China Southern Hilarity

This was just a rolling commentary:

Preflight
Old people keep getting up and walking - screws around with the flight attendants' counting.
There's only shared monitors. I suppose this reduces the computational load and then they don't have to license as many films. I think it's just cheap - not really related to politics. haha
Lots of other passengers attempting to flaunt status symbols. it doesn't work if everyone has an LV patterned accessory of some sort.
China Southern were nice enough to provide a small bag with earplugs, folding comb, toothbrush, toothpaste, eyemask and socks. The earplugs were very useful.

Underway

• 2232 - push off
• 2245 - people using toilets during taxi. Flight attendants telling them to hurry. Is this part of the Chinese way of expressing freedom - through petty acts potentially resulting in chaos?
• 2246 - too late: the plane is on the runway and taking its time getting airborne. It's an A330. The flight attendants told them to stay inside the toilet.
• 2250 - it turned out to be an old man
• 2303 - An old lady came back having refilled her bottle. WTH. How did she get that past security screening? What if you took a coffee mug through? What if it didn't have a lid and had a photo on the side? hmm
• 2308 - Communal monitors are rolling advertisements. This is the new China with glorified motor vehicle ownership.
• 2312 - Flight attendants struggled a bit with moving the cart. One spilled juice.

Interestingly, the beverages were mostly Chinese. Just Juice was the only Australian brand I could see. Coca Cola and Sprite were Chinese versions. None of the drinks were chilled. Why would anyone want to drink Chinese milk? Odd. Also, there's not enough hot water for tea. That's quite bad.

There was too much film lag so I didn't watch the whole film. Something about a USAAF officer called Robert in China having crashed. He fancies a lass called Yangshuo. There's in some rural area and people ride around on horses with bolt-action rifles. Artificial romance ensues even though there's a bit of a language barrier.

Guangzhou Airport
Now this part really was crazy. The international to domestic transfer security screening had only one frame scanner. Everyone had to be pat down even after going through. There were plenty of queue-jumpers due to the prolonged process. The airport is too big so there were electric vehicles to shuttle us to the terminal. Kind of like oversized golf-buggies.

Domestic Flight
There was way too much plastic packaging on all the food. The food itself was rather ordinary, but expected.

Additional hilarity provided by a lady trying to help herself to food on the card, pissing off the flight attendant who rebuffed her attempts with measured words.


Another good one is the sound tubes. The sound is actually produced in the armrest, where one plugs the contraption in (you can hear it if you put your ear up against the hole). Wasn't much use again as there was really only advertisements and a laggy film running. Seems like a good idea for being cheap and nasty.