The first thing I notice after walking onto the aircraft are the flight attendants, for the simple reason that they seem to be from a completely different flight attendant universe as the ones on the Asian carriers. Essentially all my flights since the time I moved to Shanghai had been on Asian airlines (ANA, Singapore, and all the crappy Chinese ones). The profound differences in the composition and delivery of the service staff are good illustrations of some key cultural differences between the U.S. and its Eastern counterparts. Allow me to share my thoughts…
First of all, the attendants on the United flight are not exactly bursting with energy. This could be attributed to the boomer and post-boomer age segment to which most of them belong. It is nothing like walking onto a Shanghai Airlines flight, for instance, where I’m usually greeted by doe-eyed schoogirl-ish attendants who seem to have been plucked straight from the make-up counter at Parkson’s.
Unlike the U.S., where once narrow definitions of traditional occupations have broadened as principles of equal opportunity and anti-discrimination have strengthened, the act of discriminating towards attractive young women in jobs that essentially provide a service to businessmen (see hotel staff, administrative assistants, and travel agents) is accepted as a given. China remains a highly patriarchal culture, and stripping away the eye-candy that buttresses this aspect of the airlines business would be quite a shock to the system.
Physical attractiveness, however important in this system, does not complete it. There’s also the issue of attitude and behavior. In the U.S., I tend to feel that flight attendants are there to do a job. Clock in, follow protocol, don’t mess up. Passengers, after all, are just-folks. There is no difference between the attendant and the guy sitting in the seat. The individualism that is a hallmark of American culture is just as prominent miles up in the air.
Attendants on Asian airlines, however, are there not only to do their job, but to fill a role. It is a caretaker role that calls for sweetness and passivity, the latter of which hardly makes an appearance on my flight to S.F.. I get a whiff of this right off the bat, as my 50+ year old flight attendant glumly goes through the emergency demonstration while smacking me in the head with her demo oxygen mask. Of course, she never apologizes, never smiles, and appears to just want to “get this shit over with.” There are a more than a few passengers on this flight who don’t appear to speak English. This seems to drive some of the flight attendants bonkers after two attempts to communicate, and they either resort to flustered hand gestures or simply walk away. I’ve been living in China for more than three years, and I’m a dude, so yes, I admit that I’ve become quite accustomed to people catering to me. Being treated like shit on a flight is not one of the things that I particularly miss about living in the U.S..
As we begin our descent, two flight attendants get seated directly across from me in the emergency exit row. They start chatting about the Super Bowl, about their upcoming schedules, about how much rest they got the previous night. The man next to me asks them about tail-winds, and then the three of them somehow end up chatting about Yogi Berra, of all people. Seems that one of the attendants had Berra as one of her passengers. The conversation is light, friendly, and the looks on their faces was a far cry from the solemnity with which I got bonked on the head by the oxygen mask. I’m then reminded of how, when we Americans are outside of our actual workspace, we actually can be really friendly with other people we’ve never met before. There’s a openness and a courtesy that we give other people, a sense of a proper way to treat other people. And that indeed is something that I miss very much about the living in the U.S..
