Eric's Beijing Diary

Yesterday afternoon when I got to the train station, I was trying to find the right line for my train. I talked to several people to see which train they were getting on. I was kinda wondering if there was some special part of the train I should go to. A lady noticed my predicament and asked me to follow her. Turns out she had a hard seat ticket, so in her case, the car was specified on her ticket. We went to her car, and she promptly put me in her seat. Then she managed to find a place to sit nearby. By doing this, she managed to secure seats for both of us. Saved me a lot of trouble, because I had a "no seat" ticket, and I might have ended up standing most of the way otherwise. That little bit of human kindness meant that I have been able to sit most of the trip.

It's hard to describe what this is like. All the seats are full, and the "no seat" passengers are crammed in the aisles. And this train is the "man che." A trip like this takes about 12 hours or so on the fast train. This one, I am told, will be 20. Probably a good thing I didn't know that when I bought the ticket. I might not have had the courage, although I have talked to students who have done this for 48 hours going to Xinjiang. I should at least be able to do 20.

I have been on the train now since 3:30 yesterday afternoon, so I have another six hours or so. I don't know...perhaps I should have just called the Software College and had then wire me some money. After all, I'm not doing this to save money. I'm only doing it because I don't have access to ready cash. What can I say? Perhaps things like this happen to encourage me to do something that might give me some insight into the way average people in China live. Something I might consider good to do, but would never get around to. You know, there are some things that we just don't do unless we have to. I think this is one of them.

The slow train is so called because it is relegated to last place in line. It is the train that stops to let the others go by. In this respect, it reminds me of my nightmare journey through California on Amtrak a couple years ago. But in every other respect, this train takes me back to my childhood in northern Japan. Many, many times I rode the slow train. The "donko," they used to call it. Sometimes it got pretty crowded, too. But the difference was that we were usually not on it for more than a few hours at a time. We went to the boarding school on Tuesday on the fast train, and came back on Saturday afternoon on the slow train. It took about three-and-a-half hours to travel about 60 miles. For awhile, when we lived in Honjo, which was closer to the boarding school, I took the train every day. I was in fifth grade then, but I managed to make friends with some high school students. When I got off the train in the morning, they would say, "Meet us in the third car from the end this afternoon." In the afternoon, I would board the train at a little after four, for the one-hour ride to Honjo. I don't remember that as being a miserable experience at all. But it usually wasn't that crowded, and it didn't last that long. The trains were smokier, because they were pulled by coal-fired steam engine locomotives. But I don't remember them being unpleasant. When I got near Honjo, I would go to the area between the train cars, stand on the outside step (the doors were never locked, and were usually left wide open), and watch the platform approach from a distance. As the train was slowing to a stop, I would try to be the first one off the train, jumping off while the train was still moving, as I had seen the businessmen do. A couple times I jumped off a little too early and almost did a cartwheel.

Now, here I am back in Car Number Three. But China is a much bigger country than Japan. The distances are far greater. This train is not as smoky, because the engine is diesel. But it is very, very crowded. This time, it is probably due to the October holiday. I mean, ordinarily, the "hard seat" car would not have all these standing passengers. Makes it tough for them, but also for everyone else. Wall to wall people. It's not all bad--the train windows can be opened manually, so there is always plenty of fresh air. They also serve as the waste basket for everyone. Everything that is not needed is immediately tossed out the window. The country boy sitting across from me, who is wearing a shirt that says, "Persue the Parson's Beutifulhood," sat down with his stuff, took the foodstuffs he had bought for the trip out of their bag and promptly pushed the bag through the open window. Every time he finishes a bottle or something, he tosses it out. China is a big country, right?

But the main problem, really, is that moving is just about impossible. Last night, I was getting a little stir crazy, and talked a few students into going with me to the dining car. We are in the third car, and the dining car is Number Nine. It was an unbelievable experience. Several people were standing, but others were squatting, or even lying on the floor. It took quite awhile to traverse the six cars to the dining car, and when we got there, we discovered that the regular meal time was over. I had planned for us to by two or three dishes, and then share the cost. But it was not to be. The only option was for us to buy lunch kits, which were 25RMB each. I knew the students would not want to pay this much, so I suggested that we buy a couple and split them. But the big mama running the dining car put thumbs down to that idea. If four people want to sit, they need to buy four lunch kits. So, we decided to leave. But we didn't want to crawl over all those people again, so we waited until the train stopped at the next station, and then walked back on the platform, along with two more students we picked up in the dining car.

Just going to the bathroom is a real chore. You have to somehow weave your way through the crowd of people, then wait in line until everyone else who had the same idea is through. The bathroom is very small, but there is enough room to turn around. But there are lots of people who want to use it. They go in in pairs, especially the women. When it was my turn, another guy forced his way in with me and started doing his thing. What could I do? I let him go first. I don't want to give the wrong impression, now. He was really nice about it and everything. Still, should there not be some moment in a persons life that is truly private? By the way, that reminds me. If you ever do a run like this, wear boots. Don't do this in sandals. Believe it or not, though, I have seen women wearing sandals on this train. Why would they do that? Women in China posses an extraordinary sense of humanity. How can they manage to be so lady-like in such a profoundly unwomanly world? They always roll up their pant legs when they go to the bathroom, and I don't see that many of them wearing dresses, but their determination to maintain their humanity in a cattle car like this is impressive.

But I have to be careful, now. I call this the "cattle car," as an expression of what it is like, but don't get a picture in your mind of a bunch of people (like the Jews in Hitler's Germany) scrunched together with no food or water. That's not what this is like. There is plenty of food. Every once in awhile, a guy forces his way down the aisle with a small cart of stuff for sale cheap. And then there are always the platform vendors who will sell you stuff through the window. In some respects, this arrangement is ingenious, because it allows very large numbers of people to travel at a rate that is very very inexpensive (about 10 US dollars for the trip from Suzhou to Beijing). But if you are given to claustrophobia, I really don't recommend it. When people get off the train, they don't take their luggage with them. They can't. They get off themselves, then come back along the side of the train and have other passengers hand their luggage through the window. I don't have to worry about getting off, because I am going to Beijing, where the train terminates. But I have wormed my way through the crowd and gotten off several times anyway, because I need to stretch my legs once in awhile. Anything to keep from doing a Joey ("I don't want to be here!").