davethegrinch.net

Dave Says:

I love disaster movies and especially ones where ocean liners are concerned. I’m writing this entry not from an ocean liner but from a very large international ferry currently in somewhat minor melodrama, adrift in the Yellow Sea between Korea and China. The ’slow boat to China’ is certainly turning out to be slower than anticipated which has given me the opportunity look about the ship and its passengers with a Poseidon Adventure/Titanic type eye.

First I need to set the stage. The Weidon Ferry leaves Incheon, Korea twice a week heading for Qingdao, China. Normally the crossing takes fifteen hours; leave 17:00, arrive 10:00 the next morning. The ship is large for a ferry, almost the size of a small cruise ship and is majestically named The New Golden Bridge V. We enter through a lobby, that tries hard to shout grandeur with its teak reception desk, spiral staircase and faux flowers but its shabbiness and tired state only manage a small whimper of disappointment. Our cabin is for four, but we have it to ourselves. It is comfortable enough; we haven’t paid sufficient money to dine at the captain’s table however we have paid more than steerage so will not be sharing sleeping quarters with 20 of our Chinese brothers.

Act One, Scene One: The departure

Departure from Incheon is smooth. Nobody waves us off, they are too busy loading a thousand Kia automobiles onto the biggest boat I’ve seen in my life. There is a general excitement about the ship as people hang over railings watching Korea drift into the distance. But an uneasiness descends like, umm, say fog, when it is realized the boat failed to blow its horn on departure. Perhaps it’s a foreshadow. If we could understand either Korean or Chinese I’m sure someone on the boat is reassuring other passengers that all will be OK - these ships are built to withstand not having blown their horn. For the purpose of this movie plot, I’m also sure there’s, say, an old lady who’s just a little nervous at sailing so far from shore and especially at night. Perhaps she is going to see her grandchildren in Qingdao. Whilst we were waiting to board in Incheon we noticed a group of Chinese woman who were splitting up a rather large amount of cash between them, there was a definite ringleader and she looked mean. In this plot, they will be the shifty looking characters who may either cause what is to follow or perhaps we’ve all misjudged them and they will turn out to be our saviours. Our script is missing small children, perhaps about 12 years old who will later show their bravery by doing adult type heroic acts. I hope they’ve gone overboard. I love kids but Korea is full of them and they never seem to be in school but right at the tourist activity where we are.

Act One, Scene Two: The restaurant

The wait staff are surly, actually downright miserable. We are not dressed in our finest Edwardian ball gowns or chic 1970’s brown velour tuxedos but we do enter the dining room a respectable thirty minutes before the kitchen closes. This, however, appears to be too late and with neither a smile nor apology we are told to leave. Sarah protests by pointing at the sign on the door and then to her watch; her watch being a good thirty minutes inside the time on the door. They relent and we eat not to the sound of ship’s orchestra but to the clatter of underpaid ferry staff cleaning dishes,

Act Two, Scene One: The next morning and fog

All around clocks are telling passengers what time it is aboard ship. Because we are crossing timezones the ship must have it’s own time but based on last night’s dinner debacle that time appears to be completely random. We take no chances and are first in line for breakfast. We notice the sea has disappeared and so has the sky to be replaced by a blanket of thick, yellowing fog and we are stationary. Multi-lingual announcements are being made over the ship’s P.A. but the multiple languages do not include our own and the crew make no effort to let us know what’s going on. We eventually find one crew member who can help but her customer service priorities lie elsewhere and she must first tell us that the karaoke is now free, the cafe is open for delicious coffee and snacks, the Duty Free shop is having a sale on perfume and the ship’s sauna will be made available to men first after 1pm. Oh and that Qingdao harbor is closed due to fog and nobody knows when it will reopen. And so the wait begins.

Act Two, Scene Two: Free soup

From this point onwards everything on the ship (apart from what we really wanted: coffee and beer) is free. What this really means is that every meal will now consist of soup and kimchi. After three meals the soup was just a watery seaweed concoction and I was beginning to suspect we had run out of food and some guy was hauling up the anchor from time to time and picking the soup ingredients from the chain. Probably due to scurvy, meal times also become erratic. Breakfast was followed an hour later by lunch and dinner time lasted a full twelve minutes. In times of adversity, the English turn to the teapot. The Koreans, it appears, turn to karaoke. The ship’s two karaoke rooms were going full blast from dawn until dusk until dawn. It appears that the stress of being lost at sea and the bargain of free singing are complimentary when all hands might be lost. A small plot point that may have escaped your notice: Our ship’s name, ‘The New Golden Bridge V’, demands closer inspection. Any ship that is named ‘the fifth’ begs the question of what happened to the other four. It is also the NEW Golden Bridge, implying there was an undetermined number of ORIGINAL Golden Bridges preceding the five NEW ones. Were they all lost in the fog? Is our fate predetermined? All kinds of rumors start to circulate the ship. How could a ship that sails at night, when it’s dark, not be able to sail in the fog? Seoul just culled tens of thousands of chicken to prevent bird flu. Could this ship be infected? Are we all in quarantine? Are we to be boarded by pirates? Will this really be the final season of ER on NBC and will George Clooney make a guest appearance?

We lost our patience with patience and cribbage crept along. We people watched but after a few hours the same people had passed us by three times. We couldn’t even stroll laps on deck, most of it was restricted. We took to looking at the lifeboats, trying to figure out how they worked, but that just became depressing. Our iPods worked until our ears rang but we were always a little afraid we would miss a P.A. announcement with The Eagles blasting our eardrums. Why though, I’m not sure, because neither the announcements nor The Eagles make any sense when you’re lost in the Yellow Sea with a bunch of Chinese and Koreans.

The Finale: The chains

On the third day, we had consumed the last of our rations, well, skipped yet more soup and kimchi and, although we’d only been up for an hour, decided to take to our bunks for a snooze. There seemed to be little else to do but wait for the vultures. And then, a grinding noise throughout the ship woke us from our dreams of terra firma and hamburgers. The chains, the chains…. The orchestra played the movie’s rescued theme and we jumped up and down hugging each other in delirious relief. We had been rescued, it was all going to be fine, the shifty looking Chinese women had nothing to do with the plot after all.

The ship’s anchors raised and we set sail, in just about the same thickness of fog as had been present all along, for dry land, for T’sing Dao beer and for China. But would they let us in the country? That, movie fans, is for the sequel.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 29th, 2008 at 11:21 am and is filed under China, Global Travels. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.