Tradition

Dae let his woman companion, Eun Mi, talk him into telling the story of how he changed airlines and got a new job. They were at the udong (noodle) restaurant in Narita airport, Tokyo, and it was a pleasant day; they had time, though the sun was setting outside a nearby window. It was a busy udong restaurant, and Dae constantly scanned for people he knew in the airlines business. Sometimes he thought he’d find the pilot of that Malaysian plane, for example, who he swore he knew, but he never did; that guy had disappeared anyway, with his entire plane.

The airport, he felt, was where cultures came together. You had the traditional, beautiful, restrictive Asian cultures, and all the people leaving them. You had the udong restaurant itself, so much healthier than, say, McDonalds. You had the sense of being at the edge of the culture, with planes taking off and up out of it every minute. When you flew up out of Narita, you could always see the Japanese islands sparkling in the sun below, but they were islands: contained, trapped, restrictive.

But here, Eun Mi was eager to hear about why he took a new job, so he told her. Eun Mi was quite beautiful; her Asian features were set off by the afternoon light and she took a lively interest in him and in things that had happened to him.

He had been chief steward on an international flight about a month ago, and there were all kinds of people on it, Americans, Europeans, Koreans, Japanese. Everyone had their own ideas, even though they knew they were in international air space. The wealthy woman in seat 11 felt like everyone should know who she was, daughter of the owner of the airline. The flight attendant, a young woman who was under Dae’s supervision, didn’t know who the wealthy woman was, and didn’t seem to care. The flight attendant gave her nuts in a bag like she gave everyone else; she handed her the bag. She didn’t use two hands or a deferential way to hand her the bag. She just gave her the nuts.

Dae heard about this later; at the time it happened, he was in the front of the plane dealing with a businessman. But the wealthy lady, daughter of the owner of the airline, was now enraged and insisting that she be served nuts on a plate, not in a bag. And she had also mentioned something about getting the flight attendant fired. She was demanding to speak to important people, even though the plane was about to take off. Dae just wanted to hide. He knew he was the next in line; soon she would be coming after him.

When she did, he defended the flight attendant. On impulse, he defended the flight attendant. He knew that he could force the flight attendant to make a deep bow of apology and serve her nuts on a plate, but he didn’t. The plane was about to take off, and the pressure was on for them to get everyone in their seats. Though the take-off was delayed, people still had to be in their seats for safety reasons. Dae decided that everyone should just receive a bag of nuts, and be grateful. If the wealthy heiress didn’t like it, she could complain later. He knew he could lose his job for this; after all, her father was the owner of the airline. But at that moment, he didn’t care. He didn’t feel like forcing everyone to bow deferentially to this monstrous woman.

Eun Mi listened intently to this story, but reacted somewhat opposite of what Dae would expect. Although he had painted the heiress as monstrous, she sympathized somewhat with the heiress, as she was, after all, defending tradition, and the right to be respected and received in a deferential way. She was also upholding the idea that this airline would maintain the deferential Asian traditions in spite of relentless modernization. And she was suspicious of the flight attendant, possibly because, in the story, Dae was defending her, taking her side, and Eun Mi was perhaps jealous. Dae couldn’t quite figure out why Eun Mi would react the way she did, but he kept telling the story.

So the heiress was complaining bitterly to Dae, while still another flight attendant was going through the safety instructions with the passengers. Tie the life preserver on, and put the oxygen mask on your face, this kind of stuff. Once the plane started going, it was all over, everyone had to just sit down, be quiet, and live through the flight, which in this case was only going to Tokyo. The woman was quite intense about it, though. Heads would roll, she would make sure of that. Now she wanted the Dae fired as well; she made that clear, and told him he was fired. She would be treated with more respect on this airline. If she wanted her nuts on a plate, she would get them.

Dae spoke for a while with the pilot. Outside, an intense monsoon rain started on the tarmac. This was probably much more dramatic for passengers who don’t fly regularly, than those who do. Dae, for example, had seen rains like this many times, and knew the pilot could fly in them perfectly well. This would not be an issue. The woman continued to harp at him, and he was near her seat; he now wanted to sit down as the plane was slowly moving into position to take off. It would be a huge ordeal to thwart the takeoff, and do as she demanded: go back, and fire the flight attendant and Dae, and start the flight over. But that’s what she demanded, and now she was working on the pilot.

