Welcome Back

By Michael Patrick Okeefe

My wife and I moved to Taiwan in January 2008 so that she could take care of her elderly mother.[1] Unfortunately, Mrs. Yeng passed away quite sooner than expected, leaving us to ponder the difficult question of whether to stay in Taiwan or return to the U.S. On the positive side, the cost of living in Taiwan is much lower than in the U.S., and both my tai-tai and I could find work as English teachers, although at modest pay. Additionally, Taiwan has really good, inexpensive, universal health care. On the other hand, the heat, humidity, and insects were insufferable. Additionally, I was pretty much a “shut in”, as I could not qualify for a driver’s license and I could not speak enough Mandarin to communicate effectively with the natives. After much soul searching, we decided to return to the good ‘ol USA.

We flew out of the Toayuan international airport about 11 p.m. on a Friday night and arrived at LAX after a 13 hour, economy class, flight. We were tired, disheveled, grumpy, and probably a bit stinky. After getting off the plane, we waited for about 30 to 45 minutes for our first customs check. The customs officer was courteous, although the process was quite tedious. He asked many questions and examined our documents in detail. We cleared the first customs check and proceeded to the baggage claim area. Following another 45 minute wait, we collected our luggage and got in another line for another customs check -- another 45 minutes. The officer at the second checkpoint made sure we were not bringing any food into the country and asked us some questions about our bags. We then shoved our bags on a conveyor belt and once more got in line. This line also took about 45 minutes. At the end, we were greeted by a third customs officer, who allowed us to claim our luggage after checking our bags against our passports and claim ticket. 3 to 3.5 hours later, we stumbled out into the “main” body of the airport with a crush of other exhausted and scruffy passengers.

Our return to the U.S. was a huge contrast to our arrival in Taiwan. In Taiwan, a U.S. passport is the gold standard of personal documentation. We only had to go through one checkpoint, where the official asked my wife a few questions in Mandarin and then waived us through. All in all, it probably only took 15 to 20 minutes to walk off the plane in Taiwan and make it through their customs. Quite a difference! I was treated like a dignitary when I arrived in Taiwan and I was treated like a criminal when I returned to the U.S. Big Brother in the U.S. is not only watching, but he’s slow and none too efficient when getting folks in and out of airports.

Once we cleared customs at LAX, we started searching for our connecting flight to Texas. An LAX employee informed us that our flight was departing from several terminals away, and we could catch a bus outside. We waited for about 20 minutes. At that point, I could not take it any longer. I was tired, my back hurt, and I had been in an endless “hurry up, stand in line, and wait” mode since coming back into the country. We decided to walk.

30 to 35 minutes later, we found our way to the terminal for intra-continental airlines. We entered the building and tried to check in, only to discover that check in was by “e-ticket” only. We entered our flight information, and then our passport information, but could not retrieve our tickets. We got in line to speak to one of the clerks. When we got to the front of the line, the clerk looked up at us and said that she would “be right back”. We waited 15 minutes – and, yes, you guessed correctly, no clerk. Other customers were getting help from other attendants, seemingly randomly. Finally, my wife spoke in Mandarin to a Chinese guy who appeared to be an intra-continental employee. He helped us get our tickets and check our bags. I was once again struck by the irony of it all – my wife had to speak Mandarin to get assistance in a country where English is allegedly the official language!

To say we were “pissed” would be a gross understatement. Yet, the true fun was just about to begin. Before we were allowed to take the escalator to our connecting flight, a TSA employee checked our tickets and our passports. Including the check in at the intra-continental airlines counter, this was the 5th time our passports and tickets had been checked.

We got on the escalator and continued to the security check. Fortunately, there was no crowd, as it was about 2 to 3 a.m. We threw our bags onto the conveyor belt, but, unfortunately, we forgot to take off our shoes and remove our computers from their bags. Understand, though, we had now been up about 17 hours, and 4 of those hours had been spent fucking around in LAX. As my wife would say, “our brains did not function.” The TSA employees made me go back in line to take off my shoes. I walked through the metal screener without incident. A TSA employee performed a manual inspection of my computer case. In the meantime, though, the TSA made my wife take off her shoes and completely unload her laptop bag and purse. I was the first one through the line, and I began to collect our crap as it came down the conveyor. I was looking down, putting on my shoes, when I noticed my wife in a partitioned area, being felt up by a rather butchy female TSA employee. I could not understand what was going on, and the next thing I know, 3 TSA employees were escorting my wife to an “advanced screening device” located some distance away from the bag screening area. “What the hell is going on? What are you doing with my wife?” No one answered me. TSA would not let me go to the “advanced screening device”, but eventually let her return to collect me. My wife is a sweet woman, but at this point, her face was so red, and she was so pissed, I thought she was going to explode.

To this day, we have not been able to determine why my sweet, gentle, wife was singled out to be felt up and subjected to an “advanced screening device.” At the moment my wife walked through the metal screener, she had on a pair of pants, underwear, a bra, and a blouse. She had completely emptied her computer bag and her purse, and all of their contents had been x-rayed. We have only been able to advance three theories: (1) a lesbian TSA employee wanted to feel up my wife; (2) TSA wanted to test their “advanced screening device” on an unsuspecting human; or (3) a combination of 1 and 2.

Gosh. I have to tell you, our experience upon returning to the U.S. made my wife and I feel, well, so welcome, so well treated, so special, so -- “proud to be an American,” that we immediately began looking into moving to Switzerland. Or Luxembourg. Or Liechtenstein. Or Canada. Or Chile. Or Panama. Or Paraguay. Or . . . .

[1] For an account of these experiences, please visit zaijianhualien.blogspot.com.