Bruner Blog

More stories about my trip to China as soon as I have a chance (very busy with work for the next several weeks, though), but I thought I’d relay two particular incidences regarding air travel.

First, I flew from Beijing to Shanghai at one point in the trip. As I was standing on line for security, I suddenly realized I had my Swiss Army knife in my knapsack. Bummer. Not that it was irreplaceable, but I was sorry to have to lose it nonethelesss. When my turn came, I ran my bag through, and they called me over for questioning. I was carrying a few bottles of wine and one of whiskey in my carryon bag, which were gifts.

The guard explained bottles were not allowed. Apparently, the Chinese are concerned that someone could use a bottle as a weapon, which I suppose is reasonable enough. He wanted me to go back to check-in and check it, but I explained I was running late. Looking at the bottle of Jameson with regret, I actually said to him, “Oh well, enjoy.”

To my surprise, he took me instead to see his supervisor, a woman. He explained the situation, and she gave me the once-over and made the judgment call that I was not a security risk and they let me board with the bottles after all. Thinking about it, I was grateful for my personal circumstance and was impressed that in a nominally communist country a mid-level bureaucrat was possessed of such individual discretion and prepared to use it. By comparison, I doubt that an American security guard at an airport would make such an exception based on a judgment as to whether someone “looks trustworthy.” And frankly, I expect that in the field of security, it’s safer to just apply the same rules to everyone and not make such exceptions, but I’m no expert.

Boarding the plane, I suddenly realized, they had never found my Swiss Army knife!

The second incident was even more remarkable. I bought a ridiculous amount of knick-knacks and gifts while I was there, so much so that I bought a big cheap bag to fit them all into. Because a lot of this was fragile, I took that bag as carry-on and stowed it in the overhead luggage compartment above my seat.

When I got to San Francisco, I opened up the bag and was showing a couple of friends whom I was staying my there my haul. Dragons woven from grass, carved into wood and fired in glaze on copper, wild-looking masks, jade eggs, fancy chopsticks, and so on.

With pride, I came to my favorite item of all those I bought, a beautiful meat cleaver with imposing heft, a decorative handle and Chinese inscriptions on the blade. My friends were duly impressed. Then the husband asked, “You didn’t have this in the same carry-on bag, did you?”

“Of course not,” I replied, envisioning where I laid it at the bottom of my suitcase that I checked at the ticket counter. Then, after a pause, I realized that I had only intended to pack it in my suitcase and that, in fact, I had left it in my carry-on bag. (I wish I had a photo of it I could upload here, but the silly denouement to this I subsequently left this cleaver at another friend’s house in Maryland, so I have nothing to show for it all.)

Yes, friends, I flew on United flight 858 from Shanghai to San Francisco with an enormous meat cleaver on my person. Before this post gets me on some FBI watch list, IT WAS AN ACCIDENT!! But, someone might want to mention to the Chinese that they could use a bit of help figuring out the X-ray machine at the airports.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, June 17th, 2004 at 3:00 pm and is filed under aa-home. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.