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| Photo by Kevin Lynch |
_ foreword _
There are good days and bad days abroad; that’s neither
China- nor Peace Corps-specific. Once the reality of actually living in a
foreign environment sets in and the honeymoon wears off, certain factors or challenges can
really affect the way in which we digest the culture of our host country. It’s from a backless foldout seat on a particularly lurchy train ride that I
compose today’s entry with a real pen on real paper, much to the delight of
every Chinese person within a 5-meter radius from where I now sit, and today... today is a bad day.
Thankfully, the “for-my-eyes-only” brand of cursive I employ
for public displays of writing is as alien to them as 99% of Chinese characters
are to me – so this entry will remain just between you and me. Today’s train
ride could’ve been like any other, but sadly I find the patches of raised,
inflamed, and blistered skin on my torso (which, if I didn’t know any better,
had in the past 24 hours fallen victim to 47 bee stings all at once) difficult
to ignore. Incidentally, the smattering of itching, stinging, oozing rashes
wrapping around my ribcage have given rise to a sort of elevated awareness of
exactly what it means to be aboard a train in China, an experience which I’m
delighted to share with you today. And, as they say (or do they?) through
trials of great suffering emerge great artwork. A timely case of the shingles
seems appropriate, and I'm weathering it in one of my least-favorite settings in China, no less… so let’s see if I can deliver.
- - -
I think we, the foreigners, all learn a lot on China trains…
a lot about this country, and a lot about ourselves. Kind of like a multi-day
hiking trip where you’re like, “I had no idea so many interesting flowers
existed on the other side of that mountain!” and “I really feel of stronger
body and mind after that experience” but also “I never want to relive any part
of that unless it’s absolutely goddamn necessary to keep the Earth spinning.”
Bearing that in mind, let’s start from the beginning: The
station. Imagine, for a moment, the most crowded place you’ve ever been. Double
the number of people. Now, the 5 foot tall elderly woman with seven teeth standing
next to you in line for tickets is hawking a giant loogie, the four grown men
in front of you keep saying “foreigner” in audible Chinese, then looking back
and giggling, and the pack of teenagers in an adjacent line are borderline shouting “HELLO!” repeatedly while snapping cell phone pictures of you to post on social
media.
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| Shaky shot of the view approaching the train station in Guiyang, Guizhou. |
You have no escape, so you grin and bear it (or ham it up –
your choice) for 20-40 minutes in line. You reach the front, where the ticket
seller on the other side of the glass – who definitely hates her job and who
acts as though she’s been on the clock for 17 hours – barks at you in Chinese
through a crackly speaker… this obstacle, you didn’t cover in language
classes. Luckily (this time) you catch enough key words to communicate with the
minimum efficiency needed to get by. Meanwhile, the formerly 2nd, 3rd,
and 4th people in line have become the 1.1st, 1.2nd, and 1.3rd people in line, as they’re now flanking you on all sides. One man is grinning
from ear to ear, simultaneously pleased with and entertained by your pathetic
attempts at speaking Chinese. Another woman in heels, a black tutu-style miniskirt,
and a puffy down jacket with lace has her elbow lodged into your hip and her
face is fixed in a scowl. To show your discomfort, you take a half step to the side and twist slightly
away from her elbow. She immediately moves to occupy the 6 inches you just
gave her, and now pushes a bit harder with said elbow. Well played, well played.
At last you emerge, ticket in hand, fumbling with a wad of
change and receipts, to make way for the departure gate. The security guards
are largely disinterested in you, although you notice one nod to her friend and
say (in Chinese), “Hey, try out your English!” followed by the usual snickers.
The first guard glances at your passport, stamps your ticket, and thrusts the
pair back at you. You politely say “xie xie” (thank you) but he ignores you and
reaches for the next passenger’s documents.
You enter security, throw all of your belongings onto a
conveyor belt, and step onto a platform to get wanded by a guard. She moves you
along and you clamber to the other side of the belt to scoop up your things
before they roll off the ramp and onto the ground. Hard part’s over.
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| This is what happens when there are weather delays for 3 hours. |
Once in the station, you hear echoes of the prerecorded
voice announcing departures, arrivals, and delays in perfect Mandarin Chinese…
something you don’t get to hear very often in your dialect-heavy region, and
something which you understand quite easily. “Thank God,” you think, “I haven’t
completely forgotten this language.” You learn the location of your departure
gate, your pride for successful language acquisition swelling, and set off. The
station continues to swarm with people, though there’s enough space now to feel
your “bubble” recovering. You meander through the crowd to find a seat near
your gate, but all of the seats are taken. Not entirely by people, but also by
bags.
This phenomenon of bags in chairs, despite 100+ people
standing around and shifting in discomfort, infuriated you at first. However,
you’ve seen enough spitting, cigarette ashing, and children defecating to know
it’s probably for the best. This is also a major factor as to why the Chinese
never sit on the ground – EVER – and also why you’ve became a pro at the “China
Squat” when your standing muscles need a break. Still, you wonder why some
folks can’t simply hold their bags to free up a seat, or make an exception just
this once to help a stranger with a 50 pound backpack… but, you think with a
sigh, that’s just not the way things work around here.
