There’s a tattoo of the Great Wall on his left forearm – the Chinese wonder of the world looks distended.
He’s obviously proud of his Chinese heritage but I am guessing he is either Australian-born or has lived in God’s Country for a while. He’s got that look about him – the look that commands the space around him not apologises for it.
He also caught my eye – yes, seriously – because he’s actually reading a book. How many guys these days sit in business class with a book in front of him, and not have his nose buried in some mobile device, or his ears plugged with another device?
The title also catches my eye. “I hope they serve beer in hell”. It’s by someone called Max Tucker. I am guessing it’s a bloke kind of book.
And he is clearly enjoying it – throughout the six-and-half-hour flight to Brisbane, he didn’t put the book down. Every now and then, he chuckled and once or twice, he let out loud guffaws.
Meantime, I am reading my physical book “The Registrar’s Manual for Detecting Forced Marriages”. I have stopped bringing my Kindle along on trips ever since it developed traveler fatigue – it doesn’t seem to fly well somehow and it frustrates me when it lets me down.
I am stopping over in Brisbane for one night, enroute to Cairns to moderate the first Australia-China Tourism Summit. It’s been at least a decade or more since I visited the city. Last time I was at the airport, transiting to Darwin, and I recall an Australian bloke asking me why I was travelling “up there”. He was genuinely surprised why anyone, especially an Asian, would visit the Northern Territory.
Australia’s inbound tourism is facing challenges and worst hit is Queensland, which has not recovered from its “summer of sorrow”.
The strong Aussie dollar is working against its traditional longhaul markets – Australians are forsaking their own sunshine state for sunshine in Asia.
At breakfast at the Sofitel – at which I had to pay A$29 for two hours of Internet access (just had to get that in) – I read a report in the Courier Mail that says, up to March this year, Queensland suffered a 9% downturn in international visitors. That means a 7.4% drop on revenue down to A$3.7 billion.
UK declined 12% and the US 3% and state tourism minister Ian Jarrat called Asia a “shining light”. Almost 200,000 Chinese visited Queensland in the year to March, up 29%, staying 3.5 million nights. Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Korea also performed strongly.
I can’t tell if Brisbane has changed much since my last visit. I didn’t get to see a lot. The city at night looked dark, not many people around. Shops closed. Restaurants shut. On the drive to Paddington, I saw South Bank with its twinkling lights and its theme park outline.
“It’s Monday night,” said my host, explaining the silence of the city. He showed me the flood line. On Sunday, Singapore’s Orchard Road was also flooded, after several hours of downpour.
We had dinner at a French bistro, Montrachet. It was strange walking into the place. I mean, the whole street is deserted, everything looks shut and dark but this one place is packed.
The chef’s well known, I am told. And his is one of the few places to open Mondays. In fact, he only opens weekdays and shuts weekends. Some people thought that was arrogant on his part but his reason – his staff has been with him for years and “they need a life”. Wish more employers were like him.
The food on the other plates always looks better – next time, I must try the crab soufflé with gruyere cheese which looked like it could harden arteries at first sight but my two male companions swear it is very light. I am glad blokes also talk that way about food.
At the airport, browsing through the bookstore, my heart leapt with joy. The first book I saw was, yes, “I hope they serve beer in hell”. Turns out it’s a book about one man’s drunken revelries and womanizing around the world. Blokes, booze and babes – yes, definitely my kind of book. I shall have to put my “Forced Marriages” book aside for a while.
I wonder what they serve in Cairns.
(Pictured is the view from my room at The Sebel)
