This is the only way to present this journey - The adventures of a- small human who went to China to see what was to be seen...
Every thing in the story is true. Some of the names and places have been altered to avoid causing trouble to those who helped me along the way.
It's perfectly possible to organise your own trip to China. The Chinese Government wants our money. Highly recommended is the chinese tourist board in Cambridge Square, London and the Lonely Planet Guide to China - whose tips were invaluable.
China had been calling for a long time. In the struggle to put my adult life together, I had glimpses of China as if from behind a screen. The colour of films and sentences from books, had beckoned me forward to the day I could afford to listen to her summons. Finally, once secured, the horizons of my own world had seemed to have shrunk, rather alarmingly, to the confines of the computer industry and the routine of housework.
England, itself, seemed sunk in misery and the general gloom, and inadequacy of politics seemed pervasive. Like Mole I found myself muttering things like, "Bother decorating, Bother Compaq, Bother salesmen."
Until one day I found the time was right and I realised that no-one could chase out my cobwebs and jump out of my rut except me. I contacted an old friend who was working in China and planned my visit.
For a whole month, I could be free.
From Hong Hong, to Schzuan,Xian and Beijing: the points on the map linked into a mysterious pattern and the 1st of November found me, armed only with the Lonely Planet Guide Book, on my way.
I flew to Hong Kong and took a train through the New Territories into China. The wait for my next train in Guangzhou almost convinced me China was going to be a horrible experience and tempted me straight back to Hong Kong.
It was hot. I was tired. I stood waiting outside the station where I became an immediate target for every beggar in the city. One man in rags approached me and revealed an arm from which the hand had been severed. The wound, now fully healed was tightly and neatly wrapped by skin. I wish I could have been more shocked but my charity is strained by the the beggars in the streets of London who fall not far short of similar enterprise.
I pulled out a can of 7Up and began to drink. A mother and her child watched me silently. I stopped drinking. I gave the can to the little boy who seized it and ran with his mother as swiftly as If I had given him gold. I sat on my luggage, kept a tight grip on my rucksack. I didn't like 7Up anyway.
The guide who met me with my ticket assured me the railway station notice board would tell me the platform departures times. Well it did, I found, in Mandarin Chinese!
There was no sign of a ticket office. Over me and above one of the doors was showing a departure time of 19:00 hours. Realising this was the departure time of my train I headed toward it. T hree queues of Chinese patiently lined outside two closed doors. I sighed and got into place.
Suddenly the doors sprang open and two guards with loud speakers manned the doors. The effect was instantaneous. Those at the back pushed towards the front. It took all your strength to brace it. The guards stopped a small girl who was six people ahead of me. Possibly she had no ticket. The female guard grabbed her by the ear and yelled, and beat her viciously around the head. Another guard stood over her screaming abuse via a loud hailer.
The passengers in front of me complained about the delay. The guard's response was immediate. She slammed and closed the door and refused to reopen it. I decided on Sauve qui peut and side stepped to the next queue which was moving quite fast through the second door.
I reached the guard. She took one look at my ticket and refused to let me through. She gestured violently that I should be upstairs. I was not inclined to argue. I found some stairs. I climbed them.
Miraculously a notice with 'Soft Sleeper Waiting Room' appeared. I pushed open the door and walked in. Air conditioning! Marble floors !Receptionist! God it was bliss. A courteous man showed me the way to the correct waiting room and made sure I got the right train when it was called. There was one last dash to the train as all third class passengers fought to get to the train first. Having a 'hard sleeper' ticket did not guarantee a seat.
An overwhelming smell of boiled cabbage pervaded the train. I was convinced, when I was first shown the carriage, that I had been cheated and the real first class carriages were lurking somewhere else. A swift walk along the length of the train convinced me otherwise. The tatty curtains, raggedy carpet and the sorry little plant really were emblems of comfort and privilege. And so I sat in a little aluminium shell which was split into four bunks.. The toilets a long way down the carriage, thankfully, were something you just know is harbouring a vile disease and the chinese style toilet ( hole in the floor ) was a sight not to be contemplated on a full stomach.. This was the train on which I had chosen to spend two days
And yet, even now I can not begin to describe to you the sense of fierce joy with which I woke and saw for the first time, China, unfold before me. I was reminded of my childhood in the English countryside. During the seemingly endless summers my sister and I played in an idyllic landscape: reacting at once and instinctively to whatever the terrrain presented: a time of unlearnt responses and actions not distilled by routine and habit.
I sat in my carriage absorbed by a rare and pure happiness. I was alone in an unfamiliar and not necessarily unfriendly environment, challenged as of old by the unknown in which I had to survive.
I could not wait to begin the day...
to be continued... Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Author: Sarah Keen Date: June 05, 2008 |