Excerpts from China Part IV: Xi’an Train Ride

Xi’an Part II:
Although we traveled in style on the way to Xi’an, splurging 400rmb on sleepers, on the way back we decided to be frugal. The result, 硬坐 for the 12+ hour train ride home. Because we wanted to attend church service at 10am on Sunday, we went for the overnight train leaving at 730p. Hard seaters are basically like airplane seats except they don’t recline and rows are facing such that one sits face-to-face from the person directly across. Carts with snacks, beer, cigarettes traverse up and down the aisle and smokers smoke in the space between cars. It’s an adventure.

Sookyee and I are among the last to get onto the train. We very quickly realize that an elderly grandmother has taken one of our seats. In our broken Chinese, we thus try to urge said-occupant to move to her assigned seat. She refuses, stating that someone else has taken her seat. So we redirect our cajoles to this transgressors. He too refuses to budge because his seat has been taken by someone else. Imagine the scene: two obviously non-native girls loaded with backpacks standing in the middle of the train car trying to claim seats. After 10 minutes of wrangling at which the train is about to start, it turns out that Man #3 is sitting in Row A, Train Car #B when he should be sitting in Row A, Train Car #C. His wife, however, is in Car #B. In the end, he switches tickets with Man #2 and all’s well. We take our seats.

Sookyee who has traveled to all different places including Shangri-la and Tibet, starts to show me her pictures. Fantastic stuff. This piques the curiosity of the guy sitting directly across from me. He joins in the picture-viewing. Turns out he’s on a business trip with a trainee in tow. They join the picture-viewing.

After looking at Sookyee’s pictures, I produce a deck of cards in order to while away the 12+ hours. They teach us their version of 大地主. I don’t know quite how long that lasted… Afterwards, because 大地主 is a 4-player game, we then take up a five-player game similar to Bridge. Around, oh, probably 1am or so we start up 吹牛 (BS). Lol, it was lots of fun; I won 😛

At this time, most of the people around us are dozing. Since there are four of us, decide to play something more active: Charades. Hahaha. Because there are two Chinese-speakers and two non-native Chinese, we pair off with one of each per team. It worked thus: 1) Chinese write something to act out for Chinese on opposing team, 2) Opposing team Chinese act out word or phrase or idiom, 3) non-native teammate guesses. And vice versa. For instance, 1) Sookyee might write “Titanic” for me, 2) I act out Titanic, 3) My Chinese teammate guesses.

How do I begin to explain it. One of the phrases that Sookyee wrote for me was 恭喜发财. Our family never really celebrates Spring Festival so I didn’t know how to do that 拜年 motion with two fists clasped. Lol 崔先生 said that it looked as if I was going to knock someone on the head for not giving me enough money. Another one was 发呆 at which I stare blankly in a cross-eyed way. Amazingly, my teammate 叶良卿 correctly guessed both! There were a lot more 成语s…it was really hilarious. Everyone around us was dozing. That or watching us lol. Space is limited, so in order to act, the actor had to stand in the aisle, lol. There were some hilarious ones, like getting drunk, King Kong, among others. I don’t remember most of them >.< Charades lasted until probably 6 am, by this time, we’d watched the sky steadily lighten then caught the sunrise. I don’t think I’ve laughed so much in a really long time. It was such a crazy special moment… Playing cards and charades with two Chinese people on business trip whom we’d just met on a train from Xi’an to Beijing for 11 hours or so?? None of us had a wink of sleep that night, lol.

That’s Xi’an Part II. I fail to do that train ride justice. All I can say is, moments like that are unforgettable. I’ve been debating whether or not to return to China next semester, I think my conclusion is that I can’t not return. If I didn’t come back, I’d spend all semester regretting the fact that I didn’t come back.

Excerpts from China Part III: Xi’an Part II

To be typed up!

Excerpts from China Part II: Xi’an Part I

Wed 4-22
Depart Beijing for Xi’an at 8:30p. Beds for 400rmb…prepare to embark
on 12+hour ride to Xi’an.

Thurs 4-23
Arrive around 9am in Xi’an. Disembark and immediately start searching
for bus to take us to Hua Shan, which is a two hour drive to the east.
Arrive at Hua Shan around noon and eat a hearty lunch, knowing that
our next few meals will be little more than chocolate and water. Start
climbing Hua Shan ~1p. On our way up, we pass a few other people
climbing. Since we went out of our way to avoid holiday season (May 1,
Chinese Labor Day), nothing like the crowds at Taishan. It was kind of
nice..we’d go for awhile, pass a few people, stop and rest, same
people would pass us etc. Briefly chatted with them. One set came up
with us on the bus, two guys (one extremely interested in the fact
that I’m American), a very cute middle-aged couple playing Cantonese
music, a very tall northerner we dubbed Mr. Shanghai since he works in
Shanghai.

Walking up a mountain is not hiking. Mountain-walking, quite
literally. The steps got to the point where they are about 5-6in wide
and going up at an 85degree incline with metal chains on both sides.
Sans metal chain to grab onto and pull oneself up, it’d be quite
impossible to scale. And there are steps and steps and steps. We
reached the North Peak around 5:30p or so. Our plan was to reach the
Central Peak, stay for an evening, then head to East Peak for the
sunrise. Took us another, oh, 2hours or so to reach Central Peak, at
which point we met Mr. Shanghai who’d gotten there awhile earlier (he
was tall with very long legs). About 45min later cute Cantonese music
couple showed up as well. We paid 45rmb per bed. I have lived nowhere
more simple (read: dilapidated). It was a structure with four walls,
interior walls were like paper and the windows were covered with grimy
sheets to block wind. The bedsheets were stained as were blankets. The
bed/cots were bunked; me and Sookyee (my travel buddy) took top bunks.
The pillows were phenomenally sketchy, no one dared use them. To
sleep, we wore all the clothes we brought and gloves (I wore two
sets), socks (two sets), and double pants. I also pulled my woolen hat
over my entire face so that my hair wouldn’t touch the bed haha. For
dinner, we had chocolate + ramen. It was delicious. Seriously.

