At the airport: departure and arrival, travel and return

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Every year I will translate an article Mr. A.A. Gill's stuff. This year I was flipping through his books, and I wanted to translate an article he wrote about fashion, so that the content would be more vertical. But no one around me really wants to talk about fashion. Everyone is talking about what else to do in China, what fun things there were in the past, and where they want to go after the borders are opened... Then I thought of translating this article "Airport".

In fact, "Airport" has nothing to do with travel. Instead, it shrinks the grand "travel and return" of mankind into the relationship between himself and his daughter growing up together. So, it would be perfect to translate it after the beginning of the New Year and before leaving and arriving during the Spring Festival.

Airport

Text: A.A. Gill Translation: Leng Leng Leng Daxia

Airport. You must love them. Really, I mean, you must love them. At least you have to learn to appreciate them. If you don't, life will be a spiral that gets deeper and deeper, with you caught between frustration, worry, boredom, and a cranky end.

I have a great rapport with the airport. I like the way they look and I appreciate the ergonomics they exhibit. The airport is composed of tens of millions of movable parts, and everything is placed in and out of a logical chain as precise as an ant cave. You can't imagine anything more complicated than an airport: thousands of people and thousands of pieces of luggage separated, finding their own specific seats at the same time, and then setting off for hundreds of destinations. Then consider the thousands of pieces of carry-on luggage carried by people who speak hundreds of different languages. Some of them were traveling for the first time, while others had flown countless times. If we assume that some of them carry suicide bombs capable of causing widespread casualties, this place becomes even more thrilling.

Singapore Changi Airport

It has been ranked first in major polls for the best airport in the world for so many years

My love for airports comes from wherever I want to go. , or coming back from somewhere, otherwise I wouldn’t go to the airport. Last week I traveled to London Gatwick Airport to pick up my daughter Fiona. I can’t remember the last time I picked someone up at the airport, mostly I was picked up by a taxi driver at the airport. The best part of an airport is often at the arrival exit - passing through the long arrival terminal, anxiously picking up your luggage, and after passing through customs, you will be greeted by an expectant and highly attentive audience. You are carrying your backpack and smell the air purifier in the cabin; you are wearing wrinkled clothes from the flight, and there are crumbs from the airplane meal in the folds of the sticky shirt... After passing the last door, suddenly, You just stood on the stage? At that moment of confusion, you guessed that it was possible, just possible, that someone was waiting for you in the audience.

International Arrival at London Gatwick Airport

This is a tense, crowded stage. There are self-defeating, expectant, and bored drivers at the scene holding a small whiteboard with the company's logo and your name written on it with scrawled notes and typos, as well as family and friends whose faces are filled with concern. As you make your way through the crowds, you discover hidden plots: a woman is waiting for an online date she's never met, a child of an immigrant family finally gets a visa, a divorced couple arrives about to embark on a short family trip... At this gathering point, all the subtle webs of human relationships are entangled.

The oldest plot in the world is constantly being played out here: departure and arrival, travel and return. At the airport, you feel the sourness of parting; getting together is written in our genes. Our ancestors, our intuition bring us back together, our emotions are tied to stress, homesickness and wandering, we miss familiar foods, the smells of childhood. Those homesickness, that home that pulls us back, those chattering about belonging... they all tell us where we should go.

Doha Hamad Airport, the rival of Singapore Changi Airport

has only one terminal. But if it works well, one is enough.

However, the airport also has the moment of excitement when escaping. Opposite human beings gather in the airport, starting from here to embark on an adventure and an experience. If I am not traveling, I am not used to coming to the airport. I haven't seen Fiona for five months. This is the longest separation from me in her 19-year-old life. Gap year is what Australians love to do. You can always find them at the farthest end of Europe. Every autumn, thousands of children from middle-class families complete their high school graduation exams, work for a few months... and head off to the bigger world.

Bangkok Suvarnabhumi Airport

Thailand is usually the first destination for Western teenagers to explore Asia

But I was surprised by my own reaction after Fiona left— —I have always encouraged my children to stay curious and boldly go out and see the world.

I said, "You are here in this world just once." This world is where you go to live, not this corner of the city in front of you. Enjoy the power of your life, get to know your neighbors from all over the world, and don’t spend your time on TV and gossip magazines while traveling. In their room, there was a world map on the wall, and travel anecdotes on the bookcase... Finally, Fiona picked up my backpack and walked out of the door. I began to feel extremely uneasy - worried that she thought this trip was too simple, worried that she thought the world was too beautiful. These are all okay, but I actually started to feel nervous about signs like mosquitoes, fleas, hydras, amoebas, electric donkeys, careful overtaking, table manners and beware of pickpockets. And with a smile on her face, she quickly blended herself into a group of children on vacation. They attended full moon parties in Asia, danced in rings of fire, soaked in lifebuoys in swimming pools, took 12-hour bus rides, held umbrellas on the beach; they had boxes of Red Bull and vodka, tattoos and Highlighter paints on the face.

My feeling is like tearing off an old piece of Velcro, tearing open the feelings and connections between us. My experience tells me that my current worries are perpetuating the sadness of her lost childhood. I told myself: It’s just a vacation, how harmful can a move be? So many things have left Europe in the past 200 years.

