While I was waiting for my own trip to begin I watched the city empty out. Traffic unsnarled. Strange apparitions usually hidden behind the veil of commerce revealed themselves. Shops I liked to patronize retreated behind roll-down accordion metal doors. Firework stores appeared overnight and the sound of their wares exploded constantly, making it seem as if we all were under attack. Under attack by the Year of the Snake. The city buses that travel major roads during rush hour are usually so crowded they would evoke a sardine’s pity were half full. Red lanterns were strung everywhere. Relatives, returning to visit my neighbors, were unused to me, and stared and pointed—laowai. I asked a friend what she thought of the empty city and her only comment was that there was less spit on the sidewalk. And so there was. I arrived at the train station an hour and a half early, anticipating the crush of the annual migration, but it seems as if everyone had preceded me. The station was normal and after being duly and dully stared at, was able to board my car with no problem. Even though I knew where I was going, a mature gent looked at my ticket and escorted me to my berth, then washed his hands of me as if he had done his duty for Mao and country. The train had originated in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia and had a lived in look. I stowed my things, happy that I was traveling again, and took a look at my surroundings. Immediately, it was apparent that someone didn’t like the fact that I had invaded their compartment. He was tall, relatively fit, between 40 and 50 years old, his bearing screamed military, with a pockmarked face and close-cropped dark hair that allowed for some growth above his forehead, forming an aggressive V that he pointed at me like an accusation. It was palpable he didn’t like me and beamed that out, loud and clear. I met his gaze, not as a challenge but making it clearly obvious that I was not afraid and that there was nothing he could do to ruin my unfolding adventure. That said, I disengaged from his tractor beam eyes and went about exploring the train. What a wonderful moving monstrosity the train was. I mean monstrosity in the finest sense. It was alive, hurtling, expanding, contracting, sweeping us all along with as it roared down the track—correction, the roar was in my head, the train was smooth and relatively quiet—a serpentine equivalent of the coming new year rushing at us all at the speed of the mind, involving the entire country, a changeling reflecting a person’s perspective, sucking up the landscape and drawing it along. I sat down on one of the small, fold-down seats and watched China pass. In western China, there seems to be one long highway under construction, in fits and starts, disappearing and reappearing, inviting you to come along, then abruptly ending. Future dreams. Concrete plants churning out possibilities. Gray, gaping mouths showing rebar teeth. I wondered what would greet me at the end of all this unraveling land, committed to 22 hours in flight, overland, through day, then night, then day again. Most of rural western Mo Yan China looks like this: flat valley tucked between opposing hills, squat dwellings made of brick, cement, adobe, making up orange, rose and yellow-bricked villages, roads lined with winter trees, the bottoms of the trunks painted waist-high with milk-white paint, energized by high-voltage lines marching in over the hills, the hard-packed reddish-brown winter dirt offering faded ghosts of fertile summers past, gold withered cornstalks huddled together like legions of outnumbered Spartans, the hay stacked and fading, except for a gaping green mouth opened by a farmer’s pitchfork, lonely brown trails leading off to lonely terraced fields, above a brown-toned mosaic, tiled with sleeping plants covered in lines and rows of dirt-covered plastic. Trash dumps leaking into arroyos along the rail line. Green, gray, white, yellow government buildings, blue schools. We flew by ancient forts decaying into Ozymandian oblivion, old railroad tracks, tunnels and bridges, crying out for passengers to come and make them vital again, placid sheep wandering dry river beds, unmindful of skewers or hotpot or ripping, chewing mouths. I was as happy as an ADHD human can be. A young policeman came by and asked for my passport. While he was scrutinizing it, a passenger came up and took it from him, then proceeded to riffle through the pages. I stood up and grabbed it from him, pointing my finger and demanding, “Are you police?” Then I handed it back over to the cop. Everyone laughed, including the policeman. The man who had grabbed it actually turned red and stalked off. The policeman pretended to look at it then gave it back to me with a smile. We flew onward. But there was one problem: