LETTER FROM Beijing

Before Covid-19, Evan Naudé flew the long way around to Mongolia. In China, he discovered yet again that when you have to spend a few hours in an airport, there are few things as entertaining as people-watching.

Iflew out of Cape Town last night and spent this morning staring at shelves of expensive cigarettes, whiskeys and designer perfumes in Dubai International Airport. Now it’s late afternoon and I’m in China, waiting for another flight – my final flight – which will take me to Mongolia. If you want to travel on the cheap, you take the long way around. It’s a challenge to stay awake, waiting in one airport after another. You become so jetlagged that you stumble like a zombie from one queue to the next with your passport in hand. You’re awake, but only just.

I’m in a restaurant on the second floor of Beijing Capital International Airport and I order a black coffee. I try to read a book, but it makes me even sleepier. The Wi-Fi is free but it doesn’t work very well. The waiter says it’s because thousands of people try to WeChat, Renren (the Chinese equivalent of Facebook) or #whatever at the same time. It’s true: When I look down at the heaving mass of humanity on the floor below, almost every face is bathed in the glow of a cellphone screen. Few things are as entertaining as people-watching, especially in an unfamiliar place. It’s my first time in Asia and every scene that catches my eye seems to be a slice of life from a particular place and time, but without context.

It’s like looking at photos in a stranger’s photo album – you make up your own backstory for every snapshot.

Some things you notice purely because that thing is different to what you know at home – the weird things you’ll tell your friends about later. For example, every water