Truth pays
i was on my way to my daily gym session the other day when i saw four girls with camera, note pads, briefcases and whatnot standing up ahead of me. sensing that they were on a foreigner hunt for some interview or something, i tried to ignore them since i'm not too fond of these things. they often turn out to be ridiculous.
my suspicions were confirmed when i saw them light up and get excited at the sight of this foreigner, poking each other in the side, sort of nervous to have to speak english and everyone trying to get one of the other girls to conduct the interview. giggling.
sigh.
the sidewalk was narrow and there was no escape, so when they came over, i tried to look as if i were in a great big hurry. they had obviously seen that trick before and started by asking for two minutes. ok. two minutes, i'm in a hurry.
it turned out they wanted to ask about my travel habits, or, rather, my airline preferences when travelling abroad. they wanted to know if i had ever travelled with eva airlines or china airlines. living in taiwan, it's difficult not to have used both airlines once or twice. on top of that, eva airlines offers a good alternative between business and economy, which they call economy de luxe, basically business class seating with some of the bells and whistles taken away.
one of the girls took a polaroid of me together with the one stuck with the interview. cool, pretty good, huh, she said when the photo began developing and the image had just barely started appearing in grey. with only a minimum of effort, i could even recognize myself.
so i told them. translator. swedish. 45 (we're in taiwan, so standard ways of calculating age don't apply). yes, i have travelled with both, but it must have been more than ten years since i set foot on a china airlines carrier. why? once again, the truth. they crash too often. it's not safe, i don't trust their safety measures. oh, uh, thanks for your time, bye-bye.
i didn't even get the picture.