3 October 20-14: After an eleven hour flight, we pause briefly in Hong Kong airport just long enough to allow our bodies to adjust before loading ourselves back into the air for the connecting flight. I carry a bag on my back, a boarding card in my hand, and in my purse, a carefully wrapped St Christopher. "Protect us on our travels, wherever we may roam, keep us safe and guide us, always safely home", is inscribed on the back. My sister's face, half joking, more than half in earnest, swings into my mind each time I look at it. "You'll be fine," she said to me before we left, "you've got your St Christopher." Then she checked I had not already lost it. She knows me too well.
As it happens, I have by no means lost my St Christopher and have been most safe and comfortable thus far. He excels himself, however, when a lady appears by our side on the plane to offer us each a glass of champagne on the house. This offer is not apparently extended to anyone else on the flight!
Needless to say, the champagne is lovely, but rather more lovely is the lady on the plane who comes to talk to us. She asks how long we are staying in Vietnam and, as the conversation unfurls, we fall to talking about the protests in Hong Kong. Living not too far from the occupied sites,she tells us that the protesters have been peaceful without exception, that the sites are kept clean and well organised, including recycling facilities and as much room as possible left for locals to continue to go about their daily lives.. She has sympathy for the protesters, but also for the government who face a tough decision, explaining that it is by no meas a simple or isolated issue, and that any action taken either for or against the protesters, will have untold domino effects on other cities, economies and structures in Hong Kong.
Nations, I reflect, have made huge sea changes like this in the past, but to make a dramatic change in the history of a nation seems to demand not just bravado but also some level of suffering, as the political,economical and physical effects detangle themselves over the ensuring years. And when is it a good time to make that kind of impact?
The thought seems uncharacteristically profound given my jet addled brain so I drown it with my champagne. And as for the reason behind our special treatment? Well, it could be that M is classed as a 'frequent flyer' with the airline we booked our round the world ticket with.
But I like to think that we have a luxury St Christopher.
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