Love immigrants

Go to my homepage and add a star in the upper right corner.

So that the new push will not be overwhelmed by the timeline.

Every year I translate an article by Mr. A.A. Gill. Looking through his books this year, I want to translate a more fashionable one he wrote, so that the content is more vertical. But no one around really wants to talk about fashion. Everyone is talking about how to play in China, what interesting things were there before, and where to go after opening the border ... Then I want to translate this "airport".

In fact, the "airport" has little to do with travel, but a microcosm of the grand "journey and return" in the relationship between human beings and their daughters. Then, it is more appropriate to translate after the start of the new year and before the arrival of the Spring Festival.

airport

Text: A.A. Gill translation: cold hero

Airport. You must love them. Really, I mean, you must love them very much. At least you must learn to appreciate them. If not, life will be a deeper and deeper vortex, and you will be caught between the ends of depression, anxiety, boredom and irritability.

I am in harmony with the airport. I like their appearance and appreciate their ergonomics. The airport consists of thousands of movable parts, and everything goes in and out in a logical chain as accurate as an ant cave. You can't think of anything more complicated than an airport: thousands of people separate from thousands of pieces of luggage, find their own specific seats at the same time, and then set off for hundreds of destinations. Think of thousands of carry-on luggage and their owners who speak hundreds of different languages. Some of them traveled for the first time, others flew countless times. We assume that one of them carries enough suicide bombs to cause mass casualties, which makes this place even more thrilling.

Singapore changi airport

For so many years, it has been voted the best airport in the world by major votes.

My love for the airport comes from where I want to go or where I want to come back, otherwise I won't go to the airport. Last week, I went to London Gatwick Airport to meet my daughter Fiona. I can't remember the last time I met someone at the airport. Most of them were picked up by taxi drivers at the airport. The drama of an airport is often at the exit-through the long arrival terminal, anxiously picking up the luggage, passing through the customs, and you are greeted by a group of people who are full of expectations and highly focused. You carry a backpack and smell the air purifier in the organic cabin; You're wearing wrinkled clothes all the way down from the plane, and there are crumbs in the folds of your sticky shirt ... you walk through the last door, and suddenly you're on the stage? At that moment, you guessed the possibility, but it was possible that someone was waiting for you under the stage.

International arrival at London Gatwick airport

This is a tense and crowded stage. There are drivers who are tired, expecting and bored, there are small white boards with company logo printed on them, and your name is written with scribbled notes and typos, and there are family and friends with full faces full of thoughts. Walking through the crowd, you find some hidden plots: a woman is waiting for someone she has never met online, a child of an immigrant family finally gets a visa, and a divorced couple is about to start a short family trip ... At this intersection, all the subtle relationships of human beings are intertwined.

The oldest plots in the world are constantly staged here: leaving and arriving, traveling and returning. At the airport, you feel the bitterness of parting; Being together is a nature written in our genes. Our ancestors and intuition brought us back together. Our emotions are associated with stress, homesickness and wandering. We miss the familiar food and the smell of childhood. Those homesickness, those homes that dragged us back, those chatter about belonging … all tell us where to go.

Hamad Airport in Doha, a competitor of Singapore Changi Airport.

There is only one terminal. But if the effect is good, one is enough.

However, the airport also has exciting moments when fleeing. Opposing human beings gather at the airport to start an adventure and an experience from here. If it weren't for a trip, I wouldn't be used to coming to the airport. I haven't seen Fiona for five months. This is the longest separation between her 19 and me in my life. Gap years, that's what Australians like to do. You can always find them in the farthest places in Europe. Every autumn, thousands of children from middle-class families finish their high school graduation exams, work for a few months ... and rush to the bigger world.

Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok

Thailand is usually the first destination for western teenagers to explore Asia.

But what surprised me was my own reaction after Fiona left-I encouraged my children to be curious and boldly go out and see the world. I said, "You come to this world once." The world is where you live, not the corner of the city in front of you. Enjoy your right to life, get to know your neighbors in the end of the world, and don't spend time watching TV and gossip magazines while traveling. In their room, there is a map of the world on the wall and a strange travel record in the bookcase ... Finally, Fiona shouldered my backpack and walked out the door. I began to feel extremely uneasy-worried that she thought traveling was too easy and worried that she thought the world was too beautiful. These are all good. I'm actually starting to feel nervous about the signs of mosquitoes, fleas, spunlaces, amoebas, electric donkeys, overtaking carefully, table manners and pickpockets. She smiled and soon blended in with a group of children on vacation. They attended the full moon party in Asia, danced in the ring of fire, soaked lifebuoys in the swimming pool, took the bus 12 hours, and held an umbrella on the beach. Boxes of red bull and vodka, tattooed on the face with highlighter.

I feel like tearing off an old adhesive tape, tearing off our feelings and connections. My experience tells me that my worry now is a continuation of my sadness about her childhood loss. I told myself: this is just a holiday. How harmful is immigration? For 200 years, so many things in Europe have been left behind.

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

There is a saying called "Narita broke up", which means that lovers in love know each other's true colors during their travels.