Fri 5-24
Wake up really early the next morning to catch the sunrise.
Anyway, even if we didn’t want a sunrise,
we’d be awake because around 6am a nearby Taoist temple starts playing
chants. Also tons of college kids from Xi’an climbed up during the
evening and are milling about waiting for the sunrise. There was no
sunrise to be seen lol. It was super foggy up top…I felt bad for the
kids who climbed all night to see a sunrise only to see fog + freeze
their butts off. Lots of feuding couples haha.

We proceeded up to East Peak to take a look at the Playing Chess
Pavilion. To get up to East Peak, one must climb up a 50m long Cloud
Ladder, steps of 2-4in with metal chains. Steps are useless, one must
pull oneself up. It was also very gusty. To get down to Playing Chess
Pavilion was ridiculous. There’s a boulder protruding and to get
around it, one descends grabbing onto metal links. There are small
footholds carved into the rock that one must fish around for. Me,
Sookyee, and Mr. Shanghai chose not to descend. Although a harness is
attached, I didn’t trust it. Sans harness, one slip-up, a loosening of
the fingers and one will quite literally topple down the 2000+m of the
mountain.

Excerpts from China Part I: Beijing

Wednesday 18 February 2009
Traveled to Tsinghua by light rail from Line 5 → Line 13, 五道口。 A happy-looking family, clearly peasants from the provinces, followed our same route. The little men had white pillbox-type caps. Think the illustration of the Turkish astronomer who discovered Asteroid B-612. They were accompanied by a woman with her head covered by a black embroidered or crocheted scarf and a young rosy-cheeked girl. I had a hard time gauging her age. Somewhere between 13 and 17 I’d say. She had on a white zippered jacket wit Mickey on the back—oh American capitalism. Got to love the universality of smiling anthropomorphic mice. Her hair was structured into a single thick, fabulously straight and uniform rope-braid that stopped mid-back.

Thursday 19 February 2009
Slept today. Slept a lot today. After a prolonged nap, Mom and I stopped by the market on our way to the post. The market is located in a basement so down we ventured. At the bottom of the steps was a man with his back to us, a baby in his arms. And what a baby! I think it was female. It/she had an enormous head and two wisps of hair. I must do her face justice. No, I can’t. She rather resembled the mandrake-babe in Pan’s Labyrinth. This lass had a what-the-hell blank look. What an expressive little lady. I’m certain she’ll grow up to be stunning.

Sunday 22 February 2009
I was walking from the foreign student apartments to Tsinghua West Gate and somehow overshot (by about 10 minutes…) Disgruntledly circling back, I came across an incredibly silly-looking cat. This guy was a calico…black, orange, and white tufts of fur. He also looked like he came straight from the dryer. He wasn’t merely mussed, his patches of fur poked out in crazy directions. His face reminded me of how Hermione’s Crookshanks might look. Squashed and ugly. What a funny guy.

Chinese sustainability:
Something I rather like about China is how unwasteful people are with regards to everyday things like electricity, water, money of course, plastic bags. Yes pollution is awful, but if Chinese people were to expend resources at the rate Americans do, Beijing would be unlivable and unsustainable. At Tsinghua, we have hot water from 7-9a, 3-5p, and 8-10p. I’m typing this email in Word with the internet disconnected. Copy, paste, and send since uncle is billed by hour for the internet. Since one pays for everything by time used, one only uses what is absolutely necessary. Plastic bags, for instance. HEB, Whole Foods, etc all now advocate the use of reusable mesh bags, but who (asides from the few young, hip, enviro-friendly) will bring 5 reusable bags when plastic is so much more convenient? Every supermarket I’ve been to here now charges for bags. No better way to incentivize reusability!

Thursday 26 February 2009
Funny sight of the day: I was walking by a shoe-seller in a 广场 this afternoon. You know how shoe places have floor mirrors that are angled so you see only your shoes? In front of one mirror, there was a kid, wee-sized crouched down so that his head was actually shorter than said mirror. He wasn’t even making faces at the thing. Just staring at his reflection with super-wide (for an Asian) eyes.

Saturday 28 February 2009
I am wholly impressed by Beijing bicyclers. I was walking to the bus stop today and found myself overtaken by a guy on a bicycle chased by another guy on foot. Next thing I know, they are both on the fast-receding bike, one up front, the other sitting ‘side-saddle’. Hopping onto a moving target without either losing balance. I’m duly impressed. Though a catastrophic collapse might have made for a pretty fantastic story too 😀

About 15 minutes later, attempting to maintain my own balance on the bus, our bus, Bus 628 pulls up to a stop light. Up ahead, a moped is defying traffic laws and ‘common sense’ safety by weaving between the two lanes of stopped cars. Its passengers were pretty hard to miss. Up front was a lady in bright flamingo-pink puffy winter coat, behind was a little girl in a smaller version of the bright flamingo-pink puffy winter coat. I was amused.