TRAINING EAST

Training East

The last flight to Beijing left Dunhuang at the end of October. It sucked that I missed it by a couple of weeks, but it meant I would have the pleasure of taking my first sleeper train, a nice easy 30 hour ride. Dunhaung is not on the main east-west transit line so it meant that I had to first get to Liuyang, some hour or two north, and since my train was to leave at five in the morning I figured I might as well sleep in the station.

After help from the hostel, I found myself in a shared cab at about nine in the evening. After running a few errands, including picking up more passengers to squeeze into the back, we were on our way, weaving along an unlit desert highway. It was a bit scary, so I dozed off. By one we were in the station and within five minutes I had picked out my very own spot amid the grime and cigarette butts to sleep on the floor. At five, I stumbled into the train and in no time I was asleep again nestled in my own little sleeper bed.

By eight thirty the cabin was alive with activity. I fought the urge to get up mainly because there was no where to go. I was stuck for a day plus; sleep seemed like my best option. The next day was spent alternating between reading, writing and sleeping, kind of like my trip from Japan. This time though all the characters were front and center (sometimes on my bed) for me to observe. I think I turned out to be more interesting for them, then vice versa. As the only foreigner I had to struggle with some major language issues. I had an initial conversation with my neighbors for about an hour. That sounds impressive, but in fact, I only understood the first minute or two and thereafter I was just nodding politely. Most of my interlocutors peeled off as they lost interest, but one guy kept me sitting there for a while. Where was I to go? If I scampered off to the bathroom, he would just be there when I got back. I just had to wait until he decided to shut up.

A number of people on the train thought I was Chinese. They would approach me and ask, "Are you from Xinjiang?" This question is only slight less ridiculous after you learn that this is the home of the Muslim Uigher population. Some of them have beards, I have a beard. I guess it makes sense.

Two observations from the train. Chinese travelers are terrible packers for train journeys. This is apparent in their selection of food, and bizarre attire. It seemed that the average traveler brought a quantity of food equal to or greater than a fifth of their body weight. As if they are prepared to spend not one day, but possibly one week with this stock. As if this weren't enough, several bought additional boxes of fruit. Many of the male travelers wore cheap sport coats, which I found odd because they weren't warm, didn't' look good and there was no place to hang the jacket. Odder still was the amount of pant layers worn by the guy in the bunk next to me. After the trousers came off, he removed his sweatpants, after which he had thinner pants, which were over long johns. This made no sense to me since the cabin was totally temperature controlled and rather pleasant.

The toilet was also stranger. Rather than keeping the waste to be drained at the station. The toilet opened upon flushing and seemed to let everything fly. I'll have to have a closer look the next time I pass some tracks. The trip passed without any major discomfort and I arrived in El Capital without any problem.

Rockets A Flying
Before I get to my wonderful time in Beijing. I wanted to discuss a couple recent events. Prior to my visit, I learned that Beijing experienced one of the largest snowfall in the past thirty years. Apparently the city is having some water problems so the government tried to induce rainfall. This was done by shooting a rocket into the sky to seed the clouds. Unfortunately, the dosage was mistakenly too large and the weather was colder than expected. The result, snow, lots and lots of snow. Ooops. No biggy, as it melted a few days later, and fortunately, it snowed two more times in the week plus I spent there.

The other event that caught my attention was the opening of a new stock exchange. I believe it's called the GEM market. On it's first day of trading all the stocks were up twenty percent, such that trading temporarily suspended. The excitement of the opening I think is common here when discussing the economic situation. The euphoria together with the massive level of development and lack of the true oversight (read rampant corruption) worried me. Stocks don't go up forever, companies don't effectively /police themselves , tax dollars get misappropriated. Everything is all good right now, but what happens if there's a problem