Throughout life, I have managed to silently keep my peace and meekly abide through many and various insults and indignities, my teeth often gritted, but my turned cheek being slapped without protest. Without this experience and temperament, I wouldn’t have been able to endure a full year in China. Its transportation rituals, however, had me at my breaking point. All of the buses and subways I used in local mass transit systems were fine and about as good as one could expect for each respective city in China. What I mean to discuss are my trying journeys: the train rides and my travels into major tourist areas.
A typical scene at a smaller train station.
China has built up its railway network so that most every city on the east coast is linked with all the others, and residents of one can conveniently buy a ticket to most anywhere at their local terminal. Not many people have cars, so the railway system functions as the alternative to the American interstate system. Major lines, like those travelling due east to Shanghai, also offer a high-speed rail service. China isn’t on par with the Japanese rail network (will any country ever be?) but it is investing heavily to make its own infrastructure faster and better connected.
I did make a few trips by car and bus on the toll-ways, which were not so unlike their American equivalent, minus the build-up of roads, businesses along the exits, and traffic jams (not that traffic jams don’t happen in China, just not on the toll-ways I traveled. In fact, China has made world news several times from its days’ long traffic jams). Buses are the number one method for long distance holiday travel in China, though I found that statistic hard to believe when comparing my bus trips to my experience in the very crowded train stations. There were times when I was in a ticket line or train car and I began counting the heads of people: “1, 2, 3…” then thought that there were so many people it would be faster to count down from China’s total population to find out the number of people in my train: “one billion, two hundred and ninety-nine million, nine-hundred and ninety-nine; one billion, two hundred and ninety-nine million, nine-hundred and ninety-eight…”
Like many mundane tasks in China, I always had an escort with me, a friend to buy my ticket for me. After waiting in line and showing my passport to the cashier, my translator would make the purchase- same as anywhere, except the business being done in Chinese made it especially boring, unknowable, and fickle. Buying a ticket for one trip might only take ten minutes and my friend would take care of the whole process while I waited near the building entrance. Other times, I’d have to dutifully follow someone back and forth between the self-service computer terminal and cashier line, watching them in their shared confusion and frustration, having nothing to do with myself except remember the times as a child that I had to trail behind my parents in a store without toys.
The train travel itself was where the real frustration began, far more hectic than the tranquil-by-comparison ticket office. Outside of the terminals, there was typically a plaza surrounded by retail businesses and dozens of food vendors (if you ever find yourself in China and you’re brave enough to try them, I recommend the hard-boiled eggs sitting in the pan of near-black sauce). The terminals- train and bus- were major gathering spaces in the world’s most populous country.
A great mess of humanity streamed in and out of the main doors, but to get in (sometimes out) required passing through narrow metal gates. The barriers were set up to direct the crowd through the ticket and security checks; being China, this meant the crowd would push and jostle their way into the single-file opening. In any country, waiting in lines to pass through security and gate checks is a ritual that ranks around a trip to the dentist’s office in terms of pleasantness, but as a consolation, at least the people in most other countries are waiting in line. Experience quickly taught me that the metal barriers were a necessity in a land without manners or respect for unwritten rules like waiting one’s turn.
In China, men with duffel bags slung over their shoulders barged past me without regard; petite female ticket-takers seemed to seek me out and palm-strike me in my kidneys as they cut through the crowd. However mellow I imagined my demeanor, funneling through the gates was a miserable enough experience to make me ball my fists and look for the next pusher to make an example out of him- or her- for all the rest.
Wading through those bottlenecks, sometimes over 20 rows of people deep (God help the fleeing crowds if there were ever a fire emergency), seemed like the worst thing, but it was only the first major hassle of a Chinese train trip. Inside the waiting lobby, all those swarms of people sprawled out in the many rows of seats, letting their outer coats, bags, seed shells, plastic food wrappers, drink bottles, and (it can be assumed) spit fall to the floor. A dowdy cleaning woman would shuffle around the people standing throughout the floor space, thick as insects, and use a straw broom to sweep up the refuse in a futile, never-ending cycle.
Outside a train station. Small shops and restaurants abound on the lower levels.
A large convenience store was usually located in the waiting lobby; the major terminals had small restaurants and shops like a modestly-sized airport. Browsing through the cramped shelves of food and buying a bowl of instant noodles was my only respite when the train was delayed, which it was by several hours on one occasion; I also had a bus trip that was delayed by over an hour, though it should be noted that those were single events and I don’t have any figures on the percentage of delayed trains and buses in China. That one evening when my train was delayed, the instant noodles had to suffice for dinner as the delay was indefinite, without an announcement about the estimated arrival time or cause of the problem. My friends and I waited outside the departure gate altogether for four hours until the proverbial watched pot- our midnight train- boiled.
China proved too much for this boy, so he left with his student friends on a midnight train to Hefei.