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| The China Squat in action. |
The intercom interrupts your thoughts to announce that your
train is boarding, and suddenly, it’s like someone yelled “FIRE!” In a flash,
everyone – with luggage, babies, and giant bags of potatoes in tow – is bolting
for the gate. You’re swept into the fray and feel like you’re back in the mosh
at Warped Tour 2007. You try to be cordial, but each time you try to give
someone space or hesitate for even a moment, seven people cut in front of you.
This becomes an even heavier moral dilemma when the AARP-aged crowd seem to be the
most aggressive. Finally reaching the front, you box-out someone’s grandpa and
shoulder past a family of four to hand your ticket to the guard. She punches
out a corner and you pop from the throng like a champagne cork.
You take five swift, powerful strides and nearly trample
the person in front of you. It’s one of the 70-year-olds… you still feel the
dull ache in your hip from where she elbowed you about 2.5 minutes ago. She’s
not walking slow, but her pace could hardly be considered brisk. In fact,
despite the chaos from before, nobody seems to be in a hurry anymore, and
you’re left stumped as you shift gears to a comfortably-quick pace and easily
overtake more than half the crowd who so ruthlessly shoved their way to the
front before.
You’re above the tracks now, breezing over a sky walk, then down
a flight of stairs, following signs for your train and car number. You find
your car and hop on. If you’re putting in a lot of miles and thus have secured
yourself a sleeper, you’re in luck. Most folks don’t have time to notice you as
you speed down the aisle past bunks stacked 3-high. You find your bunk number,
toss your luggage in the overhead bin, hold your breath, and look at your ticket to double-check your bed
assignment. Will it be 下铺 lower, 中铺 middle, or 上铺 upper bed?
Personal preference will dictate each individual’s attitude
toward the pros and cons of each bed, but in a nutshell:
• The 上铺 upper bed affords you the most
privacy, although too much, in my opinion. For anyone over 6 feet tall, the
1-meter of clearance, after struggling up the 7-foot tiny ladder, isn’t exactly
comfortable. And for someone who lets his water consumption go haywire during
train travel, getting up to pee more than once at night isn’t worth climbing Everest to get back to bed.
• The 中铺 middle bunk is considered by most to
be the best of the three. It offers more clearance than the top bunk (You can
actually sit up? Weird.) and it’s far easier to get in an out of… no tiny
ladders required. It’s the happy medium that many opt for when the choice is
available.
• The 下铺 bottom bed is
where my allegiance lies. Granted, there’s a massive downside to the lowest bunk in
that, during daylight hours, it’s treated like a park bench. So, any Western
notions of “my money, my bed” need to be left on the train platform where they
belong. In the event that you’ve landed a 下铺, it’s not
unusual to arrive at your bed to find 1-3 Chinese people already sitting on it. Maybe
one is leaning all the way back to the wall and one may even have her feet up
(shoes off, of course). If it’s your first time, you might gasp in horror at
the sheer rudeness of the act… but
really, it’s just business as usual. And it’s for this reason that most
foreigners avoid the 下铺 at all costs,
but I happen to be the kind of guy who likes to swing his legs out of bed and
hit solid ground. Plus, the 下铺 has the most
clearance and makes for the most comfortable writing/reading/phone-playing,
even if you’re sharing that space with other people.
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| Panoramic of a sleeper car. |
On the other hand, for shorter distances (or very unlucky
long distances at peak travel times during the year), you’ll enjoy the many
luxuries of a “hard seat.” Rewind to the cork-from-the-champagne-bottle moment. Now, you step on the train and turn the corner to see 100+ people crammed into a
single train car. Because the seats are bench-style and face one another, half
of the train can (and does) see you immediately. That number soon climbs to 3/4
of the train, after they tell their friends to have a look. So you smile, look ahead, and swim to your seat. Swim, you say? Yes… swim… because with a cluster
of people and baggage blocking the center aisle coupled with the heat and humidity resulting from too many people in too small of a space, it just wouldn’t do to use any
other verb.
You roll the dice and look at your number. What is it this
time – window, aisle, or center seat? Always, always, pray for the window. It provides a view, VIP access to the
tiny table between the two facing rows, and your single hope for a nap during
the ride. The other options, you say? The middle isn’t terrible, if you don’t
value having a single inch of personal space. And the aisle, well… if there’s
any human (besides Chinese humans, obviously, who appear to be immune) who can
peacefully succumb to being routinely bumped by passerby, having their
feet run over by the snack cart, and the occasional ass-to-face encounters from
standing-only ticket holders, well, I applaud you. You have won China.