The pilot talked Dae into taking the flight attendant to her seat, bowing, and offering an apology. They did, but it was quick, and she interpreted it as insincere, which it was. They were thinking about the next step, which was taking off. She, the wealthy woman, was thinking that the entire reputation of her airline came down to this quick, shallow apology. She became even more infuriated and this time went straight to the pilot’s cabin. They didn’t stop her.

The plane was delayed on the tarmac while the pilot dealt with her, and they could hear her insistent voice over the engine noises. Finally, the pilot relented, and the plane turned around, and went back to the gate, where the pilot, Dae, the flight attendant, the woman and a few other people got out of the plane and went up into the gate. If I’m going to get fired, thought Dae, let her do it in the gate, in front of everyone. In the gate, she was again the daughter of the owner; everyone there knew her much better. But Dae knew some of them too; as an airline employee he had worked with all of them at one time or another. Someone assured Dae that it wasn’t over yet. In fact, right as Dae waited, to see what would come next, the woman was now arrested, on the grounds that it was illegal to stop a plane that was already on its way on the tarmac. Dae was surprised at this; he certainly hadn’t demanded her arrest. Dae kept his head down. The heiress screamed and complained loudly at the police. But the police, three young men, stuck to their orders. People who disrupted a plane in its takeoff mode were endangering hundreds of airline passengers, and were to be arrested. It was that simple. They put her in handcuffs and took her away; she shouted her protest at every step.

At the trial she was contrite, wearing prison garb, and she actually had to serve time, in spite of her family’s money and influence. Somebody somewhere was quite strict about people disrupting a plane’s takeoff procedure, and there wasn’t much room in the law to slap her wrist and let her go. Dae, by this time, had gotten a job at another airline; he didn’t want to keep dealing with her or her father, who would ultimately get him back in some way or another. At the trial, however, he learned that the father also had resigned his post, in shame.

Dae let it be known that he didn’t call in the police. He was not a vengeful person, and never wanted to see another’s life ruined. He and the pilot may have known that the police would get involved. He and the pilot may have known that turning around the plane would make everyone a little late, and wouldn’t truly endanger anyone, but would attract the attention of the police. He and the pilot may have known, also, that the pilot really was not too put out by the rainy weather, or the reversal, or the driving back to the gate.

Eun-Mi’s jaw was set in an unbelieving position, but Dae really didn’t know much more about what happened to the wealthy woman or her father, or how it could be that the owner’s daughter could end up in jail, and the father disgraced, over a bag of nuts. It was one of the bigger scandals to rock the airline world, but Dae tried to keep it quiet, generally, and he was grateful that he was still working anywhere at all. Eun-Mi was so taken aback that she was quiet for almost a minute. And right in that minute, Dae saw the flight attendant whom he had defended. He called her over and introduced her to Eun-Mi. Eun-Mi flushed and became embarrassed. Dae could sense that Eun-Mi was embarrassed, if only because she had just spoken of the woman, albeit without any idea that she would ever meet her. Now, here she was, in front of them, at the udong restaurant.

She was embarrassed to see him, and said she believed she had been responsible for his losing his job. No, he told her, he’d changed jobs of his own accord; the  wealthy woman, having been arrested, had not been able to ensure that he’d get fired first.

The flight attendant, young and pretty, with a western air about her, had quit that day as well, she said. But it had nothing to do with the incident; it was because she had recently married the pilot. On the day that had happened, she said, the pilot had proposed to her. She had no strong memory of what had happened at all, being euphoric from the proposal, and would have gladly bowed a hundred times if he had asked her. But she had appreciated the way he had defended her. And now she too became embarrassed, and bowed several times to Eun-Mi. She was pregnant, she said. She would meet the pilot here in Narita, and he would be waiting for her. The pilot, too, wanted as little attention possible drawn to his own situation. 

Eun-Mi used her chopsticks to play with her last noodle until it disintegrated. The woman, still embarrassed, made a quick bow and went on her way.

3-9-2015