Inside the Chinese train cabins, the ride varied considerably depending on the class of ticket and destination, but it was always crowded to full capacity at least. The nicest ride, the high-speed G trains, were fitted with new, reclining individual seats, and they could cut the travel time by more than half. This expensive service was exclusive to major city routes, which in my area meant I could take a G train to Nanjing or Shanghai. But keep in mind, it was still China, so the high-speed ride, while smooth, was far from leisurely. Passengers talked, chewed, littered, had phone conversations, watched portable DVD players, and played music through speakers- not headphones- all at full volume. Yes, believe it or not, somehow the littering was at full volume too, but to be fair the noisome litter did not remain on the floor throughout the whole trip. A cleaning woman would come by to collect trash and bark at you to lift your feet so she could sweep. Plus, in addition to the noise of the passengers and their devices, the overhead television screens would be flashing commercials, programs, and movies at a soft volume that was loud enough to be distracting but impossible to make out over the clamor of the car. A tease if you were interested in the program, a bother if you were trying to enjoy quiet while you read or napped.
The typical train carriage, not the elite G train car, was crowded too, but beyond crowded were its straight-back benches and well-worn cushioned seats, overflowing with people so much so that extra passengers- those with a seat-less ticket- gathered in the connecting space between cars or sat in between their friends’ seats, if possible. Shoeless souls set up buckets between the rows of seats or slumped over on top of coats and bags to try and sleep in an unsightly pile. Not since riding in a mud and trash-covered bus on my way to detassel corn fields in Iowa had I seen people so indiscriminate about the conditions they slept in.
Waiting to board the G Train.
One convenient alternative to the lousy rest on these basic cars were the sleeper cars. Traveling to Beijing, which is located far up in the northeast near Inner Mongolia, I had booked an overnight trip on a sleeper car (that is, I had the trip booked for me). Shortly after midnight, I boarded the train and tottered through the narrow walking space of the cabins and found my bunk inside the darkened interior. My room had four bunks, two on each side wall, one above and one below. I was up top, and I was lucky that none of the other passengers had used my bunk for storage space, so I was able to hoist myself up and lay myself out without having to try and negotiate with inconsiderate passengers to move their bags in a language I didn’t really speak. Even though I was well over the average height the train bunks were designed for, I managed to find a sleeping position and slip away from consciousness until around seven o’clock, when daylight filled the cabin and passengers and porters started making a commotion to disembark. I managed to get a fair night’s sleep and get a long trip out of the way at the same time- not bad.
The flip-side of the sleeper car coin was what I experienced when traveling to Shanghai, not half the distance to Beijing from where I was staying. My escort for that trip, Uncle Jiang, insisted on the sleeper train either to save money or because he illogically thought it would be a sensible trip to make overnight. I don’t know. Again, I was an illiterate, childlike observer when the tickets were being purchased. Sometime after one in the a.m., we boarded the train and made our way to our bunks. Less than five hours later, we were woken by the porter. I followed my escort as he tried to navigate the pre-dawn streets and bus terminals of Shanghai, feeling doubly grumpy from poor sleep and having to wait on my guide for unendurable amounts of time as he studied the wall map in desolate, not yet open bus stations. I suppose Uncle Jiang’s brain was just as foggy as mine was after our tease of a sleep.
But that sour experience was nothing compared to the worst long-distance travel I suffered not only in China, but so far in my short life. I have to preface this by saying I realize persecuted people around the world have been rounded up for train trips to prison camps and death camps, far worse than what I endured, so take my complaint for its relative worth. My description is vivid, not hyperbolic, and it was a truly awful experience, though not comparable to the worst trips ever suffered by human beings, as I admit. What makes this awful trip of mine noteworthy was how very typical it seemed to the Chinese people crammed into that train car with me, and how it wasn’t a cause of anger and outrage.
The pace and conditions of this car ride reminded me of news reports about jet planes grounded on the tarmac for hours on end with no food service or air conditioning, or cruise ships that lost engine power and became stranded at sea. Yet those instances are exceptions to otherwise fair to decent service. This fateful train trip of mine was routine, repeated by thousands every week as the only means of access to a famous tourist town in China. As passengers, we were jammed in like swine, but the rail company was transporting us for profit, under a pretense of customer service. None of it was forced; the passengers weren’t on that train as punishment. A business, generously subsidized by government funds, offered this terrible service, and the passengers took it because it was the only option they had or because they were so beaten down, made powerless by life in China, that they accepted it as an unchangeable inconvenience of life. I become so angry just thinking about this trip that I have to calm down and compel myself to write so that you, dear reader, might hear the full story.
For months, Chinese students and friends had been asking me if I had seen Yellow Mountain (Huangshan), “the most famous mountain in China.” I had never heard of it before coming to China, but every time someone queried me about what I had seen in China, they always asked about and recommended Yellow Mountain. “China has five famous mountains. But we say, ‘If you see Yellow Mountain, you do not need to see any other mountains.'”
A famous “waving tree” greeting visitors at Yellow Mountain.
Strangely, many of its advocates had never themselves been to Yellow Mountain, and I even spoke to several young residents of the town of Yellow Mountain (Huangshan City) who had never ventured to the nearby mountain range. I say strangely, but after living in China for a year it was the type of answer I came to expect.
“Have you seen Huangshan Yellow Mountain?”
“No. Have you?”
“No. I have no seen it.”
“But you live in Huangshan City.”
