I was only there for a couple of days (a business trip in 2008 or 2009), they put us up in a five-star hotel, our plane had arrived very late in the evening and the business meet was scheduled for very early the next morning. As such, after traveling for over 16 hours with layovers and navigating airport terminals and changing planes and baggage carousels and customs and immigration and a long taxi ride, I just flopped onto the bed to get some sleep. Room service was the only food available at that hour, its prices were horrendously high, so I declined. I can’t even remember what I had for breakfast, but I doubt it was local or typical Chinese fare. Being a five-star hotel that catered to Westerners, I’m sure it was food with which I was more familiar. Unfortunately, I didn‘t get to sight-see or go out on the town, almost as soon as we arrived, we had to head back to the airport. They expect you to show up three hours before an international flight, an our hotel was at least an hour from there due to heavy, heavy traffic. I don’t remember having sampled Chinese food.
Now if you want to go back to my military days, I spent much more time in Hong Kong and specifically Kowloon. That was so long ago that I have absolutely zero memory of what food I ate.
~
This post was edited by Randy D at January 30, 2021 11:21 AM MST
I only had contact with airport personnel, two taxi drivers, maybe three or four people on the hotel staff, I didn’t have a chance to even attempt to mix with others. What I didn’t explain above is that we arrived about five or six hours later than scheduled, and because of all those delays, we decided to depart for the airport earlier than originally planned. Our business took up much of the interim time. All of that cut out any opportunity to get out in the public.
I don’t recall any interactions with Chinese people that stick out in my memory as remarkable or lack thereof based on my ethnicity. Now that you mentioned this, it reminds me that I was partnered with another Black man for that trip. There were language barriers between us and some of the Chinese people, of course, but everyone we dealt with was specifically provided to us based on their English-speaking abilities as opposed to others who spoke no English at all.
~
Randy D 