scene. When there is music, it is so strong and becomes a big uncomfortable, yet, that is what the music wants to achieve: strong emotions with awkward tragedy! Love with no emotions is not love and it strikes us with both emotions and tragedy! Love with tragedy are always the best seller. Don’t we know Romeo and Juliette?, and, and…The beautiful middle aged Russian origin Italian woman serves her family duties in quiet scenes calmly and gracefully: organizing dinners, shopping for food, dealing with her lesbian daughter and giving her son support for receiving the big family enterprise, helping her husband with other of his personal affairs…In the quietness, you can feel the boredom, the dreadful long days and nights…Suddenly, a young fresh breeze comes into her life, mmm, the incredibly delicious courses made by the friend of her son, Antonio! Such a great cook! She falls in love, with the food first, then unknowingly, with Antonio! Love happens just like that, without warning, without time for thinking, without time to balance her own family and her new feelings…even without chance to regret the affair which causes the accidental death of her own lovely only son! I cried…my heart and my soul…It is not the death I cried for, it is for her. Her loneliness in soul, her desperation for love and her innocence of the accident…I am a woman and a mom, and I know the guilty she feels for her son…yet she firmly left her rich husband for a young man of 28 years old who is down to earth and loves cooking with passion. She left for love, even though it indirectly took away her son, even though it might be a blind love…
As the consequence of being late at Vancouver, our plane arrived Beijing 2 hours later at 5:30pm Beijing time no matter how much it tried to catch up! I bought my next flight at 7:15pm. Ok, I did have enough time to run for it, but I was put into a kind of weird feeling: no anger, no frustration, just stunned with my mouth open without a single word! My luggage did not come with my plane! Oh, God! I bought 5 bottle of Dior and I was not allowed to bring with me. I had to put into my big luggage! Well, since it did not arrive, I filled out the form so that the airport Beijing could send it to its final destination. I paid more for another ticket at 9pm at Station 1 and traveled back to Station 3 to catch the plane. I caught my parents in the taxi to the airport to tell them that I would be 2 hours late! My father told me that my luggage had arrived and I should go back to get it. Of course I went right away to Station 1 to get the luggage but only to find out that it had gone! Wow, what a Murphy’s bitch ( oops! Sorry 🙂 ).
Life is such, but I was calm. Nothing could touch me but the yearning for life and freedom. Nothing could bring out my tears but the yearning for love, even in awkward situations…yet without breaking-through, our heart and soul can not be toughed! New life and love always break through out from old stale mud! Life is wonderful and my trip is of course and obviously full of wonders!
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