Eric's Beijing Diary

Well, the train finally showed up at 3am Saturday morning. I stood on that platform for three solid hours. The problem? Strange as it may seem, Amtrak has no tracks. The tracks are leased from other railroads, so freight trains always have priority. It is an absolutely appalling situation which results in a train system with a schedule which is all but completely meaningless. When John picked me up at the Maricopa station, he told me that in Germany, if a train is scheduled to arrive at 51 minutes after the hour, it comes later than 50 minutes, and earlier than 52 minutes. Schedules actually have a meaning. On Amtrak, the west bound train is often up to 10 hours late.

So what am I to make of all this? My experience on Amtrak was a nightmare from start to finish, but it was, if nothing else, a real education. I simply was not prepared for the extent to which the service has deteriorated since I rode the old Empire Builder across the West as a child. Amtrak really reminds me of many of the old, state-owned enterprises in China which are being forced to become efficient or go out of business. To my knowledge, Amtrak has never made a profit in all the years of its existence. The Amtrak website is openly deceptive, listing stations in places where Amtrak does not have service. And the reservation agents have to talk in circles to avoid having to tell you directly that the system does not actually have service in the community that you are asking about, even though their website lists that community as one of the Amtrak stations.

Poor service, appalling mismanagement, deceptive business practices--all symptoms of a failing business. I think it's time to let the old dinosaur die a natural death. Amtrak is not transportation. It's an "experience," and in my case, a very, very miserable one.

I'm standing on a platform in an empty countryside rest area a few miles outside of Palm Springs, scribbling in my notebook. It is just after midnight, and I have been staring into the night sky and pondering the bizarre set of events that put me in this place.

The whole problem started when I got to Bakersfield yesterday. I went over to get on the Amtrak bus to Los Angeles, so that I could catch my train to Phoenix. But the bus driver said that everyone going to Phoenix was supposed to get on the bus going to San Bernardino. I went over to the San Bernardino bus and asked what was going on. The driver told me that everyone going West was being taken to San Bernardino to catch the west bound train. This didn't seem right to me, because my train wasn't scheduled to leave LA until 10:30pm, and I had plenty of time to get to LA by then if I took the Los Angeles bus. But I asked him about it twice, and he assured me with emphasis that I was on the right bus.

When we got to San Bernardino, it became quite obvious that he had no idea what he was talking about. There is no Amtrak station in San Bernardino. There were six of us getting out at San Bernardino. Five of them were going to Chicago, and I was going to Phoenix. They had already missed their train, and furthermore, there was no train station anyway--it was a really crazy situation. The Amtrak bus driver wanted to leave, but I told him quite firmly that he couldn't just leave us there. Several folks had cell phones and they started calling Amtrak. Finally, the Amtrak decided to send some taxis to take everyone back to LA to a hotel. I was not enthusiastic about doing this, because my train still hadn't left LA, and I really wanted to see if I could catch it. I managed to talk to an Amtrak person who told me that if I could get to Palm Springs by 1am, I could catch the train there. The bus driver was taking a couple people to Palm Springs anyway, so I asked him if he thought he could get to Palm Springs by that time. He seemed uncertain, but one of the passengers told me there should be no problem. As the taxis were leaving, I asked the Amtrak bus driver again very specifically if he knew where the Amtrak station in Palm Springs was. He said, "No, I have no idea." I borrowed a cell phone, called Amtrak and verified that his dispatcher had directions to the Amtrak station in Palm Springs, then told him to call his dispatcher, an initiative he should have taken, but seemed not to posses.

So here I am. And what does it all mean. As I contemplate the whole situation, what keeps coming back to me is that God leads us through whatever circumstances come our way. No matter how hard we try to plan everything out, it is God who leads us. No amount of planning and/or preparation can free us from our need for his tender hand.

He leadeth me, O blessèd thought!
O words with heav'nly comfort fraught!
Whate’er I do, where'er I be
Still 'tis God's hand that leadeth me.

He leadeth me, He leadeth me,
By His own hand He leadeth me;
His faithful follower I would be,
For by His hand He leadeth me.

Sitting here on the train to Bakersfield. I took the bus up from Roseburg, and Martin Lewis met me at the Library in Eugene, which is just a few blocks from the bus stop. We drove out to the old TA truckstop, which had been one of my favorite stopping points during my years on the road. After a hearty meal, we headed in toward the train station. We had a little time to kill, so Martin took me to an old vegetable cannery that had been made into a coffee bar. Brought back memories. During my college days, I spent more than a few long nights in a place just like that, feeding corn cobs into the corn husker, or picking mice off the bean belt.

