hard sleeper to Lanzhou
Sounds like a book title, eh? Anyway, this is what happens when you take an overnight train in western China. 1) It’s three hours late. (Still better than Amtrak.) The Information lady at the train station can only tell me that it’s ###### (this is how I will represent things that people say to me in Chinese), so I sit down on the steps and hope for the best, but ten minutes later, a high school kid comes over, and sticks his phone in my face: it says “######: late, running late, delay, delayed.” Thank you internet! 1a) A duckling-like line of white backpackers come up the steps of the train station into the waiting area at one point and then disappear; other than that, no white faces in the station. But entire provinces of China crowded into the waiting area, some with crisp suitcases, some with plastic rice sacks on a stick, everything in between. 2) A college student sitting on the ground next to where I’m sitting on the ground becomes fascinated with the book lying on my pile of stuff—Journey to the West, Chinese folk classic (starring the Buddhist monk Tripataka, the Monkey King, the pig demon Pigsy, and the priest demon Sandy (have I mentioned this before? (have I mentioned that I can’t read my own blog right now?)))—which serves as a good conversation opener. We talk awkwardly for a couple of hours. Was nice. 3) Women in blue vests shout ####### and ####### and everyone piles up in new configurations. 4) Pile onto train, impressive acrobatics on the part of everyone else as they climb into middle and top bunks and sort through their luggage (overhead, across the aisle) without touching the ground. Hours of beautiful rustic Szechuan scenery. 4a) Water buffalo! Gamboling and sporting about in the river! While a man in a broad hat sat quietly on the bank with his fishing line! Did I mention the water buffalo were sporting about? They might have been yaks. I’m not so clear on the distinguishing features. But they were definitely, for the 1.5 seconds before they flashed by, SPORTING ABOUT. Leaping winsomely, in fact. Well, one of them. Anyway. 5) As dusk falls, I finally get up the nerve to tap one of the food-cart ladies for food from her food cart. So she gives me a tray full of rice and porky veggies (all food in Szechuan is porky, except maybe the watermelon), I offer randomly chosen amounts of money until I get it right and she takes it, and I sit down and start eating. Five minutes later, a different food cart lady hurries back to me, says “Sorry,” and then “########################,” and then when I stare at her blankly, “#####! ######! #############!,” and then takes the chopsticks out of my hand, puts my money back into my hand, closes my dinner tray, and hurries off with it. Everyone in the train car stares at me staring after her, thinking that either I or the food cart lady is pretty funny. (Any wagers on which?) So after a few minutes, I start to climb up into my bunk when the man below me gestures me back into my seat with a lot of pointing and food gestures—and in fact fifteen minutes later the food cart lady comes back with a cart of dinners evidently considered more suitable—more pork and fewer veggies, anyway, says “Sorry” again, takes my 10 yuan with a more settled, satisfied air, and gives me a dinner I am allowed to eat. I eat quickly just in case. 6) At 7:12 am, the perky, shrill piped-in Chinese flute music begins again, followed by presumably inspirational announcements telling us that our ####### is #######edly ########. A while later it switches to swanky, wide-lapel jazz standards. 7) I eat the last of the snacks left over from Japan. 8) A grad student named Feili, who speaks blessedly great English (great enough that he understands “solar eclipse” and writes it down for me in Chinese—I expect this to be very useful once I’m in Jiayuguan in a few days), sits down and strikes up a conversation. He saw me taking photos of the hills and terraced farms out the window and guessed that this was just maybe my first time in China. He’s great—if we can work out the communication he and his friend may take me out on the town in Lanzhou tonight. 9) I get 3/4 of the way through Journey to the West.
