After completing some procedures, airline staff guide passengers to the lounge area in the airport. Here, it is divided into 2 separate areas, one serving Asian dishes, and one serving European dishes. In addition to the dining area, there is also a sofa area for guests to rest, a bath area with full of towels, shower gel, skin care cosmetics...
The most impressive thing to me is that right at the entrance to each area, there is a small shelf displaying fashion and economic magazines. Each book bears traces of being held and read many times, the cover is slightly wrinkled, and the edge of the paper is slightly curved. Inside, in the sofa area, there is a shelf for some large-format newspapers, in many languages, still smelling of paper and ink. In particular, this newspaper shelf is located right below the electronic board announcing flights, so everyone can see it. That scene makes people imagine the image of a businessman wearing a vest, carrying a leather briefcase, transiting at an international airport in a movie. Before choosing a seat to wait for the flight time, the businessman stands watching the flight time announcement board, then bows down to get a newspaper, goes to the seat, leisurely opens the near-bottom page to read world news... But that is just an image somewhere in the movie or from many years ago.
And now, at the airport on weekends, after dinner, stepping into the rest area, not many passengers hold a newspaper, even before returning to their seats, they all stand in front of the LED screen reading flight information. The newspapers just quietly lie neatly on the shelves, while passengers are still diligently watching everything on their phones. Occasionally, someone holds a thick book, taking advantage of reading while waiting for the plane.
Late afternoon sunlight shines through the glass door, directly into the waiting room, reaching the platform to signal, so that place receives the most light. Every passenger passes through that place to enter the waiting room, go to the lobby or go to the boarding gate. Everyone's eyes look at the LED screen to find their flight and that's all. The flight changes, the time at the airport increases, everyone returns to the waiting area and holds the phone again. Each hour slowly passes. At 2 am, the waiting room staff invite passengers to go outside and return at 5 am if it is still not time to fly and there is a need.
At about 7 am, when passengers were having breakfast after a few hours of commuting, sleeping on chairs around the aircraft doors, a company employee leisurely collected all the newspapers from the previous day on the shelf and replaced them with new newspapers, still smelling of paper and ink.
With old newspapers, he carefully arranged them neatly in the cabinet below and placed the newly issued newspapers in rows on the shelf... A woman stepped out of the food stall area, one hand holding a plate of salad, one hand taking the Sunday Morning Post and then returning to her desk, both having breakfast and reading the newspaper.
The image of the employee cherishing each newspaper and the way the female passenger reads the paper newspaper made the journalists stunned for a second. A very strange emotion rushed in, both happy and touched but also a little sad. That emotion was like a whisper: Tomorrow when going to work, coming to the editorial office, you must cherish each newspaper, whether it is the issue published last month, last week or today...
Paper newspapers still have a certain place. That place is in the hearts of every journalist and especially in the hearts of many readers.