One of the busiest airports in the world, Tokyo Haneda Airport

There is a term "Narita breakup", which refers to lovers in love who realize each other's true identity while traveling

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I chose to break up as soon as I landed at the airport

Recently, a lot of my writing has been about migration. I know the black tears shed behind migration, the pain behind political migration and the tragic economic losses that have written for centuries. They also left their mark in Ireland, Scotland and numerous other areas. And those of us in the first world rarely realize how lucky we are to be able to choose to stay with our parents and travel comfortably and safely. And if we want, we can return from anywhere within 24 hours.

Zurich Airport, only 12 kilometers from the city center

While waiting for Fiona, I realized how deeply I missed her, just as I had predicted. I watched several groups of travelers return. Nestled in front of me was a family, a father, a mother, and several little boys. They had been waiting for a while, the atmosphere was depressing, the man had his arms around his wife and the children were starting to get bored and unhappy. When the automatic door opened, a woman came out carrying a simple travel bag. She was obviously the woman's sister. When a name was called, the two women quickly walked towards each other and hugged each other tightly, tears pouring out like an open box. Men and children hugged them from behind. Needless to say, you know that one of their parents must have passed away. The child who returned from a long journey still failed to catch up with the funeral ceremony and did not have time to say goodbye or thank you. As they slowly walked towards the airport exit, a scream came: "Dad!" Fiona dropped her hiking bag and ran towards me. She was wearing wrinkled tie-dye clothes, hanging broken bracelets, and had messy hair, but her smile was like a crescent moon.

I felt relieved at this moment - I am still alive, still standing here, waiting for my daughter to return. At this time, someone finally went to help her carry the hiking bag.

(Written in September 2010)

A.A. Gill and his daughter Fiona

END

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Mr. Gill passed away just before Christmas, so naturally and appropriately, I would find his writings and read them every year around Christmas. This year I also took a look at Fiona Gill’s Twitter, where she shared the poem she read at her father’s funeral. I think the writing is quite ordinary, because it is not actually a "poem", it is just a collection of my father's scattered words on the same theme in the past and then I made it smooth.

In Mr. Gill's last column before his death, he announced that he was suffering from terminal cancer and imagined that he could cook his own unique Christmas meal for his daughter again (and published the recipe in the column).

He said that food is the déjà vu in our mouths - Food in its particular and emotional value is primarily there for the transmission of memory and remembrance, the déjà vu of our mouths.

This sentence is so wonderful. I applauded. One summer, a Melbourne boy and I discovered salmon cakes at Harrods food hall. He said, God, I love salmon, so one year my birthday wish was to eat salmon cake. We bought some takeaways and walked to the V & A museum, where we sat on the chairs at the door and ate.

Later I left early, reluctant to leave. I went through the security check at Gatwick and passed the Passport Control in a daze. I had been to places I had visited countless times and could walk all the way to the boarding gate with my eyes closed. At that moment, I smiled bitterly: In peacetime, there is no such thing as "alluring" love in the flames of war. At this moment, only lost passports, overbooked flights, and terrorist attacks at the airport can keep me here. I was thinking this when I suddenly heard a loudspeaker - for the first time in my life, a flight was overbooked, and volunteers were now offered a reward of 200 pounds in cash, the next flight and (if necessary) a hotel for the night if they gave up their seats.

I flew away.

Every time I pass by Gatwick, I take pictures of Harrods

Half a year later, on Christmas Day, I was woken up by the sound of rain on the day I left Melbourne. I really don’t understand why in a city where it rains so much, the grass in the wine estate can still turn yellow from the sun. The rain was so heavy that I couldn't go anywhere. In the first few hours before going to the airport, I could only listen to the rain outside the floor-to-ceiling windows at home. Being in a room with no lights on made people feel foggy, and I began to question Melbourne's ranking first in the world's livability rankings, because the sky outside the window at this moment is the same as that of London at 2 pm. Where is this livable place?

We are going to the airport. The weather was getting worse, and the radio in the car said there might be flooding. Except for the windshield wipers, the world outside is already a water curtain hole. I asked Siri, can it take off in a flood? able. Siri told me cheerfully and confidently. And it pushed down the valve of my tear gland, and I shed tears without interruption, and never stopped to cry in the car.

I rarely book red-eye flights, and I was already jealous when I arrived in Doha from Melbourne to transfer. There are hand cream, lip balm and even facial mask, but no eye drops. Just then, as I was waiting at the gate, I saw the huge sun, covering the tarmac in Hermès-like orange, rising as usual outside the departure hall. I finally got a laugh out of remembering a joke. That was said in Los Angeles: "Save every tear, you are in the desert."

Taking off from flooded Melbourne, transiting in the desert

When I woke up, I was in the desert again. Arriving above the snow-capped mountains in Italy

Since then, I have never seen anyone selling salmon cakes, and I believe he did too. Food is the déjà vu of our mouths. These words are spiritual.

Now, it's your turn. I want to hear about your most unforgettable airport, trip, or return.

more departures and arrivals

Berlin

Lisbon 1.0

Lisbon 2.0

Montenegro

Bangkok 2.0

Bangkok 3.0

Budapest

Milan

Umbria< /p>

Porto

Paris

Venice

Amsterdam

Melbourne

Vienna

Cape Town