I had some fun in China too.
I presented my ARC to the customs official to be funny and he handed it back in a huff that it’s not an acceptable ID.
I said but I thought Taiwan was China. Why won’t you accept a Chinese document. He didn’t reply.
And you’re spot on about China eastern, horrible planes for comfort , and the service is atrocious. The flight attendants don’t give a crap if you are unhappy or not, in fact after food service they go hide for the rest of the flight. You never see them again.
I absolutely hate chinese airports.
They let open scammer taxi guys and other goons operate freely and nobody does nothing.
I step into the waiting area and get mobbed by scammers offering me stuff.
The worst was a few years ago.
I arrived in Shanghai and the police desk said the bus was the cheapest option into the city . In didn’t have rmb so I went to the ATM to get some. Most of the ATM’s were out of service, no money. The scammer taxi guy said the ATM’s are out of service so if you want a ride you need to use us, we take credit card. I said no thanks and went to look for another ATM.
A woman was at the next working ATM with a bag, and she would withdraw the max amount which was a lot, than repeat and repeat even though she noticed me behind waiting.
The ATM finally empties and went out of service.
She takes the massive bag of cash to where ? To one of the scammer taxi desks.
So that’s how they force people to use them, you can’t get cash but they conveniently take credit card at an inflated price.
Plus people coming up and asking if I want an iPhone cheap.
yea the scammers are in cahoots over there. which is weird when they seem to care about face and hurting the chinese feelings so much but they don’t care about giving tourists a really shitty impression of china.
Our experiences are almost identical. I love playing up the “Isn’t Taiwan part of China gag” although I would love to try it in English for fun, judging the response
As for the China Eastern folks. Truly ignorant. Insisted in speaking their VERY limited Chinese to me, or ignoring me altogether. Lunch time (worst airplane food ever). I heard the announcement, in Chinese only, that there was pork or fish noodles. They just handed me the pork without asking. So says I “魚麵沒有了嗎？剛剛聽到的公告是我們可以選豬肉或魚麵，我聽錯嗎？” I hate pork, and they didn’t bother asking, so what’s a guy to do. Meanwhile, directly in from of me is an Asian woman. They are repeating to her in Mandarin if she wants pork or fish noodles. By repeating, I mean 5+ times. She obviously doesn’t understand Chinese, but according to their logic (or maybe experience): Asian = Chinese ability; Non-Asian = stupid foreigner, better hope you speak English. P.S. they still tried their English on me, which I was happy to oblige up until it came to the point of where I had no idea of what they were asking (passport and boarding pass, it turns out after my extremely confused look and a “我一點也聽不懂妳在說什麼啦！”). Yeah my Chinese still sucks, but communication is key.
Not that all Taiwanese carriers are perfect. Far Eastern Air Transport (FAT) sucks. Barely enough room to sit. 馬公 to 臺中 after missing my 立榮 (I highly recommend them) flight due to being a dunce.
