Don't go to China!

Sorry, that's how I feel. It mostly has to do with my experiences during stopovers. Making the flight connections through Beijing and Shanghai has been strewn with damaging hazards and it has not been pleasant. It has also been costly in terms of cash and time.

The first time I experienced the Beijing airport was years ago before the new airport was built. The Air China flight having left Canada over an hour late (without notification for passengers) left me stranded at Beijing. Of course, I missed my connection and could not inform the employer who was sending someone to pick me up at my final destination, which was unsettling enough. I could not find an airline representative to help me. Nobody seemed to have ever heard of this airline. Little did I know that its company name had aliases. After running around for over an hour, I finally found the obscure little office on an upper floor, and exasperated not to find anyone there at first. When I finally got to speak to someone, they arranged the accommodations and transportation to the hotel, and booked me on a flight out of Beijing the next day, then had me whisked away. I was never properly processed through immigration and was actually an illegal overnight visitor, so it turned out. Boy, did the immigration officer checking me through to the departure area get upset! Before I made it to the security and immigration clearance area, however, I had a battle with an apparently corrupt airline official who demanded that I pay for the second suitcase again, even though I had already paid for it at my departure point and had the receipt. He insisted but I refused as the clock ticked away, and I began yelling my protests. The guy finally relented and, after the tussle with the immigration officer, made it through to the departure gate with minutes to spare.

I'm still burning from the last time I had to go through Beijing in order to get home, which was just three days ago. I finally made it home, though after losing hundreds of dollars worth of property. You see, my main suitcase never made it back.

The checked bag was supposed to go through from the Air Canada flight and get transferred to the Korean Air flight at Beijing. Korean Air could not find that bag, even after delaying departure by 10 minutes in order to extend the search. After all the harassment, confusion and trickery I went through to get to the departure gate in the Beijing International Airport in the nick of time, verging on panic at around two o'clock in the morning after the 11-hour flight from North America, I was not surprised when the Korean Air employee told me that the bag had not been found and I told her so. I suspect that baggage staff have stolen it. We'll see. Korean Air said I should wait for three weeks before making a claim of lost of stolen baggage, and it is day three.

I guess I'd had a hunch that something like this would happen. In fact, I had been thinking about how lucky I have always been, having become a frequent flyer, that none of my checked luggage had never been misdirected or lost before this trip, and contemplating the possibility that my number might be up this time around. If I was going to lose a suitcase anywhere, it would probably be in this corrupt and chaotic place, the Beijing International Airport.

When I originally booked this round trip between East Asia and North America, I was seeking a good deal on a multiple destinations itinerary. Shopping online, I had a feeling, based on previous living nightmares in transit through Chinese airports, that I should avoid the Beijing exchange at any cost. Expediency and thriftiness preceded this caution, however. In the end, it was not worth it. I seem to have lost more than the discount value of the ticket because of this foolish decision to stick with the Beijing connection.

I must say, though, that the knowledge that Beijing had a new international airport, constructed for the Winter Olympic Games held in 2008, had influenced me in choosing an itinerary with a connection through Beijing this time, despite the horrible time I had had years ago on my first trip to East Asia when I used Air China and had to go through Beijing to arrive at the place of my new employment in Korea. I was reassured when, miraculously, I somehow made it through the Beijing transfer in one piece and without mishap on the outbound journey this summer. On that outbound transfer, Air Canada staff wisely and kindly sought me to escort me through to the immigration queue and direct me how to get to the departure gate of my next flight in time. That was quite help. I guess they know what can happen.

On the return journey this year, despite the best intentions and helpful intervention of the Air Canada staff who met me as I exited the plane at the Beijing airport, the transfer through the Beijing airport was not smooth at all. I found the immigration queue for foreigners that the Air Canada person had told me to find and waited some 25 minutes for my turn in the course of this 2.5-hour stopover. Yet, the officer I encountered at the immigration wicket then rudely directed me to change queues, telling me to go to the "special" line-up that was tagged for business travelers, not others (thus being confusing enough). I guess what had happened was that the special wickets for foreigners on connecting flights through other terminals had opened while I had been in the first line-up. It was not fair to be asked to go wait in the new queue, though.

