China Air Improving, Sort of
January 25th, 2006 by MarkFor many years I’ve felt a special hatred towards China Airlines, the kind of hatred normally reserved for murderers, rapists, the RIAA and Microsoft. Two years ago I decided to stop flying China Air once and for all. At that time, they compared with Singapore Air as follows: Singapore Air had monitors in front of every seat, and nice headsets to go along with them; passengers could watch movies on demand or play video games during their long flights. China Air had a shitty little headset which usually only worked for one ear, and five or ten radio channels that all sucked. Movies were only available in the larger screens dispersed around the cabin and passengers couldn’t choose which ones to watch. Singapore Air had a very safe track-record. China Air racked up more accidents, injuries and deaths than just about any of their competitors. Singapore Air had mildly uncomfortable seats. China Air had torture devices re-labeled as seats. Singapore Air had decent food. I literally threw up after one China Air meal. I’m sure you get the idea.
Well, this year I had no choice. Since I went home to see my family during the New Year, just like every other freaking Chinese guy and his idiot step-cousin, I couldn’t be choosy about airlines. After realizing I was stuck with China Air, I felt total despair. This time wasn’t so bad, though. They had the same snazzy movies on demand & video game set-up as Singapore Air has had for a long time. The food wasn’t so bad, either. All in all the flight was quite tolerable. It wasn’t perfect, though. 
When I arrived at the airport, they asked if an isle seat would be ok. I said sure, but that a window seat would be even better if they could arrange it. Stupid me. They gave me a window seat, right next to the wing. If I pressed my face against the window, I could sort of make out some stuff way in front of us, but that was it. To make matters worse, the seats were so cramped that I couldn’t sit normally. Since there was no room for my knees, I had to sit with them splayed out to the sides- frog style. Needless to mention, passing people was almost impossible. To make matters worse, an old woman who seemed to be in her 70’s was sitting next to me. Since she couldn’t stand up very easily, I had to contort myself and pick up one foot at a time with my hand to stretch in such a way as to pass her. I felt like a real scum every time I had to go by her like that to get to the bathroom.
All flight announcements were “trilingual”, but the English was so bad I honestly couldn’t make half of it out, even after hearing the same announcement in Chinese. On the good side, the service from the flight attendants I got was the best I’ve ever experienced; they even talked to me in Chinese after they realized I wanted to use it. All in all, I give the flight a 4/10 and I’ve decided that China Air isn’t nearly as bad as it used to be. Next time I have to fly home, if it’s at least $10/flight hour cheaper, I’ll fly China Air instead of Singapore Air.
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January 25th, 2006 at 10:48 am
Welcome back!!
China Air? Mmm… they claim to be the best airline in the world… Maybe they were impressed/a bit afraid because you speak Mandarin really well!?!
I would nomally prefer Cathay Pacific. I haven’t flown with Singapore yet. We’ll see… Hope Sing live up to my expectation.
I still don’t get the idea of using that odd accent for in-flight broadcasting… Perhaps I should try it in my class lol.
January 25th, 2006 at 6:20 pm
Oh… I don’t even know if you could immitate their messesd up pronunciation. Your English is too good!
January 25th, 2006 at 9:18 pm
The english announcements on every airline are officially the worst! I just don’t know how they manage to do it! The ladies on JAL totally talk like children english teachers over-emphasizing everything and it just sounds like blah BLAH blah BLAH blah BLAH BLeeeeeeh.
I find that people from China are much more willing to accept that you can speak their language then people from Japan are. For example flight attendants on JAL REFUSE to speak Japanese to me. It doesn’t matter if I tell them to their face that their English is completely impossible to understand, they just can’t comprehend the fact that a white person with blonde hair and blue eye’s can speak their language. Yet when you speak Chinese, people are relieved because they don’t have to struggle through your language and can watch you struggle through theirs instead.
Next time I fly, I should make a trophy and present it to the attendant who’s english sucks the least, not who’s is the best, but sucks the least.
I went to an international university here, and many many people who spoke amazing english became flight attendants. Where are they now? (I’ll tell you, they don’t do domestic flights in Japan, they fly from Japan to Arab nations. The people that speak the best english go to countries that aren’t native english speakers so that rather then having two people who can’t speak english try and figure each-other out, just one person struggles.)
January 25th, 2006 at 10:02 pm
Well.. actually, this is the first time they’ve EVER willingly talked to me in English. Even when I’ve been on domestic flights, they usually insist on English until I tell them they’re way to focused on race and/or yell at them in Spanish. My experience has always been that Japanese people were more willing to speak to me in Japanese, or at least more afraid of exposing their bad English. I’m not saying it was easy… but it wasn’t the sisyphean ordeal that getting Chinese people (specifically Taiwanese people) to talk to me in their language in their country or on their plane, etc… Japanese people are at least to seeing westerners speak their language on TV.
Learning Japanese, Chinese, or Korean, isn’t that hard in terms of language. 99% of the difficulty is due to their racist stereotypes and assumptions that ALL white people MUST speak English, and that English should be used with white people REGARDLESS of what country they are in and regardless of whether if they can even speak English. Half a dozen of my good (Spanish and German speaking) friends from Shida left Taiwan hating Chinese culture and calling Taiwanese people racist assholes after a year or so of studying, going out and trying to make friends, and having their Chinese answered in English. Heck one of the German girls was so pissed she ended up making a web site advocating more arms sales to China. Since I CAN speak English, it wasn’t quite so bad for me, but I sure don’t like people using a different language with me just because of my looks.
PS. What does “international university” mean exactly?
January 25th, 2006 at 10:11 pm
I guess it’s the “international programme” which hold special courses for international students. Am I right? I think my friend went to that kind of program in a uni.
Mark, you are too too kind… me say’s English very broken…我說的英文很爛…
January 26th, 2006 at 7:09 pm
When I say international university I mean a university that specializes in international studies. Languages, culture, politics, things like that.
There was also a special program for international students to learn Japanese as well, but I wasn’t in that for the whole time.
January 27th, 2006 at 5:59 pm
… so basically any school that has 国際大学 in it’s name..
February 5th, 2006 at 4:17 am
Are you saying now every economic class seating on China Airline has its own movie screen and on-demand movie? It has been years since I had been on a China Airline aircraft. Now I will have to rewrite my whole travel plan to Taiwan in March.
September 19th, 2006 at 10:52 pm
yeah i know how annoying that can be sometimes…
i kept getting ppl trying to talk to me in Japanese all the time in Gold Coast too…
(Not all asians are Japanese tourists, you know?)
but i am sure they don’t mean bad or racist/discriminating… they are probably just naive