sitting on my fold down seat I was continually jolted by everyone passing down the aisle. Either I was too big for the seat, or my shoulders were to wide to allow unfettered passage, or it was some Chinese initiation to the laowai traveling in the hard sleeper compartment, no matter, my shoulder soon grew sore from everyone bumping into it as they passed by. In this ticket class, the bottom bunk is meant to be shared during the day, like a couch, but on both bottom bunks the occupant families were sprawled out luxuriously and they looked so peaceful I was reluctant to disturb them. I found refuge by standing in between the cars, where there was a window, surfing the train as it wound its way through the mountains. At one point, I realized that if I tugged on the propped open door, I could slip behind it, close it again, so that I had a small private compartment with a big window, and the window in the door made it look as if I were trapped in there. I was soon discovered by children, who took great delight at seeing the captive laowai, alerting all their friends, and shrieking in fright as I threatened them with pretend menace, racing back up the aisle, pausing, fortifying themselves for another go, then sneaking back for another look. I was cheap entertainment and I imagined their parents welcomed the respite. When I got hungry, I purchased a Styrofoam container of food from a roving vendor and went back to my previous fold down seat. I tried to balance it in my palm and work the disposable chopsticks, when all of a sudden the man with the aggressive V haircut was making a commotion, shooing people away with an impatient gesture, clearing a space at the compartment table, then abruptly waving me over. I said, “Me? Ummm, hmmm, that’s –-” He waved me again to the table, but this time it was more a command. So I went, sat down and started eating. I turned to him to give him the thumbs up sign, but he strenuously ignored me. When others giggled at the sight of me using chopsticks, he froze them with a glare. I was left to eat in a bubble of peace. Afterward, I took up my position between the cars. When the train slowed and rolled to a stop in a station, the man found me and was beckoning me to follow him out of the car and onto the platform, indicating by pointing to his watch that we would be here for 15 minutes. In my mind, I began calling him ‘Sarge.’ He offered me a cigarette, which I gracefully declined, showed me where to buy hard boiled eggs from the cheapest vendor, pantomimed that I should move around a bit and get the blood moving, then made sure I got back on the train when it was about to leave.
He became my train buddy, showing me the ropes, instructing me on the best way to climb up into the third bunk, alerting me when the train was stopping for a prolonged time, repeatedly offering me cigarettes, keeping a protective eye on me. I don’t know what I did to earn his empathy. Maybe it was my playing with the kids. Maybe it was my standing most of the way. Maybe it was that I appeared happy and didn’t complain. Maybe I had just read him wrong at the beginning. We hurled through the night, me clasping the rail in the top bunk in a death grip, thinking a train lurch would fling me out of bed and into the dark chasm below, dreaming secondhand dreams, writing Woody Guthrie ballads in my sleep then promptly forgetting them, rolling across the big rooster, in deep black screaming steel peace. The lights came on at 6:30 A.M. Still half asleep, everyone gathered their things and waited to de-train. Then, we were moving. Onto the platform, then down the stairs. I saw Sarge ahead of me and caught up. He looked surprised, then stared for a moment at my outstretched hand before shaking it, managing a smile before turning and walking off into China. I watched the sun rise above the North Station in Chengdu from a second story window of a KFC, 22 hours gone and turned into train dust. A new city yawning. Life unrelenting. Part 3 will follow.
2 Comments
andym
2/20/2013 11:29:26 am
Beautiful writing my friend. I thank you for allowing me to join you on
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Mary
2/25/2013 06:34:44 am
Beautiful writing indeed!! What an adventure all new things to learn - their train seems very organized. You sure are brave did you sleep at all thru the night. I am so happy the Sarge was looking out for you -- you have that innocent look. I love the pictures and the lady with the military outfit as you described in Part 1 now having a picture of her was exactly as you described...you always take us on the journey with you even without pictures but I do love the pictures how beautiful the fireworks look upon the city..Have fun can't wait to read Part 3 love ya,sis
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