china eastern airline does not offer online seat selection?

I've just gone through china eastern airline office web page and found no where to pre-select the seats(both english & chinese sites), however, I saw a chinese announcement on one of the bulletin board that said their seat selection is open and please ask your agency to book your seats. And another place is read that currently seat pre-selection are only open to the planes originated from China, HK, and Taiwan, and the seat selection could be done when registering online boarding on their web page.

well, I booked my tickets thru kayak as I am in USA. kayak doesn't seem to have seat booking service for china eastern airline, they do have it for some other airlines.

I then called California Rep. of China Eastern Airline. The line was always busy. After several tries, finally got to talk with a lady but she was kind of inpatient and not friendly, perhaps because of my chinese accent??

I told Ms.china eastern airline that I was looking at the 'seatguru' and gave her my preferences but she said there was no such seat number. I don't know if the seatguru does not offer correct information or the lady was not looking at the right info. I asked her then please pick 2 seats next to aisle, preferred if could, not too close to galley and not close to toilet, she gave me a set of number. There were some confusions and I asked a few questions. At some point, she stopped responding me and sounded she was on phone with another customer (as I heard the talking). I hello and hello, then the phone was hung up! I am not sure whether she reserved my seats or not (2 px).

It's quite confusing that I told her I will change plane in Shanghai then to BKK, she insists the seat number is used all the way through my journey, but the aircraft is airbus A330-200 vs Boeing 737-800, isn't that strange to use same seat number? I guess I will just confirm it when check in at the airport. What a service! I don't know why China Eastern Airline makes themselves troubles....why not make online seat selection easy...

Though some reviews on tripadvisor mentioned Los Angeles Representative of china eastern airline is quick and nice I do not agree personally. However, it's probably a random bad experience with someone who's just not in the mood treating the client with politeness. I will try to avoid taking china eastern airline....well, for now, let's see how my in flight experiences are later on.

[update: I called after hour line to the service center located in Shanghai. The lady speaking chinese was somewhat helpful and I was able to reserve the seats. The seats next to the aisle for airbus and boeing are different numbers. I was also able to book the seats for the return flights. The problem is, the lady kept saying when I asked the preference of a seat not close to galley and not close to the toilet, she said the seat map she had in front of her did not show the location of galley nor toilet so she could not confirm my requests?! I accepted the seats she assigned to me as I was looking seatguru and hopefully it turned out alright. A complaint of my afternoon experience with USA service center was made to the customer complaint department...however, it seems they have pre-recorded system for apology as I heard repeat apology during the whole talk. There's actually someone real there but she did not need to say much, at least, to me, it sounded that the apology with the explanation is pre-recorded and added with the real person's short greeting & apology. funny feeling~ ]