Bring It All Back To MFM

i have a little phobia flying to macau.

back during line training, i used to do many macau flights. well, suffice to say, it wasn't pleasant. i was new and still learning. it was training, and expectations were high. plus, it was waaaayyyy over there over the sea, and many borders later, far away from my comfort zone of malaysia, a new route, new procedures, and so foreign to me.

no matter how much preparation, i could not even slightly imagine what to expect for my first time there.

so when i was called to be an extra crew for a training flight to macau recently, i had all the flashbacks of when i was in training. it made me queasy. it reminded me of the sleepless nights, the unanswerable questions that i had perfectly logical explanations just prior to it being asked, and the confusion of simplest procedures. it was scary. i felt like i was under training again.

but there was also a very funny incident on my first flight to macau that i will never forget, and even sometimes laugh to myself when i think about it. see standard aviation language is english. the standardization is important so other aircrafts in the vicinity knows what's going on, or where they are and what they are doing. it builds situational awareness.

so the first time i entered china airspace, not only was i bewildered by their accent, but also by the fact that they spoke mandArin to each other. hell my mandArin sucks, but i know mandArin when i hear it!

i remembered turning to my captain with a confused face of a person akin to seeing flying pigs and commenting,

" they're speaking chinese?! "

he laughed. i did not.

well at least now i do. especially when i hear them say,

"radar kan tao le".

i always let out a little chuckle hearing them say that. east meets west.

*******

"no furniture was so charming as books,

someone famously said.

people simply buy more books than they can read.

in the same breath,

humankind writes more than it can read. "

-something i read in NST today-