There are a few memories that will always stick with me: falling in love with a girl on a commuter bus in South Korea, getting kicked out of Taiwan and the 36 harrowing hours on the strange, yet erotic, streets of Hong Kong, and of course, the many all-nighters in Seoul.
But this story trumps them all. Why?
Because I learned so much.
It was January 2010 and we had just finished a few awesome days in Beijing, China, traveling around, going to the Great Wall of China, drinking, and visiting the Forbidden City. I went with four other friends for a two-week vacation that took us through the major spots in China, Hong Kong, and Thailand.
It was also my first trip to the Motherland, and I had no idea what to expect — I thought it would be great to finally go and connect with my roots and history. Yet once we arrived at the airpot, I sure as shit did not feel Chinese.
I was foreign in every way: my clothes, my speech, my mannerisms, my attitude — everything was undeniably American. I don’t even think Chinese people thought I was Chinese. Although I did try. (See photo.)
My Chinese language abilities also sucked. I could barely speak — using whatever I remembered in college Chinese, dicking around in the back — and I couldn’t read Simplified Chinese because learned the traditional way. It would’ve been a complete clusterfuck, if it wasn’t for the fact that I could understand.
Those first three days in China caused more culture shock than my first month in South Korea. For example, everywhere we went, it seemed like something was burning — a heavy soot filled the air and followed us constantly. Everything was colossal: the streets, the sidewalks, the buildings, the blocks, etc. There was squalor and there was modernity. And we all agreed that we could easily spend a month in the city and still not see everything.
We had a blast, though. Even when I was freezing my dick off in the backseat of a minivan — with the windows cracked open for some goddamn reason — speeding on the highway back from the Great Wall on a -20C night, wearing nothing more than a hoodie and a shirt. Or even when we dined on gourmet Szechuan food that melted our tongues and decimated our innards. Soon, it was the last night in Beijing, and we prepared for the next move.
The plan was simple: take a 24-hour long train ride from Beijing to Guangzhou in Southern China. We would be traveling hundreds of miles, trekking through a diverse background of Chinese environments, and massively — and pleasantly — changing our weather (from -20C to 20C). I didn’t know what to expect.
We walked along the platform at the West Railway Station in Beijing on a hazy, smoggy morning and there it was: our accommodations for the next day. We climbed onboard and walked through the narrow, crowded aisle toward our cabins. As I peered into the different rooms as I walked by, I couldn’t help but notice the triple-bunk beds on each side of the cramped room. No bed was empty.
We were also the only foreigners on the train.
Finally, we found our rooms. My friends and I were split between two neighboring ones, and we all took time to stow our luggage and peel off our bulky, puffy winter coats. Some riders were already there making themselves comfortable. It smelled like feet. Two guys were crouched around the tiny table between the bunkbeds and underneath the window watching a small, hand-held television via antenna. I couldn’t believe my eyes — they were watching the Lakers play the Rockets.
“No way,” I said while laughing, and I quickly crowded behind them to watch. They gazed at me through the corners of their eyes and, in a sign of mutual understanding, resumed watching TV.
Eventually, the train started moving and we were off.
The train bore through suburban and rural China, which was both fascinating and confusing. Were these the signs of a country that grew too fast for its own good? I gazed through the windows and saw abandoned buildings, dirt roads, motorcycle drivers with face masks, and old women pulling rickshaws. Everything was masked with a brownish tint. There was no vegetation, junk littered everywhere, and — every so often — an open pile of burning garbage. Beijing was a testament of Asian modernity. This, however, was a far cry from first-world poverty.
My thoughts soon returned to the train for the next adventure: making friends.
As I met new people, our conversations typically sounded like this:
“Where are you from?” they’d ask.
“I’m from America,” I’d say in broken Chinese.
“Wow! America? That’s so cool!” they said.
“Really?”
“Yeah! I wish I could go visit.”
I was shocked. In America, we look down upon China. I mean, these were our competitors who try to undercut us at every turn. They were communist. They were brainwashed with state-controlled media. Bad, bad, bad. It never occurred to me that Chinese people felt differently about America. They were fascinated with the United States and even asked me to tell them about it.
I asked what they thought about America. I asked what they thought about China. I even asked what they thought about Taiwan.
“Oh, I would love to go to Taiwan,” they told me. “But I can’t.”
The toilets, however, were a different animal. Each bathroom was a tiny, plastic, and blue closet with a small bowl dug into the ground for squatting and a metal handbar next to it for holding. That was it. The water, soap, and mirrors were all outside in the small area at the end of the car. I took one quick look at our blue coffin and shuddered. On a train? In my brief time in Asia, I was still scared shitless about squat toilets. I didn’t have to drop a solid — but I can’t say the same for one of my friends. Twice. (Still cracks me up.)
I also met a girl. (Of course.) I don’t remember much of her except we talked and laughed a lot and, when she ate instant noodles she bought on the train instead of going to the dining car, I was kind of jealous.
My evening was also filled with drinking games with friends and stow-away alcohol.
That night, I leaned against the door to the neighboring compartment and chatted with two girls in university who asked me about everything. They wanted to hear about America, and I wanted to learn about China. Their English was awful and so was my Chinese. It was a perfect match.
The next morning, I woke up, brushed my teeth, ate a train-car breakfast, and excitedly waited for Guangzhou. Looking outside, the barren, flat landscape of dirt and dust were replaced by rolling green mountains, small buildings, and rice paddies everywhere.
A hour or two later, we packed as the train slowed down, got out, and greeted the warm, humid Southern China weather.
Guangzhou was awesome. So was Macau and Hong Kong. But looking back, my favorite part of my first trip to China was still that day-long train ride.
To me, that was China. Public transportation. Regular-ass people with regular-ass lives. People of all ages. No one spoke English. There were no tourist attractions and Western influences to hide behind.
And I loved every minute of it.
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