There’s budget airlines, and there’s budget airlines, and then there’s airlines from the People’s Republic of China.
An hour or two out from Amsterdam Airport, South China Airlines, the airline with the art deco plane livery worthy of the Super Constellation in its heyday, has scheduled a meal service. We will be landing at 6.30 in the morning, which means that the meal will be breakfast. The meal types on South China Airlines can be hard to distinguish. It’s basically the same food all the time called by different names, and if you miss the PA announcement, you don’t really know what you are having, breakfast, lunch or dinner. But this is breakfast.
I keenly watch the meal trolley approaching slowly from afar, after it has been driven past me at speed to where the serving begins, trailing a delicious smell. The male flight attendants go through the same ritual with every passenger. Little bow. Question: Would you like dish A or dish B? Little nod. Passenger choice is put on a little tray. On to the next passenger.
I cannot as yet make out what the exact meal choice on offer is. The trolley is too far away to be able to hear what the attendants are saying. Most passengers seem to go for the meal covered with the blue-striped aluminium foil, the pile of which is rapidly diminishing. The choice covered with the green-striped foil is not favoured nearly as much.
Gradually, I can make out part of the meal choice being offered. Woo you lie cheecken noodle or … I don’t fancy chicken noodle for breakfast period. It’s not what I have for breakfast, so I’m keen to know what plan B might be.
The trolley is getting closer.
Now, I can understand, but what I hear doesn’t make sense. Woo you lie cheecken noodle or … So, I listen even more intently, and again, and again, but what I hear is clearly Woo you lie cheecken noodle or …. scumbag?
I listen again, even more intently, but scumbag is what I keep hearing. Perhaps other passengers are, too, and maybe this explains the disproportionate popularity of the blue-striped-foil-covered chicken beef noodle. The row in front of where I am seated unanimously goes for the chicken noodle. In fact, pretty much the whole plane does.
But I have by now developed a minor obsession with the second dish, the one covered with green-striped foil.
Woo you lie cheecken noodle or scumbag?, the attendant asks me.
I’m in turmoil, but I conquer my fears.
Scumbag, please!
As I lift the green-striped foil, I realise my risk-taking in this instance has been richly rewarded, and I pick up the iffy plastic cutlery with a flourish to hoe into my scrambled eggs with miniscule bits of bacon, half a very small tomato and one of those tiny bread rolls only airlines know where to buy.
