The rest of this blog is a mixture of personal journal and blogging. The thoughts are my own so if you don't agree that's ok. I only ask that you be as open to my thoughts as I am to any comments you leave. there is no right or wrong, just what is. Thanks!

The train is approximately 18 carriages long (not including the engine cars). I am in what is known as a 'hard-sleeper'. This means that the carriage I am in has six bunks per compartment, three on each side. I am now typing from the top (cheapest) bunk. Here are two shots I took earlier:

It cost me about $65 USD or 420 Yuan. Anyway, the carriage has ten compartments which means there are 60 people in this carriage. Everyone is speaking Chinese so I am completely alone on this leg of my adventure. It will take 23 hours to get to where I am going so I have developed a mindset of patience and lots of reading. I have earplugs but will wait until they turn the lights out at 10 to put them in. I have two reading lights so I should be fine.

I am very glad that I have developed patience and tolerance over the past years of working in Alaska. I need all of what I have learned for this trip. The smoking is outrageous (350 million smokers here). So, everywhere you go there is cigarette smoke. There is no smoking in the carriages but some still do while others follow the rules where there is smoking allowed between the carriages. The smoke still filters into where I am so it feels like I am traveling in a bar. I was watching an English-language program and they said that by next year China will start a ban on smoking in public places. Unfortunately, it is one year too late for me. I'll be very happy to get to a city that has less pollution than Beijing (Shenzhen; not Hong Kong). Actually, it will improve 1000% when I get off this train!

It's 9:00 PM Wednesday evening here so that would make it 8:00 AM Wednesday morning in Chicago. I am going to start reading and save the power on the computer. I will write more later.

OK, it is 4:45 PM on Thursday. I have found out we are a little over two hours late so now we will not arrive until 9:30 PM. I slept relatively well which was surprising. Three Benadryl doesn't hurt, either. I was reading last night and a message came over the intercom that said..... how the heck do I know, I don't speak Chinese. However, I figured out five minutes later that it probably said that the lights would be turning off in five minutes. That was at 9:55 PM. So, in the dark, I started feeling around for my bag so I could get my reading light. Took a little while but I finally got it. I read for another hour or so and then slept in spurts of a few hours each. The train is smooth and pretty quiet. The only bad thing was the smoking. But, you get used to it sort of. Being on the top bunk, I think most of the smoke gathers there so with the fans it took a little while to disperse. With the pictures above, you can see the layout of the train. I finished an entire book today before taking an afternoon siesta for an hour or so. While I walking to the 'bathroom', a man (bottom right in the top picture) asked me in English if I would like to try some Chinese 'tea'. I figured it was some type of alcohol but when I smelled it I couldn't really tell. It is a form of respect when a Chinese person offers something of their own to a foreigner. I didn't want to be disresoectful so I mustered some instant courage, said a Hail Mary faster than a nun, and hoped for the best. It smelled like licorice. In any case, I took a swig. HOLY SHMOLY! It's been 15 minutes and my throat and stomach are still feeling the heat. I don't know what it was but it was fairly strong and did taste like black licorice. He calls me 'friend' and so we have practiced a little Chinese and English together. There are four different tones in Chinese. Using the wrong tone can change the entire meaning of the sentence/word. For instance, the word 'ma'. With one tone, the word will mean 'excuse me'. With another, it will mean 'will you kiss me'. Another and I think it means 'horse'. So, as you can see, one must be careful when learning the language! I have been laughed at quite a bit which is fine. I learned to laugh at myself a long time ago. But when I finally get the tone and the correct sound out and they give me a thumbs up or shake their heads adamantly up and down, it is quite rewarding. There are many sounds that are in Chinese that we do not have in English. Trying to make the correct sound is like gymnastics training for the tongue. I also think that because I am the world's worst singer, I am having more trouble with the tones than maybe someone who is not tone-deaf would have. My teacher yesterday before I left was a guy from Norway named Reinger (Ranger). I mentioned him yesterday. In case you didn't read that post, he has been here 3 months and is in a Chinese immersion language class at the University of Beijing. The class is six hours a day, M-F. I envy those that can speak other languages. We in America are not forced to take other languages as part of our curriculum in elementary and high school. I think that is a mistake but I am sure that will change in time. The world is becoming too intertwined with all the technology advancements and trade so I hope that languages such as Spanish, French or Latin (which are very close to each other), and even Chinese are introduced as compulsory. Not all mind you but at least two of the three. I only say Chinese not because I am here but because of their burgeoning economy and their rapid rise in status in the world in general.

Being here has been such an experience and it has only been a week. The dichotomy between the haves and have nots, poverty and growing middle class, modern/advanced infrastructure and archaic mud huts, and modern energy (solar and wind power) versus coal burning and incredible pollution makes this country so fascinating. The younger people here between university age and about 40 are mostly very polite towards me. They offer me drink (the above example), a seat to chat and to have the opportunity to practice their English while teaching me Chinese, as well as asking many questions about what it is like to live in America and what it is like to travel all over the world tells me they have either come a long way in less than a generation or our history books have some facts slanted. Probably a combination of both. After all, history is usually written (fact or not) by the victors. For instance, the other night I was sitting alone at an outside restaurant finishing a monstrous meal that cost me less than $2. I started talking with two men next to me. The elderly man who was with his son expressed his gratitude to the US for helping to save most of his relatives' lives during World War II. Unfortunately, his parents and grandparents along with some others were taken one night from their house by Japanese soldiers and were never seen again. He said if it hadn't been for the Americans, the Japanese would have continued their atrocities against their people and everyone in their village including his family would have been killed. I didn't have to know Chinese to see by the look on his face and the tear in his eye the disdain he still feels towards the Japanese. I didn't know what to say to him except to thank him for being so kind. I wanted on the inside so badly to take a picture of this man with his hunchback, wrinkled and weathered face, and arthritic fingers but thought that might be disrespectful. I found out later that I had chosen correctly.

I would have liked to have taken more pictures through the windows here on the train as I have traveled but between the dirty windows and the speed with which we are traveling, the pictures are blurred. The countryside is full of mountains (no snow caps) and sharp instead of rolling hills. Every square inch of available ground space seems to be used for growing rice and some other types of food. The housing is mostly brick and anywhere between one and four stories average. The number of units in each I can't really tell however it seems as if they range from single-dwelling up to more than ten separate apartments. It's cloudy down this way and they have been receiving record rainfall. If it stays this way, I will travel to Chongqing earlier than expected and then back to Beijing earlier as well. There is still much to see in Beijing.

We pull into the station in about 90 minutes. It will be Thursday morning your time so hopefully you will have a chance to read and comment. Let me know if there are things that you would like me to take pictures of. I won't guarantee anything but I'll do what I can.

As it turns out, I couldn't post this until today, Friday. The next note explains why.

written by  akstoltzy on May 27, 2010 from Shenzhen, China
from the travel blog: China
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I think you were born to blog. It's around 6:30 and I was just checking out your train trip to see what it was like. Keep up the good work!

written by  Eric Boring on May 28, 2010

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