On arriving at the airport, I chose to break up.

I've written a lot about migration recently. I understand the black tears shed behind the migration and the pain and tragic economic losses behind the political migration, which will be written in the next few centuries. They also left their marks in Ireland, Scotland and many other places. In the first world, we seldom realize how lucky we are to choose to stay with our parents and travel comfortably and safely. We can come back from anywhere in 24 hours if we want.

Zurich airport, only 12km from the city center.

Just waiting for Fiona's kung fu, I realized how much I missed her, just as I had a hunch. I saw some travelers coming back. In front of me is a family, a father and a mother, and several little boys. They have been waiting for a long time, and the atmosphere is very depressing. The man hugged his wife, and the children began to feel bored and unhappy. When the automatic door opened, a woman came out with a simple travel bag. Obviously, she is a woman's sister. Called a name, the two women hurried together, hugged each other tightly, and tears poured out like an open box. Men and children hide them behind their backs. Needless to say, you know that one of their parents must have left, and the children who came back from the long trip still couldn't make it to the funeral and didn't have time to say goodbye or thank them. Just as they walked slowly towards the airport exit, a scream came: "Dad!" " "I saw Fiona put down her mountaineering bag and ran towards me. She wore a wrinkled tie-dyed dress and a broken bracelet, and her hair was messy, but her smile was like a new moon.

At this moment, I am relieved-I am still alive, standing here, waiting for my daughter to come back. At this time, someone finally went to help her carry her mountaineering bag.

(Written on September 20 10)

A.A. Jill and his daughter Fiona

end

More a.a. Gill

Kate Moss: The Beauty of Silence

COVID-19 swept across Europe, and the government gave priority to treating young people. I remember this No Country for Old Men.

The most fashionable, exotic and original restaurant in the world is about to close because ...

Starbucks expects Americans to make coffee just as it expects them to draw a map of the world.

Late night Michelin

Mr. Jill died just before Christmas, so naturally, I read his words around Christmas every year. I also went to see Fiona Gill's Twitter this year, and she shared the poems she read at her father's funeral. I think it's quite general, because it's actually not a "poem", but a collection of words with the same theme that my father said sporadically in the past.

In Mr. Jill's last column, he announced that he was in the terminal stage of cancer and imagined that he could cook a Christmas dinner for his daughter again (and published the recipe in the column). He said that food is what we call deja vu-the molecular and emotional value of food is fundamentally to convey memories and memories, which is what we call deja vu.

This sentence is so wonderful that I applaud. One summer, a Melbourne boy and I found a cake made of salmon in Harold's food hall. He said, God, I love salmon very much, so my birthday wish is to eat salmon cake. We bought things, packed and walked to V&; A museum, sitting in a chair at the door to eat.

I left early, so I didn't give up. I passed the passport check at Gatwick airport in a trance. I have been to countless places with my eyes closed. I can walk all the way to the boarding gate. At that moment, I smiled bitterly: in peacetime, there was no love of "the whole city" set off by war. At this moment, only the loss of my passport, oversold flights and terrorist attacks at the airport can make me stay. I was thinking about this when I suddenly heard the horn-for the first time in my life, someone offered me a reward for giving up my seat, 200 pounds in cash, the next plane and (if necessary) a hotel for the night.

I flew away.

Every time I pass Gatwick, I shoot Harold.

Six months after Christmas, the day I left Melbourne, I was awakened by the sound of rain. I really don't understand why in such a rainy city, the grass in the wine manor can still be tanned. It's raining so hard that I can't go anywhere. I can only listen to the rain outside the landing window for a few hours at home before going to the airport. In the unlit room, people were covered with a layer of fog, and I began to question that Melbourne ranked first in the world's livable list, because the sky outside the window was the same as that in London at 2 pm, so where was it livable?

To the airport. The weather is as bad as anger. The car radio said there might be a flood. Except for the wiper, the outside world is a water curtain cave. I asked Siri, can I take off after the flood? Yes Siri told me happily and confidently. And I was torn by it, uninterrupted, and I didn't stop to shed tears in the car.

I rarely book red-eye flights. When I transferred from Melbourne to Doha, I was already jealous. Hand cream, lipstick and even facial mask are available, but there are no eye drops. Just then, while I was waiting at the boarding gate, I saw the huge sun, which covered the tarmac like Hermes and rose outside the waiting hall as usual. I remembered a joke and was finally made to laugh. Someone said in Los Angeles, "Save every tear, you are in the desert."

Take off from flooded Melbourne and change planes in the desert.

When I woke up, I had crossed the snow-capped mountains in Italy.

Since then, I have never seen a cake made of salmon, and I believe he is the same. Food is what we call deja vu. This is very clever.

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

More departures and arrivals

Berlin

Lisbon 1.0

Lisbon 2.0

Montenegro

Bangkok 1.0

Bangkok 2.0

Bangkok 3.0

Budapest

Milan

Umbria

porto

Paris

Venice

Amsterdam

Melbourne

Vienna

The seat of the legislature of the Republic of South Africa