The train was late, as usual, but it finally showed up just before dark, and I watched as the train station and Martin slowly slipped away. I was supposed to go directly from Eugene, Oregon to Los Angeles on the "Coast Starlight," then transfer to the "Sunset Limited," which would take me west to the small town of Maricopa, just south of Phoenix. But the mudslides changed all that, so I had to be routed around the mudslides, which took out the tracks. Instead of a relaxing morning, I was up at the crack of dawn, so I could change trains in Sacramento.

It's hard to compare train travel in the United States with train travel in China, because the situations are so different. In China, train travel is the primary means for most people to move around the country. Trains are everywhere--the network covers every region of the country. In addition, trains in China are designed to accommodate the broad range of passengers inherent in such a diverse culture. On Chinese trains, there are four levels of seating: hard seat, soft seat, hard sleeper, and soft sleeper. The cheapest are the hard seats. They are cushioned, but not as heavily as the soft seats, and they are straight-backed, with no frills. But there is something else about the hard seats. There are usually more tickets sold than there are seats. If you are lucky enough to get a ticket with a seat number on it, then you have a place to sit. But if you get on the train further on down the line, you will have to stand. This is truly the mode of travel for the masses. Students generally prefer the hard seats, because the cost is minimal.

The second level are the soft seats. The soft seats in China are the most like the "coach" seats on Amtrak--reclining upholstered seats, with only as many tickets as there are seats. The soft seat is the only type of seat I have not taken in China, and the only type I have taken in the United States.

There are two categories of sleepers in China, hard sleeper and soft sleeper. The main difference is the amount of space you are given. The hard sleepers are very crowded. They are not lacking in length--I could stretch out easily. But I could not not stretch out. The hard sleeper is very narrow. This makes it a major chore to turn over. And you are pretty much frozen in one position.

The soft sleeper is wider, and there are only four of them in a compartment. Not like a luxury motel by any means, but they are comfortable. The soft sleeper in China is generally about half the cost of an airline ticket. In contrast to this, a sleeper on Amtrak costs four or five times as much as a plane ticket. So they just are not an option, unless money is no object, and you are riding the train just for the sake of being able to say you've done it.

Service is another issue. Both in China and the United States, eating in a dining car is a bit more spendy than an ordinary restaurant. In China, I have paid as much as 6 to 10 US dollars for a meal. That is to be expected, of course. But on Amtrak, the service is very poor. I never saw a dining car that was close to being full, but all customers are still scrunched together so the porter serves as few tables as possible. In China, eating in the dining car is a luxury. On Amtrak, it is assembly line. Rushed, uncomfortable, and expensive.

Valentine's Day. Today, Melissa and her friend made a little extra money. A lady had called her school asking if any of the music folks wanted a lunch time job. Melissa and her friend took the offer. They went to the lady's office, picked up two roses, drove to the school where the lady's husband teaches, tracked him down in his classroom, and, standing there holding their roses, they belted out a love song. Twenty bucks. Ten each. Don't think I would have done it for that.

There were bells on a hill
But I never heard them ringing
No, I never heard them at all
Till there was you

There were birds in the sky
But I never saw them winging
No, I never saw them at all
Till there was you

Then there was music and wonderful roses
they tell me in in sweet fragrant meadows
of dawn and dew

There was love all around
But I never heard it singing
No I never heard it at all
Till there was you

Then there was music and wonderful roses
they tell me in sweet fragrant meadows
of dawn and dew

There was love all around
But I never heard it singing
No I never heard it at all
Till there was you
Till there was you

Narita Express. This is not the only way to get the job done, but in my opinion, it is the fastest and simplest. The problem, of course, is that, although Narita Airport is used as the International Airport for the Tokyo area, in fact, Narita is not anywhere near Tokyo. It is about 60 Kilometers out of town.

Being a train, the Narita Express is not traffic dependent. So you never have to worry about a traffic snarl making you late. Aside from that issue, the Narita Express travels quite a bit faster than a bus. It is not a maglev, to be sure. But this really is a very fast train. I rode the Narita Express from the Shinjuku station to Narita in a little over an hour. Mind you, this is coming from someone who doesn't like busses. On a bus, you have to sit cramped in your seat for the whole trip. On the Narita express, you can get up and move around anytime you feel like it. There are airplane style seats, restrooms on every car, and a lady who comes through with condiments. And the end of the line at Narita is inside the terminal building not too far from the departure gates. It is very simple, even for someone who is not familiar with Tokyo.

Went to an onsen (hot spring) last night. We never used to be able to go to an onsen in the middle of the big city. When I was a kid, all the onsen were located in the mountains, because that is where the hot water veins were located. But nowdays, the Japanese figure you can hit a hot water vein anywhere in Japan if you are willing to dig deep enough, and technically, they are right.

The concept of a public bath in Japan is not limited to onsen. There are lots of public baths where the water is heated artificially. But the onsen are particularly popular because of the perceived benefit of soaking in the hot mineral water which forces its way to the surface from deep in the earth.