When the officer there at the special wicket, that was not obviously designated as special or for international connections (the signs being tiny and tucked in among the equipment surrounding the officer there) finally yet rudely asked me to approach, she did not seem very able at reading my plane ticket. Nor did she understand the concept of time zones, apparently. She kept asking me on what date my departure out of Beijing was supposed to be, not knowing, I guess, that the ticket bore the sequence of connections and that a different departure date would not necessarily be shown on a continuous flight with stopovers. Also, she puzzled over the fact that I left the North American departure city on the 25th of the month, yet it was the morning of the 27th in Beijing. I was not impressed with this person. I explained that Beijing was a different time zone, and that the departure point was quite a few hours behind Beijing time, and that the flight took 11 hours, which came to a total difference of 26 clock hours. She screwed up her face in response. Then she could not see my name at the heading of the ticket. The clock kept ticking and I kept getting more and more nervous.

Finally through this ominous hurdle, I made a dash for the escalator down to the airport train platform, contemplating stopping to fill out a complaint card, but realizing doing so would take up too much precious time. Down at the platform, there was no information about how to get to my departure terminal, Terminal 2. The marquees announced trains for Terminal 3 stops. I asked a security guy who was standing around, and, like most Chinese airport staff, he begrudgingly waved a hand indicating a train on the right side of the platform. Yet, no train arrived there. Trains arrived at the lefthand side and they were bound for Terminal 3. I got quite worried. Seeing the security guy enter a car of the T3 train, I called to him and he motioned me to enter that train as the doors closed me out. I didn't know what to do. I ran around looking for staff, to no avail. As another train bound for T3 was about to leave, I took a chance seeing no other alternative and lept aboard it. I asked passengers about T2 and one European guy said everyone had to go through T3C. Then he said that T2 was for domestic flights and doubted this could be the correct departure area for me if I was supposed to take an international flight. Great. It was indeed perplexing and made me all the more antsy. If only I'd had the complete instructions in the first place. It turns out that you get to T2 by passing through T3, and that T2 is the domestic terminal, although flights between Korea and Beijing and Moscow and Beijing depart from there. Go figure.

Okay. Got to the Korean Air desk and picked up the boarding pass just in time, then flew off to find the gate. Next step: get on the shuttle bus to T2. There didn't seem to be adequate time and this domestic terminal seemed like a dark and evil place at 2ish in the morning. A myriad of taxi drivers accosted me, and I shouted at them to leave me alone. I found the shuttle bus stand, and the staff there discouraged me, insisting that I take a taxi. I almost fell for it, but the guys offering taxi service seemed shady and got buzzing on their cellphones when I asked to be taken to T2, so I hurried back to the T2 shuttle bus stand, convincing myself that Korea Air would have passengers board at the last moment anyway, and probably wait for stragglers. At the shuttle bus stop, I taxi driver accosted me again, claiming that the next shuttle would not leave for another hour. I yelled back at him, "Bullshit!" and I threatened to hit him with my garment bag when he kept pestering me. Everyone around me laughed but I was not amused.

Then, the international departures security checkpoint at T2 had to be overcome. It really hung me up because they were working their way slowly asking inane questions and searching bags. I got frisked for no good reason. Then they were curious about the coins I was carrying. I could not find these coins at first, and wondered about their curiosity. No security check I've ever been through has ever questioned anyone about coins, in my experience, so I wondered what they were up to. It turns out that they did not take the coins, though--but the designer sunglasses somehow got left behind there. Hm.

I made it to the gate, conscious that Korean Air was not worried about punctual departures and liked to have everyone board at the last moment. Jeez, was I glad to board that plane and finally take off the hell out of that zoo at last, even though I was leaving without most of my possessions.

Don't go to China.

Let there not be nukes

Last winter, I went to Hiroshima. In the museum, I remember seeing the numerous copies of letters to governments pleading to end nuclear testing and development that have been written by Hiroshima mayors every time a nuclear weapons test has been done. The letters fill two walls, yet the testing and deployment goes on and on. Incredibly, the mayors persist in hope of an end to nuclear armament and energy.

I also learned that most of the victims of the direct hit hear the epicenter of the nuclear explosion in Hiroshima killed more Koreans than Japanese people. Thirty-thousand Korean slave laborers were working in the armament plants for Japan in Hiroshima at the time of the blast. The museum displays informed me that Hiroshima had been chosen because no American forces were there, among other reasons.

I live in the southeastern region of the Republic of Korea. The Gori Nuclear Power Plant feeds the heavy industry zone and the city of Ulsan just north of it, and the great container port of Busan to the south. It is very old having been constructed in the 60s, and was due to be shut down some three years ago, but was given a life extension of 10 years while a replacement is being built. Not only is it quite old and therefore especially prone to accidents and leaks, there is no doubt that the Gori plant, like all other nuclear power plants, is polluting the environment.