(Grinning silence)
Yellow Mountain, although a big regional draw, was connected to the rest of the Chinese railway system by a single rail line that ran only the slowest trains. I heard that Yellow Mountain was beautiful and scenic all year round; I chose to go in June, right after the spring semester had ended. Two eager students of mine arranged everything and accompanied me on the long weekend trip.
Boarding the train, I wasn’t clear how long the ride was supposed to last. I walked on and shimmied past all the people lounging in the entryway and by the bathroom (a hole in the floor, or more accurately a hole in a metal basin that emptied directly onto the tracks below. It was against the rules to use it while the train was stopped in a station, and I think it was one of the few rules obeyed by all). My student friends told me we had seats on our tickets (not everyone was so lucky), so we budged through the thick tangle of people standing in the aisles and took our very cramped seats on the bench seating. We were arm to arm and hip to hip in steamy summer weather. I battled the urge to panic. I was trapped with a table top pressing against the top of my lap, sitting tightly between two bodies, with no way out. I couldn’t move an inch in any direction.
Every time a new person sat down in the window seat, they tried in vain to push the window up higher. It had a catch so that it could only be opened a maximum of four inches. The train, I would estimate, moved at a top speed of 30-35 miles per hour and made twenty-minute stops at the many stations along the way, so the breeze filtering in from outside was hardly a relief.
One of the only ways to pass the time was watching the passing scenery. Here, a very common sight in China: multiple cranes at a high-rise apartment building project.
Whenever we made one of our frequent stops, vintage fans of wire and metal would oscillate overhead, failing to counteract in the slightest the combined summer humidity and body heat. It was a vain show of providing desperately desired relief. As passengers boarded and disembarked, luggage was hoisted and dragged through the compact network of bodies that irksomely flowed around the moving passengers, then those riding on settled back into their standing positions.
On the way to Yellow Mountain, we began with an over-full load of passengers that slowly dwindled away at each station until we had a reasonable amount of space right before we reached the end of the line. To reach Yellow Mountain City took all day- we started before lunch and arrived after dark- and so we searched for a taxi to our hotel in the dark, pouring rain.
The mountain and surrounding areas were lovely and scenic as everyone intimated, though I wouldn’t agree with the boastful Chinese proverb that once a man had seen Yellow Mountain, he need not see any other mountain in China. The trip was filled with rainstorms, views of waterfalls, steep stone-stepped inclines that brought the legs to a halt, tea sales pitches, and winding bus rides.
A view of a stream running down a mount of Yellow Mountain. A scene from “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” was filmed here, so I had to repress thoughts of the badness of that movie to fully enjoy the scenic beauty.
Huangshan in the rain. I really wanted to buy one of these extra wide farm hats, but the thought of shipping or hauling something that size prevented me.
The tea sales presentation proved too much for my friend, Maxwell, to sit through.
Exhausted from climbing in wet shoes, sitting in wet shorts, and walking through shopping streets, my student friends and I made it back to the train station for our return trip, same as the first, but a whole lot hotter and a whole lot worse.
This time, my students hadn’t been able to procure seats. The train, being the only train out of Yellow Mountain, was too much in demand. But the cashiers don’t turn any buyers away, so we were one of many surplus passengers who would sit in a seat until the car became too full and a seat holder came to evict us from his spot. Then, we stood up, pressed together, holding our bags in hand, and leaned against the sides of the bench seats to balance ourselves. I had purchased a folding fan as a souvenir from Yellow Mountain (Huangshan) City’s shopping street; I used it to try and supplement the faint, scant breeze from the rotating overhead fans. I couldn’t stop waving the fan, the heat was so intense and there was no relief from the steamy summer heat by way of fresh air movement or the opening up of free standing room space.
Eventually, I realized my fanning was futile, and besides the sweat from my hand and the strain of the vigorous fanning were wearing out the fabric until it was close to tearing, so I gave up the battle and holstered my puny folding fan. Sweat streamed down my face and my shirt became plastered to my body. I was too hot and crowded to feel embarrassed, and it was clear that everyone else was suffering in that summer heat trap, too. It was like being in a sauna on a low heat setting and having the door handle break off when you wanted to exit. The only thing on everyone’s mind was the suffering. There was no comfort. We were reduced to our basest elements, physical bodies cooped up like animals. It would have been a dream to do as they do in India and ride on top of the train to feel the rush of the wind outside.
Or was the suffering on everyone’s mind? Throughout the trip, I noticed others chatting away, watching TV, or looking passive like a typical passenger.
I spent that trip as restless as an infant with an earache, unable to take my mind off the misery. I brought my e-reader along on the trip, so that was one small relief over the daylong journey. In my irritation, I struggled to keep my eyes on my reading, and for a half hour I distracted myself by watching an episode of “Friends” on my friend’s laptop (old “Friends” episodes were fashionable and popular in China, at least while I was there). Eventually, thankfully, that trip did end. It would be the worst of several terrible travel experiences in China.
Like I said, people have suffered far worse travels, so the only thing I consider especially remarkable about the overly-crowded, slow-moving hot boxes is that the people in China expected it. To them, it was normal.
“Maxwell, let’s never ride that train again.”
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