Observations from five hours in Beijing Capital
International Airport (BCIA):
- Christmas Carols. Arranged and recorded, I’m sure, to be the least offensive (or most widely tolerable) versions of what are otherwise Christmas classics, these tunes play incessantly in the airport terminal. The volume is low enough that the songs creep up on your consciousness. The voices are soft—either children’s choirs or high-pitched female singers. The lyrics are familiar, but the presentation is not. A version of ‘Jingle Bells’ repeated the chorus “Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle all the way; oh what fun it is to ride in a one-horse open sleigh” at least six times before allowing the arc of the story to continue onto Grandma’s house. Also, it turns out that Santa Clause is coming to town (in China), and that Rudolf is not far away either if the children’s choruses at the Beijing airport are being truthful. Perhaps the Rudolf news is not surprising since neighboring Mongolia has a thriving reindeer breeding industry.
- You are Here. Throughout the airport are signs explaining: You are Here. This was reassuring to me as a weary traveler recovering from a 13-hour flight; I was happy to know that the airport wasn’t a complete hallucination, but otherwise I didn’t find the signs very useful. Why am I here? Answer me that riddle. But only to repeatedly confirm my existence? Seemed like a waste of a good sign. Until, that is, that I finally noticed there was more to these signs. They actually provided terminal information, but only after an awkward space following the text. Something like: You are Here 3C. My existence was intact, and I was on track to reach the gate for my next flight.
- What time is it? Unfortunately, it seems the overabundance of “You are Here” signs must have cut into the airport authority’s clock budget. As any traveler knows, it’s not only important to know where you in the airport, but also how long you have to get to your gate before the plane takes off without you. Luckily, I had 5 hours to reach my next gate, so I wasn’t overly worried about the clock. But I did find it interesting that each time it occurred to me to check the time, it required a concentrated effort to hunt down a clock. To make things even more interesting, most of the shops in my terminal closed late in the afternoon leaving only duty free and two small restaurants open while I was wandering the terminal in the early evening. And it was dark outside, so between the closed shops and my jetlag while I was wandering the terminal it could have been 3am or 7pm.
- Terminal shuffle. Navigating new airports—even relatively small airports—can be difficult (no matter how many signs let you know that You are Here). Beijing Capital International Airport certainly isn’t the most difficult airport I’ve ever been in, but I seemed to make more wrong turns and missteps there than I have elsewhere. Three separate times, after getting fairly clear directions and instructions from a very helpful airport employee (with good English), I promptly went in the wrong direction until the next person turned me around. After three failed attempts, I was finally heading in the right direction—on a shuttle from Terminal 3E to Terminal 3C. At Terminal 3C, I was able to get a boarding pass for my next flight after a bit of a wait—first in a freezing section of the terminal where even the warmth of Starbucks didn’t bring much comfort and then in a section that was warmer but was deplete of comfortable chairs. After getting my boarding pass, I was directed back to Terminal 3C via shuttle. My previous wanderings in Terminal C paid off upon my return and I strutted confidently in the right direction, sneering at the foreigners who drifted aimlessly with confused looks on their faces.
