Princeton in Beijing has ended at last, meaning two things: First, my brain has finally been allowed a brief respite from the past eight weeks of Acute Chinese Language Overload Syndrome; and second, I’ve had a break of roughly two weeks to travel around China before the start of my fall language program.
Three friends and I had originally planned to spend a week or two in Tibet, but there happen to be a lot of complications in traveling there as a student (apparently we are too meddlesome for the government’s liking), and we had not set aside enough time to obtain the special permits to enter the region. We instead resolved to go to Yunnan Province (Yunnan 云南 literally means south of the clouds), in the south of China. Yunnan is famous for being both extremely beautiful, and incredibly diverse—its 26 (out of China’s total 56) represented ethnic minorities make it China’s most diverse province. Bordering on Vietnam, Burma, and Laos, Yunnan has received influence from various different cultures, and consequently offers a lot in the way of tourism.
To make up for the lack of posts over the last several weeks, I will give a brief introduction to Yunnan over the next several posts—each of which will focus on a particular city we visited, and will link to an album of corresponding pictures. In this post, however, I am going to focus on perhaps the most definitive part of the trip, as it constituted 4 out of 10 total days of travel. That would be…..THE 48 HOUR TRAIN RIDE.
It sounds uncomfortable. It sounds claustrophobia-inducing. And due to the absence of a shower, it most certainly sounds greasy. In reality, however, it is all those things and so much more. Despite these considerations, as well as the mildly mortifying (yet inevitable) restroom situation, taking the train such a long way through China was truly an invaluable experience. Simply flying from city to city, one can never fully appreciate China as a country—its culture, its people, and most strikingly, the physical evidence of its rapid growth.
Traveling from northeastern Beijing to far southwestern Yunnan, we had the chance to observe a true cross-section of China. By no means do I claim a deep understanding of daily life in the areas we passed through; however, simply by observing the varying rates of development among large cities, smaller cities, and rural towns I extracted a sense of China that I never would have from simply living in Beijing or Shanghai. In particular, the train ride highlights the gap between urban and rural China regarding standard of living. Whereas more and more people in Beijing/Shanghai can now afford to do things such as drive luxury European cars, of those who live in the countryside (55% of the current population), rural workers on average make less than 800 RMB ($118) each month, and farmers on average make only 134 RMB (just under $20). However, in the wake of such rapid economic growth, a mass exodus from the countryside has ensued: by 2050, it is estimated that city-dwellers will constitute 80% of China's population. Given the unprecedented development throughout all parts of China, readily apparent to any traingoer, this estimate seems to be on target.
Anyway enough of that, here’s a slideshow of some of the photos I took while riding through the countryside on the train: (or go to My Picasa Gallery)
The Train Itself:
Riding the train in China, you typically have 4 options: Hard-seat, Soft-seat (both inconceivable [but cheap] options for such a long trip), Hard-sleeper (6 people/room), and Soft-sleeper (4 people / room). We elected to ride hard-sleeper in order to save a little money, and it really wasn’t too bad. We ended up with the top 4 bunks, and shared our room with a family from Inner Mongolia (which, for those who may not know, is actually a Chinese province directly southeast of “Outer Mongolia”, or just Mongolia). Starting on the second day of the trip, the mother opened up to me a lot, explaining how she was sending her daughter off to begin university at the University of Kunming in Yunnan’s capital city. Her genuine pride in her daughter’s accomplishment radiated from her words. I found it incredibly moving that the entire family was so happily traveling together for nearly 3 days each way on the train to drop her off at university. The family was very generous as well, and after I started talking to them they offered me a large portion of the Mongolian beef jerky they had brought from their hometown—and made sure that I ate all of it.
Hot food on the train is iffy at best, and the prepared “fast food” that came around the train via cart was especially questionable. If you are a clueless American like we all were, you might not think to pack tons of food for the trip. As a result, we had to resort to the assortment of packaged ramen noodles (Fangbian mian方便面 – “convenient noodles”) available in the dining car for almost every meal. This didn’t end up being so bad, as fangbian mian are delicious, and we made friends with some of the fuwuyuans (服务员 a sort of catch-all title for service people/waiters/etc) in the dining car. We even brought our laptop down to the dining car and watched Mean Girls with them one night.
On the way back to Beijing we took the same train, but managed to get two bottom bunks, which happens to make all the difference in a comfortable ride. It’s still a long time to be in a relatively confined space, but it ended up being good reading and reflecting time, and was definitely worth the while to see the countryside. If you’re planning to come to China and want to have a real Chinese experience, taking a long overnight train is one part of China you really shouldn’t miss!
I promise this time I will be more regular with my posting. Rather than being several weeks apart, as the last two posts have been, expect the next several posts to be within a day or two of each other.
Thanks for reading!
-Russell
Next Post: Kunming, the capital city of Yunnan Province