When you enter a public bath in Japan, there will usually be separate sections for men and women. You first enter a washing area, where there are several "stations" consisting of a small stool, a spray hose, and three or four different kinds of soaps and shampoos. The idea is to wash throughly before entering the bath. A westerner might wonder why they don't just have a shower area such as one might find in a gymnasium. But the concept is altogether different. The washing area is not just for removing basic filth and getting on with life. The purpose is to be thoroughly cleansed before entering the soothing waters of the hot bath. So taking a bath in Japan is a process which basically means a night out. It is not to be done quickly. And as is the time spent, so is the effect. You really do feel good after such a thorough treatment.

Shinjuku. The Manhattan of Tokyo. Although it sits on the eastern edge of the Yamanote line (a circular line encompassing an area the size of Paris), it is really the "heart" the Tokyo business district. Shinjuku is a very expensive place, but fortunately I arrived at about noon, so I was able to get a lunch special at the Keio Plaza Hotel for about $20 US.

Shinjuku is one of the 23 wards in the city of Tokyo. I use the term "city" loosely, because technically, Tokyo is not a city. In fact, Tokyo contains several cities, in addition to the 23 wards. In Japan, Tokyo has the same status as a prefecture, although that doesn't mean anything to you if you are not familiar Japan's political subdivisions. The governing body is not referred to as the "city council," it is called the "Metropolitan Government Assembly." And the sign on the door of the top office does not say, "Mayor." It says, "Office of the Governor of Tokyo."

So what is it, really, that has brought Shinjuku prominence as the "Heart of Tokyo?" Part of it has to be location. But Shinjuku also has a valuable natural resource. Much of Tokyo rests on a foundation of clay or landfill. But the geology which underlies Shinjuku is solid bedrock. It is a resource which no one talks about, but which the Ward of Shinjuku relies on quite heavily, and I don't use the term lightly. Shinjuku has one of the world's largest collections of skyscrapers. I don't know if anyone has done the math, but there has to be an enormous amount of weight pressing down on the good earth from all this vertical real estate.

The Shinjuku station is the busiest train station in the world, with about two million passengers passing through every day. West of the station is the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building. The Metropolitan Government Building has two observation decks--one each on the forty-fifth floor of both the North and South towers. And the best news is that they are both free. If you look out the big bay windows to the East, you will see the park that sits behind the building. But I wasn't content to view it from a distance, so I came down here to see for myself, what has to be one of the most ironic contrasts in this country. At the rear of the park, there are several homeless people living in shacks made from blue vinyl tarps held together with ropes and large clothespins. It is strange to see these folks camping out for free in a beautiful wooded area on some of the costliest real estate in the world.

All of these make Shinjuku a very interesting place to visit, and a very easy place to visit if you happen to be in Tokyo, because it is really the focal point of the JR train system. But there is something else which draws me to Shinjuku...

I was born here. It wasn't supposed to be that way. We did not live in Tokyo. We were from the Tohoku region on the northern end of Honshu. But Mom had hepatitis, so Dad brought her to the International Catholic hospital here in Shinjuku to be treated by a German missionary doctor, so it was here that I made my entry.

I arrived in Tokyo Sunday afternoon. Mark and Joshua picked me up at the airport, and we headed for the Science Museum at Odaiba. Odaiba is a business and commercial development built on artificial islands in Tokyo Bay which were constructed in the middle of the 19th Century.

Traffic was not too bad, perhaps because it was Sunday, but the freeway network in Tokyo is pretty complex. Fortunately, Joshua was with us so we were able to find it without getting lost.

Yesterday, I wanted to head down toward Kawasaki, because one of the students in the Software College is doing an internship there. When it comes to urban light rail, Beijing is like a small town compared to Tokyo. Beijing has a small subway system with a light rail extension.

In contrast, Tokyo's system is extraordinarily complex. But it's amazing how quickly you can get the hang of it. For one thing, it is very well organized, and every train line is color coded and well marked. And the software the everyone seems to have access to, makes the process livable. I boarded the bus near Mark and Naomi's house, and sat next to a student who was job hunting. I said, "Can you tell me about how long it will take me to get from the station at Musashi-sakai to Yokohama?" She flipped open her tiny cell phone with a video screen and said, "Just a minute, I'll research it." In a few minutes she said, "It will take you one hour."

When we got to the station, the young lady showed me how to operate the ticket vending machines, and informed me how much the ticket would cost. I took the train to Shinjuku, transferred to another line going down to Shibuya, then left JR and caught the Tokyu to Yokohama. Kahori picked me up at the Yokohama station, and took me to Tully's at Minatomirai. She had told me not to exit the gates, so I got on the next train without having to buy a new ticket. When we got to Minatomirai, I asked her if I was going to have to pay more. She took me to a "fare adjustment" machine. I put my ticket in, and the computer told me how much to pay. Then I was issued a new ticket that I could use to exit the gates. When I was ready to leave for Kawasaki, I asked her if she could recommend a return route from Kawasaki back to Musashi-sakai, where Mark and Naomi live. She pulled her laptop out of her handbag, accessed the software she had installed on her machine, and told me the lines, transfer points, and how much money to put in the ticket vending machine. Like I said, it's a complex system, but life is easy when you have a computer.

