2002-11-27 - 7:36 a.m.

Night Market and the Train Station From Hell

Nanjing, Nov. 13

Continuing the story of my trip to China.

The rest of the day was spent getting ready for our trip by train to Beijing. We needed to pick up a couple more items, and we needed to pack.

One of the things I wanted to get was a better backpack. The one I had brought from the states was serviceable enough, but it was mainly intended to be a high school bookbag. I needed something that was bigger and better designed.

Apparently the thing to do when you need little everyday items like that is to go to the Night Market. On nights when the weather is nice the sidewalks across the street from Lily's college in Nanjing fill up with vendors selling everything you could imagine. They also specialize in a way that would be hard to visualize anywhere else. Once night fell Lily took me to the table of a woman who sold nothing but backpacks. That's it! Backpacks-R-Us!

Initially I was going to buy one just like Lily's but there was this odd lacing on the back that seemed to serve no purpose. Then the lady showed me a backpack that had a huge plastic zipper on the back, again some sort of odd fashion accessory.

Finally I found one I liked. It was even bigger than the first two, and it had a couple little accessories I was looking for, like pockets to hold water bottles on the outside. Now that I found a pack that I liked Lily started to bargain in earnest. She got the seller down to about 27 RMB, which is a little more than $3 American.

I was quite proud of myself for this deal, but as we all know pride goeth before a fall.

We had overnight train tickets to Beijing which seemed like a good way to do things. We could fall asleep on the train and Presto! We'd be in Beijing. However, before we got to our train, we had to deal with the train station. Ye gods.

We were leaving at 9:15 in the evening, so we got to the train station in plenty of time. However when we got there the place was a scene of milling confusion as thousands of people seemed to be wandering around outside. When we got to the door it became obvious why there were so many people outside - there was an official looking guy in uniform there who only was letting in people with tickets. Non-ticket holders had to cool their heels outdoors.

A little aside here about people in military uniforms. In China, they're everywhere! The trouble is since I'm a clueless foreigner, I have a hard time telling an actual military uniform from the uniform of someone who, say, collects the tolls on the highway or opens the doors at the hotel. Lots of people wear military-style uniforms!

Confusing the issue is the fact that the REAL soldiers have uniforms that make them all look like generals, at least to me. When I saw the first couple I thought: wow, he looks young to be an officer. But when I saw them in groups of four or five laughing and shoving each other around it occurred to me that they were just common soldiers. Well, there's no rule book that says that the Chinese have to make their society easy for the odd ignorant foreigner to figure out.

Anyway, we got into the train station, and it was mobbed on the inside, too. There were cattle-call like lines with rows of uncomfortable plastic seats, and at the head of the line a lit sign announced what train was leaving at that gate.

On the way in the strap of my new pack gave way. When I picked it up, I discovered that it wasn't just a case of the strap coming loose from its little buckle - the thing had ripped loose at the very top, where it was sown onto the pack itself. Worse yet, the strap coming off was making the rest of the threading up there unravel too, and it looked like the other strap might come off too. The damn thing was falling apart in my hands! I decided to carry it like a bag of groceries, hugging it to my chest.

So, I bought a piece of crap pack. What did I expect for three dollars?

We were early so we were able to find a seat in our line, but the place filled up rapidly.

The train station was filthy and stank of urine. A lot of the other people sitting near us were wearing peasant-type clothes, and their luggage seemed to consist of huge pillowcases, tied shut with rope. Everybody also seemed to be bringing food with them, the most popular item seemed to be little glass thermoses of green tea.

With maybe one exception, Lily and I were the only lao wei in the station. In a situation like that's it's easy to get the paranoid feeling that everyone is staring at you, but in this case everyone WAS staring at us. The Chinese don't consider it rude to stare at foreigners, and since we were sitting right in front of them they were feasting their eyes. They were all ogling us like they expected us to do a magic trick or something. It didn't really bother me - I just read my book.

Finally, something happened, I'm not sure what, and everyone around us stood up. Figuring that they were letting us into the gate mow, we stood up too. The lot of us then stood in line for another 15 minutes before they opened the little gates leading to the tracks. Once the gates were open everyone in front of us started running like their asses were on fire. There was no need for us to hurry since we had reserved seats, but we couldn't dawdle either - they weren't going to hold the train for us.

At last, we were on our way to Beijing.

Continued...