I woke up yesterday and decided that I should spend the weekend in Hong Kong. So I picked the earliest flight the next day and now I find myself sitting at the gate, fiddling with my boarding pass.
The Shanghai Pudong airport is a glass castle, with streaming sunlight and curvy modernist wooden ceilings. The free wifi is fast and free (absolutey worth mentioning it twice in the same sentence). The customs officers are young, thin, and above average looking in their flattering black canvas suits and laced up combat boots. But the most endearing part of it all are the flat screen TVs playing propagandistic vids while unsuspecting travelers with wandering minds line up for customs.
My favorite one is the rousing clip about the pride that overseas Chinese feel in their worn, red Chinese passports. No matter where they are, they pull out their well-loved passports and dream of home. The little book is a constant badge of honor, pushing them onwards so they can come back to the motherland one day and contribute their all.
I've always wondered why they got a passport to leave in the first place if they love home so much.
But then again, propaganda requires a suspension of disbelief, and this one makes me come pretty close.
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