Arriving in Beijing

Just arrived at PEK, had 3 hours to kill before my connection flight to Xi’an, so I wandered around the terminal when I met a customer assistant and told her my waiting ordeal. She said: “If you want to do something, you can chat with me here.” I asked about her work at the airport, she said her main responsibility is to answer any questions from travelers. It sounded like a boring job, but she did it to another level -- she was the role model for the entire terminal. She told me a lot about the new terminal we were at: Terminal 3. It’s a big one. We needed to take a train from the gate to the main area to pick up luggage. The architecture of the terminal is a dragon-like design. The long body of the building serves as the spine of the dragon. The windows decorated the roof are like the scales on the skin of the dragon. A lot of sculptures and arts designs resembling many great Chinese history stories are located inside the building. I suggested it could be better if we make some exhibition plates to show and tell people this valuable piece of engineering product. Foreigners are always interested in these things about China and they can start learning about them the first step they put onto our soil. Even for Chinese traveling within the country, I’m sure a good number of them don’t know the background of this terminal as this customer service staff. It can help them kill time while waiting for the planes, at the same time learning more about their own country. My brief chat with this staff demonstrated again it does not matter what you do for your job, it’s how you do it that matters.