Babel

On a flight to Tokyo, I was rereading a favorite and important book to me, Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. At its core is the story of Babel, and how humans lost their universal tongue — forevermore to be separated from each other by all the languages of the world.​

Toward the end of this flight, the elderly Chinese couple next to me became concerned they wouldn’t make their connecting flight and sought help from the attendants — not one of which spoke Mandarin. This seemed odd for a Japanese airline with so many Chinese travelers, and I’d heard them speak a variety of European languages. The attendants solicited help, in English, from a Korean couple near us who knew enough English and Mandarin to be useful. I listened and also helped by writing helpful numerals on the Chinese travelers’ boarding passes. At the peak of this, I was surrounded by a circle of flight attendants and passengers gesturing and babbling and looking confused, frantically trying to communicate simple matters in a multitude of languages.

And then I went back to my book.