China Trains

Riding the Rails in the Land of Mao

Every time I take a train or bus in China it’s as if it’s the first time the travel has ever been conducted in the country. Every soul, passengers, drivers, and attendants, are so utterly confused about the logistics of this particular modus of transportation. Entering a train station, you encounter the usual security line with metal detectors you might find in any large station, building, or airport. Only these metal detectors push people through at such a rapid pace one scarcely imagines the two guards manage to ensure much safety. All of the bags, in addition to the shelves of food that every passenger religiously brings on their 20 hour voyage, is thrown on a conveyor belt through the metal detector that is so short you have to rush through the security check at full speed in order to prevent the contents of the food from being crushed by a giant suitcase, or, worse yet, dropped off the belt onto the floor which has probably not seen a mop since the days of Mao. At the gate, lines a hundred deep wait for the doors to open, at which time you have but a fleeting window to lug a suitcase down two flights of stairs and run to the platform in the few minutes before the train departs. See, the passengers are not allowed onto the platform until the train has arrives, providing frightening little time to find your carriage. Just pray your not in car 22, way in the back. One time I even got to wait in one more line on the way to the train, huddled around a table waiting to get my ticket stamped, stamped, who needs a stamp?, while suitcases rolled over my feet and tiny old ladies elbowed me aside to cut in front.

Once on the train, you’ll have the luxury of knowing that your assigned seat or bed belongs to you and only you, although many train passengers are apparently still learning how to read numbers, and remember, we’re talking about simple integers here. There are three stories of bunks, the bottom being the nicest, but likely to be shared by all of your neighbors; the top bunks require a significant 5.3 climb, and grant just enough headroom to gather up enough velocity when you move so that when you hit your head on the roof, it actually hurts. For every six bunks there are two narrow seats in the hallway, usually they are reserved for the use of drinking baijiu or eating Ramen, the only food acceptable to eat on a train (throw in some Sunflower seeds spat all over the floor). Buses fare little better in organization. Tickets are sometimes sold, sometimes not. Fancy coaches have a small toilet (supposedly reserved for #1), but most do not. One time I had the pleasure of sitting behind the toilet (it was located in the middle of the bus) (the seat came with supreme leg room). Occasionally the toilet entrance was used as a stealth smoking spot (obviously banned on the bus). Later the toilet door became locked from the outside with no one inside. I had the joy of watching just about every passenger on the bus, one by one, first knock on the door, then wait five minutes, the attempt frantically, with no success, to pry open the door.

Head phones are also crucial for any bus journey; the honking of the air horn at every animate object in the road can be deafening, as can the gunshots and wailing maidens from the Hong Kong cinema played on the bus DVD system. And if the bus isn’t too shiny, you’ll also get the fan favorite sound of China, the sound of me hawking and spitting.

Of course, sitting in the aisle seats you’ll have to keep watch of the runway of carts selling snakes, warm beer, packaged cucumbers, ore made tepid meals, and of course, my personal favorite, the souvenirs. Once I saw a man selling what looked to be a box of dried hardened portabella mushrooms. Some kind of herbal medicine I gathered, meanwhile pondering how they might taste grilled with parsley and goat cheese. The man, an avaricious salesman, was detailing the merits of his product in rapid fire Chinese. “Are you, like, a doctor?” I ask, the best my Chinese can muster. “More or less,” he answers. Then there are the Chinese Zodiac cards with poses of Chairman Mao. One of my favorite Chinese pastimes is asking people who Mao is. A pop singer? A basketball player? Oh yeah, I know, he plays for the Houston Rockets, right!? After the koke is over I want to reassure them that everyone, everyone knows who Mao is, but then I remember those Canadiens that I met that one time… But the one souvenir they always have is the set of paper currency from around the world, featuring Saddam Hussein, Yugoslavia (pointed out to me as a “sister country”), and my favorite, the Japanese rupee with the picture of a Thai wat. “This is not Japanese money!” I lecture them. “But it’s from the past.” “But the rupee is India, and this picture is from Thailand!” I don’t understand what they say to me after that. The souvenir salespeople are always, not surprisingly, the most friendly and talkative. What else would you do if you were stuck on a train for 20 hours with nothing to do but sell meaningless drivel?

The bathrooms on the train cars are plentiful, but timing is essential; the toilets are locked as the train approaches a station (take a minute to do the math of where the toilet dumps its waste.) I learned this is an exchange with the attendant over my admittance to one of said toilets. “No you can’t use it,” she says. “Why?” “blah blah blah blah train blah blah blah short time blah blah,” I make out, and as she relents and lets me in, I’m thinking, what does time have to do with this?, and then it dawns on me as the train begins to slow down. There’s even a sink to wash your hands after the bathroom, and only rarely does it not have water. There are soap dispensers but, alas, no soap. The soap dispenser, this is what China is all about. Anywhere in the world, riding a dirty train for rock bottom prices, passing a countryside of peasant farmers, no one expects soap dispensers. But somewhere along the way someone decided that the trains in China should have soap, but they forgot something, they forgot about the soap.