The Gori plant was built on the coast just like the Fukushima Daiichi plant was so that ocean water could easily be used to cool down the reactors. What has been happening to that contaminated water? It has been channeled into the ground and pumped out to the sea. Remarkably, no-one talks about this. The governments at all levels busily promote the local fishery and its products and the recreational beaches. Meanwhile, an important food supply bearing such local staples as anchovies, crabs, seaweed, and eels has been poisoned , and tourists and pleasure-seekers have been happily immersing themselves in the contaminated waters at major beach areas for decades.

Recently, I met an activist who's personal story motivated him to advocate for better protection from the risks of nuclear energy and I admired his dogged persistence and unwavering passion for the cause. He has been sending me some materials about his campaigning in the past few days. I realized that it was close to the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, so I used his material to write an article calling for action against nuclear weapons and nuclear energy. It is pasted below here.

Act Now to Ban Nuclear Weapons and Power Plants!

Another anniversary of the A-bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is passing yet nuclear proliferation has not been curbed despite decades of persistent activism around the world. Accidents, breakdowns and threat of nuclear weaponry deployment do not seem to faze the moguls of the nuclear power and war industries and the politicians who serve them.

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant mega-disaster is not over. Reuters Press (video dated August 5, 2013 by reporter Lily Grimes) and Fukushima update websites such as fukushimaupdate.com (August 5, 2013) are reporting today that the infamous private owner of the plant, TEPCO, has released more information about continuing leaks of contaminated water. They now say that underground pools of radioactive water are close to breaching the underground barrier that prevents it from seeping into the sea.

The risks of nuclear power and threat of nuclear weapons are global problems. Countries like the US and France have huge stockpiles of nuclear warheads around the world totalling around 8,000. Though the United States government will not disclose whether and where its nuclear weapons are located, it is reasonable to assume that many are located at home and at overseas bases such as South Korea, the Philippines, the Caribbean, and Europe while war exercises and aggressive campaigns go on.

What is more, many countries, and many of the same countries that also produce and store nuclear weapons, have come to be dependent on electricity produced by nuclear power plants. Stephen Comley Sr. and the organization he founded, “We the People” (WTF), for example, have been reporting on the risks to health and safety that such plants pose for over 25 years.

When the Chernobyl disaster occurred in 1986, Comley was running a nursing home near the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant in New Hampshire, USA. Inquiring about the state evacuation plans, staff at the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission told him to give bedridden residents potassium iodine and abandon them. Finding this answer unconscionable and digging deeper, experts consistently indicated to him that evacuation plans were inadequate. He started his whistleblower organization to raise awareness and campaign for better protection. His continued research has uncovered a range of serious problems surrounding the use of nuclear energy. 

WTF put forward a petition in 2010 that listed the following issues (News Leader, April 20, 2011) regarding all nuclear power plants. It addressed counterfeit and substandard or defective parts, a lack of adequate evacuation planning, reduced inspection and quality assurance standards, the streamlining of licensing and license renewals, and poor storage of radioactive waste.

Despite all the information gathered and urgent appeals over the decades, legislation and regulations remain lame, if not weaker than before. Consider this example. President Obama campaigned to tighten regulation in response to Illinois residents complaining of leaks at a nuclear plant run by the Exelon Corporation (New York Times, February 8, 2008). However, he rewrote his original proposed bill by removing restrictive language and replacing it with guidelines. After Obama was first elected, this watered down bill meandered through committees and eventually failed to be passed.

The problem of the nuclear power industry shows how the economic and political concerns of the capitalist classes and the politicians who serve them are all about profits and ambition. Their economic and political aims override decent living standards for the people to the point where they clearly state that the elderly, infirm and disabled are expendable in situations of disasters. They display little sincere concern for the peoples’ health and safety, and a negligible desire for peace. In fact, it is they who threaten the people around the world with a nuclear holocaust if all nations do not behave the way they want and play their game.

All concerned citizens should help educate and agitate about the nuclear danger. They must unite and rally together for disarmament and demilitarization, working for and demanding genuine and lasting global peace so that a better standard of safety and living conditions can be established for all.

By Barbara Waldern
Note: Barbara Waldern is a resident professor of English in South Korea and the founding member of a teachers’ support network called TEA-KOR, which is a member of the International League of Peoples’ Struggles.