On the second day of Cathay – enter the dragon

Chapter Three

Chapter Three

We arrived Beijing at about 5pm. If there was anything I craved for at that instant, it was a soft bed with warm duvet. It didn’t look like that was going to happen anytime soon, as we had the immigrations and customs clearance to contend with.

The airport terminal itself was an architectural masterpiece, impressive not only in grandiosity, but also in cleanliness and organization.

The health checks and passport checks were done with self-service machines located in good numbers around the arrival hall. There was no one to assist the usual suspects. Most of those who darted left and right in confusion were-you guessed it, blacks. They asked questions that the machines had already given them instructions on. Audio instructions in English for that matter, yet they rummaged through their carry-on bags for information that was on the ticket in their pocket.

In order to get past the access control points, each passenger had to scan their passports before it opened automatically. The Chinese used technology to their advantage.

When we got past the immigration checks where we completed biometrics and answered a few basic questions, we joined an in-airport train service to claim our baggage before leaving the airport into the welcoming hands of the super power from the East.

Beijing is indeed an eclectic and ultra-modern city. Beautiful in its own right, almost silent except for the whooshing noise that the tires of the hundreds of electric cars made as they drove through immaculately tarred asphalt roads. The roads were wide and lined in white and yellow paint as though a canvas of contrasting threads.

Nothing could ever prepare anyone from Africa for the sight of this city. The building looked like they were drawn out of the pages of a magazine even while you looked at it in right in front of you.

Of course, the streetlights worked, and the traffic lights managed what could have been a chaotic traffic in Lagos Nigeria. Surely everything worked here. The roads were lined on either side and in the median with lush green trees, shrubs and grasses. Green parks dotted several expanses of the city even in fading sunlight, the city stood tall as a classic case for urban developers.

I asked myself, isn’t it for a city like this that Nigerian universities offered urban and regional courses for four straight years?

Writing in progress