Flying to/from Xiamen, China

It appears that Xiamen Airlines is trying to get their foot in the door in the international travel business. I just left Vietnam for Dallas going through Xiamen on Thursday morning Vietnam time.

Xiamen airport was like a puzzle with no instructions. Thank God I had a ten-hour layover because I needed it. Every step I took, every turn I made was a guess as there are almost no signs written in English to tell me any different. I finally adopted a strategy of "if you don't know what to do, try something". When I did something wrong, someone in a uniform would stop me and send me on the correct path.

Xiamen is the first major airport I've ever transited that has no provisions for handling connecting flights. Everyone that connects through Xiamen is processed through to the public area, with free access to the city. That means everyone gets a short-term visa of 11 days or so. That doesn't sound too bad on the surface but it is highly invasive. I had to fill out two forms with all sorts of personal information which included:
Name
Address
DOB
Phone number
email address
That was just the start - next came copies of my passport, a photo of me, and scans of my finger and thumb prints. I'm sure I am in some Chinese database in perpetuity now.

The puzzle got worse after that. I wandered around the airport trying to find my connecting flight. I did find one sign that mentioned security check. I knew one of those was in my future so I went that direction. When I got there, a Chinese girl told me I needed a boarding pass and I was to go back downstairs. I found an area with dozens of counters and hundreds of people busy getting boarding passes. I got into a line with five switchbacks, each 40 yards long. When I finally got to a counter the person at the desk summoned someone who spoke English. I was told to go back to a corridor near area 4 (I was at area 8).
Sure enough, this obscure, unmarked, corridor led to the international processing area. I got my boarding pass and proceeded to a very thorough TSA-type inspection. With boarding pass in hand replete with gate and time printed in English, I was home free.

Communication issues aside, the airport is very nice. All of the staff and attendants were very well dressed and very polite. I did get a disapproving look from one of the military types. I suppose it was because of my shorts and sandals, which didn't seem to meet the standards of most everyone else. A lot of the Chinese children looked at me like I was from another planet. I suppose there haven't been enough Caucasians go through the airport yet to become commonplace.

There wasn't much doubt I was headed to LA. A bunch of LA crazies came to that gate to demonstrate their insanity. Some freak dressed in a shawl and a guitar walked around the waiting area serenading the hapless inmates of gate 17 while a group of girls was doing cartwheels and aerobics in another area.