The Software College at Beihang has a "Japanese Software" major. Nine students from this major are doing internships here in the Tokyo area. I had kept in touch with Zhu Xiang since he left Beijing in October, and I had told him I would visit him while I was in Japan. In some ways, I think these young people are being taken advantage of, because they don't make very much money. But I really encourage them to do it, because when they get back to China after a year or so, they will be highly employable. We went to a Thai restaurant for dinner, and then had a cup of coffee. Everything costs money, but the restaurant he had chosen was really not bad. He kept talking about how small the portions were. I didn't think it was that bad, but if you are accustomed to having a feast at one of the small restaurants outside the West Gate, Japan would be a bit of an adjustment.

I was standing at the Musashi-sakai station waiting for Mark to pick me up, when a police officer came up to me and started talking. My Japanese is pretty rusty, since I haven't used it since I was 13 years old. I told him this, but insisted my Japanese was fine, and he kept talking. He could not speak English, so I had no choice but to use what little Japanese I could remember, with a few Chinese words thrown in for good measure. We had a nice conversation in spite of the limitations. Simple friendliness covers a multitude of language barriers.

Man, this place gets expensive when stuff starts to shut down for Spring Festival! Cafeteria #8 closed on Tuesday. Of course, there are plenty of places to eat, but they are not so cheap. Breakfast at the coffee bar, Meatball sub and Pepsi at Subyway, Buffet at the Korean bakery (got to hand it to those guys, they really put out a pretty good spread). But I am spending too much money living this way. It is a very good idea to leave China during Spring Festival, unless you have family. In China, it's hard to travel during Spring Festival. Trains are packed. And it is very hard to get a ticket. Many people have no choice but to buy a plane ticket, because they just cannot find a train. The whole nation takes the week off to visit family. Schools are closed for a month. So this will be it from China for a few weeks. I am flying to Dongjing tomorrow.

Read an interesting piece in the China Daily. It's about the burial of Zhao Ziyang. One sentence in the brief bio caught my attention: "In the political turbulence which took place in the late spring and early summer of 1989, Comrade Zhao committed serious mistakes." What kind of statement is that? Whatever that is, it certainly is not journalism. That line (and perhaps the whole article) was clearly dictated from on high. And it bears the label of the Xinhua News Agency.

It takes a little time to get a handle on just how news agencies operate in China. Sometimes people from the West assume that media outlets in China are always and only paroting what the party has told them to say. But that is a little too simplistic. On a given day, the China Daily carries articles from around China, written by Daily reporters, as well as several articles from foreign wire services. For some reason, the Daily does not identify the specific wire service (except for the Bloomberg financial reports), but these stories are direct wire feeds from services around the world. The result of this is that the China Daily is one of the simplest, and most informative daily newspapers I have ever read. It is very, very convenient. I get major headlines for news relating to China and other parts of the world, but also feature articles covering everything from modern explorers roaming the ancient catacombs of Paris (not Rome), to a group of villagers in the countryside of China working together to restore an old bridge after a storm. And the small town stuff: a guy breaks off his marriage engagement when he discovers that his fiance has a mole on her shoulder, because his mother has told him all his life that moles are bad luck. Or the one about the bored husband in Shenyang who signed up with a dating service and was matched, by computer, with his wife, who, unbeknown to her husband, was up to the same mischief.

In contrast to this, many American newspapers have become all but unusable, because they are so loaded with innocuous stuff which is just not newsworthy. Information overload. During the last years I lived in America, I had pretty much quit reading newspapers. I found them boring, junky, and, as I said, largely unusable. There is one exception. I have, for some years, consistantly read the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal. It carries a variety of pieces on contemporary issues, and I can get quite a bit of information in a small amount of time. But it is the exception that proves the rule. I really don't like American newspapers.

So I am left with a paradox, and such abound in China. For example, during the Cold War, many assumed that reporters for the People Daily (the official Communist Party paper) were just mindless robots spitting out the Party line. But during Tiananmen, several hundred reporters from the People Daily carried a banner which said, "Don't believe what we write. We print lies." Things have changed since then, but the bottom line is still the party. However, it is very important to remember that journalists are journalists. They will exercise as much freedom as they are allowed, and the result, in today's China, is that, in spite of restrictions which occasionally result in articles such as the one I read today, those same restrictions effect a much more informative and newsy paper than one can find in an average American city.