Travelers pass the time by chit-chatting, napping (See Fig. B), munching on sunflower seeds, staring blankly out the window (or intently and relentlessly at the foreigner - See Fig. A), but the vast majority watch Chinese television or movies on their smart phones. Smoking is allowed, but only at the front and back of each car. This works well if you’re seated in the middle; not so well if you’re anywhere else. The restrooms, like most public restrooms in China, are squat toilets only, and the cleanliness of said restrooms is directly related to how long the train has been in motion. Needless to say, it’s never pretty to board a train that started in Beijing. There are no open container laws anywhere in China, so drinking on trains is normal. In each car (seats or sleepers) there is, on average, one group of young, rowdy Chinese people, usually men, playing drinking games. Luck of the draw dictates whether a salesman is on board your car, peddling things like milk-flavored pro-health lozenges, fingernail clippers, and light-up spinning tops for kids. They’re performers above all-else, and typically elicit a lot of laughs from anyone paying enough attention.
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| My bad if I incorrectly implied that only the Chinese like to drink on trains. Photo by Kevin Lynch |
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| Figure B. Lucky passenger takes advantage of an open seat in a creative way. |
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| Figure A. Scowling at foreigners is an excellent way to pass the time. |
By now, you’re well aware that trains
are in no way a means of luxury travel. But, if you've known me long enough to know my middle name, you know I love a good bargain, so here's why trains are awesome: To
travel 3 hours from my city, Liupanshui, to Guiyang (the Guizhou provincial
capital), the cost is 40元. That’s the equivalent of traveling
from Chinook to Cut Bank, from Missoula to Great Falls, from Austin to Houston,
or any other 150-mile trip, for LESS THAN SEVEN DOLLARS, with steady access to a restroom, drinking water, and snacks (or booze, if
you fancy). My trips to Chengdu are 14 hours, 430 miles, with all the same
luxuries plus the option to lay down and sleep for LESS THAN 30 DOLLARS. And
let’s talk about the oh-so-new and oh-so-sexy bullet trains for a hot minute… I
can (and will, one day) take a bullet train from Guiyang to Guangzhou (Hong Kong), that’s
650 miles, in 4 hours, for a whopping 40 DOLLARS. That’s the same distance from
Bozeman to Seattle, Dallas to Albuquerque, Phoenix to Salt Lake City, or Sydney
MT to Libby MT (the Hiline in its entirety)… in only 4 hours, for $40.00, in a
nice, new train with clean bathrooms, airplane-style seats, and all the snacks
you can imagine. Can you?
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| From the inside, you wouldn't know the difference from an airplane. Reclining seats and armrests, nice bathrooms, the works. |
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| Booshy booshy bullet train. |
Relax. I’m wrapping it up now. What I’m saying is this: On
the surface, China’s public transit is less than appetizing most of the time,
but this is a country that has it figured
out. They come from poverty – which still very much exists – so the vast
majority of this incredibly inflated population has no car, and certainly not
the means to pay $50 for a 3-hour train ride to visit family or to commute for
work. So, there exists a very clever, well-established, and affordable system
to cater to the peoples’ needs. Trains go virtually everywhere and at all times
of day. Some of the $5 rides might reek like piss, shit, and cigarettes, but
those with a few more coins jingling in their pockets have the liberty of
opting for the same ride for double the price and twice the comfort.
Regardless, in contrast to America, it seems that having a
car in China is just more trouble than it’s worth, because the public
transportation is excellent. Chinese people
are both resilient and appreciative of the means they do have, which is why cramming into full seats, inhaling
second-hand cigarette smoke, or bumping elbows from time to time is of little
concern. It’s easy to take what we have for granted (like the ability to hop in our cars and drive wherever without spending an arm and a leg). That said, America's public
transportation, on the whole, is complete crap. Although, unlike China, it’s
rare to see so much actual crap on
our public transit. Also, never ask me to explain why the crowd dynamics of
China are the way they are… that conversation is a black pit of despair from whence there is no
return.
I just caught a Chinese guy close to my age taking a picture of me when he thought I wasn't looking. It's great when they forget to turn the flash off. I looked up at him, my eyebrows raised. He said "Fuck!" and put his phone down. Why he chose to swear in English instead of apologizing in Chinese, I'll never truly know. In this moment, I just don't have the fight in me to ask. I can't stop squirming and jumping from the searing, sudden pains on my chest; this ailment is zapping all my willpower, curiosity, and patience. Today... today is a bad day. But tomorrow will be better.
PS: It's been almost a week since the train ride, and the shingles are healing on schedule :)
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| The chubbiest cheeks I've ever seen on a train... or ever in my life. |
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| A rare exposé of senior citizens intentionally frustrating me. These two photos were taken at the same time at a bus stop. Top image: How many people were at the stop. Bottom image: How close this Granny decided to stand in front of me. |
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| Liupanshui Station and a partial view of the less-sexy, slower, and poorly-named "Fast Train" we usually take to get around. |
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