Catching the 8am flight to Beijing on Monday, I had left home at 6am in the morning. We (my colleague and the Singapore agent) reached Beijing at approximately 2.30pm. It was at the airport that I got the first look at how overwhelming the number of people is in China. We practically had to step on other people’s toes to walk to Terminal 1 (which was a lot emptier since it only caters domestic flights). This was on a normal weekday. I can’t imagine how packed a sardine can it would be during their Golden Week holiday or next year’s Olympics.
From Beijing, we were supposed to take a 6.10pm flight to Chang Chun (capital city of Jilin Province), but we discovered it had been delayed indeterminably due to technical fault. Hence, we switched to a 5.10pm flight to Shen Yang instead.
The plane to Shen Yang was late in landing. This subsequently caused a delay in boarding. Even after boarding, the take off was yet again delayed as the plane had missed its window to fly. So there we were, sitting like stiff mummy on the plane (wasn’t enough leg room for me) while our plane queue up along the turnoff to runway with a dozen other planes waiting for their turn to fly.
Queuing to fly
Reaching Shen Yang, we met up with the Chinese agent, Director Yu (遇总), and his assistant, Xiao Cui. It was the start of getting to know the Chinese on a business level. I was introduced as Mr Lee and every other introduction thereon was such. This really made me somewhat uncomfortable as it was a tad too formal for my liking.
From Shen Yang, Mr Yu drove us up North to Jilin city (more a town actually). China’s expressways are not a good place to drive on at night if not familiar. Their turns from minor to major roads have minimal reflectors to indicate. They have work in progress that gives little warning for drivers to switch lanes. Day time travel is definitely more recommended.
By the time our car rolled into Jilin Province, it was already 2am in the morning. The first impression I had was it was a ghost town. Aside from the street lighting and lightings from some night business, there was practically not even a flickering candle light emitting from any of the windows in the buildings. Yes, it was already 2am, but surely in the long drive from the town edge to our hotel in the town centre, there would be at least a single soul who stayed up late right?
My hotel room. Doesn't look so good in the day.
The interview began the next day. With slightly over a hundred applicants and an intention to finish on that day, we were looking at a long day’s work. The interview took place inside the Government Employment Agency. We had requested for a soundproof room so we can torture the applicants without their screams getting heard by other applicants, but alas, such facility was not available. Instead, we got a small room with fruit basket included.
The torture chamber
Interviewing a hundred candidates was no simple task. Especially when 95% of them have experience and when asked to introduce themselves, they started rattling off details of their work from the time they woke up and brush their teeth up to the number of ply of toilet paper they used when using the washroom during their breaks.
When you hear one, it was okay. When you hear twice, you might find it cute. When you hear it thrice, it felt like they all had the same script. By the fourth person, you wouldn’t want to hear it again lest the urge to shove a banana down his throat happens. It was that frustrating.
So we tried tactics like asking them to briefly introduce themselves. For those who had too much ear wax and couldn’t hear the word ‘briefly’, we broke up their flow with questions and threw them a cotton bud. Of course, we do get some renegades now and then. After answering our questions, they would go back to describing their daily work as if our questions are nothing more than pushing the pause button.
Guess who came for interview?