Riding the Chinese Railway: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

I am in some doubt as to where I stand on taking the train for long-distance journeys in China. I have in the past found myself admiring the rail networks ability to transport you to the farthest corners of the country, provided with food, water, and a place to lie down and sleep. On other occasions, I have sat trapped inside a giant rolling sardine can, fighting the urge to jump headfirst out of the window by trying to calculate how long it would take to saw off one of my own legs with a Swiss Army knife.

On my recent trip to Wudang Mountain I was clearly presented with what I like about long-haul train journeys in China, and also what I don’t. The experience also underlined one of the more admirable aspects of Chinese culture, along with one of the least.

To travel to Wudang I took K351 from Shanghai South to Chongqing, which would depart at 6.21pm, to arrive in Hubei, Shiyan, at 4.45pm the following day. In preparation for the journey I had visited my local bookshop, and bought the thickest English language book I could find for less than 100rmb.

Once on the train, I settled in to my bottom bunk hard sleeper, and was surprised to find a TV installed in each compartment. At first I was dismayed, as it blared out puerile advertisements at high volume, with no way of stopping it other than smashing it with my shoe. To my relief, the loud adverts soon gave way to a popular and reasonably entertaining sit-com, set in ‘the classical period’, and I sat back, admiring the Chinese aptitude for slap-stick.

Things were looking good. I was enjoying the ride. Sadly, it was not to last. Two men with strong Jiangsu dialects were sharing my compartment of 6 hard-sleeper bunks, and were about to show me their own talents for comedy. From when I got on the train, until lights out at about 11pm, these men, somewhat rustic in appearance and demeanour, had been sitting on the flip-down chairs in the aisle, talking loudly, eating preserved chicken or duck out of a packet, among other things, and drinking from a little bottle of baijiu¬ – never less than 40% by vol. – non-stop. As the lights went out, they got up.

I imagined that the background noise of their conversation would stop as the lights went out. Instead, the younger of the two rummaged around in his stuff on the bunk above mine, and pulled out a laptop. This seemed a little incongruous, and I wondered what it was for. The Marx brothers sat down on the vacant bottom bunk opposite mine, ie about 1.5 metres from where I was lying down, under my blanket and obviously desirous of sleep. They put the lap-top on the table, and proceeded to play a computer game – Mah Jong, I deduced from the loud computerized voice, which called out the name of each tile put down as the game progressed. The voice was annoying, but not as annoying as the inane electronic tune which accompanied the game, obviously designed to jolly along the players.

I lay in my bunk silently, wondering how long this would last. I could feel my bile rising, and I fought to repress the expat-rage bubbling up within. After about 20 minutes, I couldn’t take any more. I asked them, very politely, if they could turn down the volume, as I wanted to sleep. There was a moments silence, and then a mumbled “hang on a minute”. Then the music seemed to get louder. I wondered what had been lost in translation, and was about to speak again, when the music abruptly stopped. Great. I lay back, and tried to relax. Imagine my joy when the guys, no longer jollied along by the funky little computerized jingle, found that they needed to converse loudly in order to fully enjoy the now-silenced computer game. Perhaps they were discussing tactics. If so, they were master strategists. I lay listening to their conversation, marveling at their inability to make the mental leap required to deduce that their voices were just as annoying as the music, or their failure give a flying flock. Perhaps at this point, for them, it was already about ‘payback’.

I quickly reached the conclusion that I was unable to lie listening to their unintelligible conversation indefinitely without doing anything rash, and decided the best course of action was to ask to be moved to another bunk. I got up, sought out one of the train company employees, and explained the situation. She seemed to understand my plight, and was kind enough to accompany me back to my compartment, and tell the two men in no uncertain terms that they were acting inappropriately. One of them protested, saying that it was too early to sleep, but they sullenly complied when she told them to go up into their bunks above mine. I lay down in my bunk again, imagining scenarios where the two men descended while I was asleep to exact their revenge. Predictably, within two minutes, the conversation started anew, only from above this time, and I resigned myself to a sleepless night, or spontaneous frenzied violence ending in deportation or a good kicking for me.

Then, divine intervention. I remembered that my girlfriend had given me a set of earplugs issued to her by her company, for when she visits factories. And, with an incredible flash of insight, I had put them in my camera bag; probably in case of snorers. I whipped out the earplugs, stuck them in, and finally………..oblivion.

The return journey from Wudang Mountain was on K284, which I advise people to avoid like the plague. The standards of cleanliness on this train, for some reason, fell considerably short of the K351 of my outgoing journey. The service was much poorer, and the train was shabby. This was compensated for, however, by my travel companions. A Fujian man, senior manager in a building materials company despite being about 23, was travelling with a colleague to Zhengzhou for some kind of training seminar. He and his female companion were friendly and curious, and we chatted for a while. He seemed keen to talk about his home province of Fujian, making me a gift of some Fujian green tea; and she was delighted to discover that my girlfriend comes from the same province as her. After I had ordered a solitary meal in the restaurant carriage, the two of them insisted I join them to share their meal; and Mr Li of Fujian proceeded to order large quantities of beer, which we downed in the traditional way. He was obviously proud of his ability to drink lots of beer without going red-faced and boggle-eyed, and I was happy to join him. A couple of hours later they said goodbye, and got off the train.

Thanks to Mr Li, and his colleague, as well as our other compartment-mate – a navy man from Jiangsu returning home on leave, who insisted on helping at least four women to put their luggage up on the rack, and retrieve it too – I remembered why I sometimes enjoy long train rides. Of course, with a hard seat ticket anything over 8 hours becomes a test of mental and physical toughness; but journeys in the sleeper carriages can be a great opportunity to socialize, practice your Chinese, people-watch, or just kick back and catch up on some reading. Of course, you might run into a couple of clowns, like I did on the way to Hubei, but you takes the rough with the smooth, right?

China Railway Fact-file:
China boasts 100,000 km of railway, and while this is far from the largest rail network in the world (the US is top of the heap, with 240,000 km), it is in the top 3. Anyway, despite having the largest rail network, US citizens have to lowest average rail usage per capita – a thirteenth that of the train-happy Japanese. China, unsurprisingly, tops the list in passenger kilometers per year. China’s rail usage is also growing. Whereas Japans rail passenger transport increased by 2.4% in 2008, Chinas’ saw an increase of 7%, with traffic levels having doubled in 12 years. August 1st 2008 marked the official beginning of the ‘high speed era’ for Chinese trains, and authorities plan to complete a 10,000 km network of high-performance track within the next 15 years. Thanks to this project, there are already operational high speed links from Shanghai to Beijing, Changsha, and Wuhan, among other places.