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Published: October 2nd 2007
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Terracotta Warriors
IMHO, This is pretty overrated. Xi'an is not my cup of tea. Xi'an is one of China's big economic center. It is a booming city located strategically at what many would call the center point of China. The main streets are lined with fashion boutiques, high end hotels, karaokes, and restaurants (both Chinese and western). There is a lot of money that flows through this city. Xi'an is prosperous by Chinese standards and those who've I met on the road say that Xi'an is a big city with a unique flavor - I just don't see it. Then again, Big cities have never really been my cup of tea.
Xi'an has the Terracotta warrior museum and a handful of other museums/temples/historical sites. At this point, I've seen probably one too many "historical site" (which China has plenty of). I was plenty bored by the second day and anxious to get the heck out of town. So anxious that I chose to buy a train ticket for an eighteen hour ride on a hard seat instead of wait two days for a sleeper to become available. For those unfamiliar with Chinese trains, there are four classes: hard seat, soft seat, hard sleeper, and soft sleeper. Most
backpackers opt for a overnight sleeper so that one can sleep through most of the train ride. The poor and the working class usually buy tickets for hard seats as they are the cheapest. In the hard seat cabins, people are packed in, some people do not have seat and end up standing. Everything in the cabin is an assault on the senses, it is filthy, noisy, and smelly. I did not sleep a wink on the train. Every time I managed to almost fall asleep, I immediately awoke to stop myself from falling out of my seat and onto the floor which the kid 2 seats down peed on. I suspect very few people manage to sleep on a hard seat as there are hundred of people sleeping on the ground inside and outside the train station like bums.
What happened next is something that I don't think I will ever forget. Near the end of my train ride, a young Tibetan girl about age fourteen to fifteen and an older Tibetan man were arguing. The argument ended abruptly with the man walking off to some other cabin in the train. The little girl remain seated there quietly.
Off the train
and what a ride it has been... There was something very fragile about her, like a piece of China that would shatter if it hit the ground. As I watched her clutch onto her plastic bag of clothes and nervously rub her fingers, I could tell that she was upset. I was not the only one who saw it. Some of the other passengers asked her what was wrong and she would not say, only asked to borrow a phone. Her Mandarin was very rough as she probably spoke Tibetan at home, communication was a bit of a problem and she seemed like she did not want to talk to anyone. Later on, she managed to tell the other passengers that she did not want to get off the train with that man. She had been working in Xi'an and they were now headed to her home. A quick glance at her and anyone could tell that she was too young to work. Something was terribly wrong with the situation. A thought of what it could be crept into the back of my mind, and I began feel a discomfort in my stomach.
I'm no hero - I don't donate to charity and I litter, but I felt sorry for her. I asked her if she needed help getting home and offered to buy her a train ticket home. By US standards a train ticket is not that expensive ($10-20 US dollars). The man she had argue with before reappeared and she argued with him again, he ended up leaving the train this time. May be she finally told him off, I thought. I would keep my promise and buy her a train ticket home where she was safe. I returned to my seat. I had not noticed until I had turned around again, but tears where streaming from her face. Other passengers took notice, then so did the police officers stationed on the train. They took her to the front of the train to question her. After some time had passed, I learned from the other passengers my earlier suspicion was right. The man who was on the train with her was trying to sell her on the train. My exit was coming up. I had still intended to help her get home. I decided to go talk to the police. I made the police uneasy, perhaps I was too nosy for my own good. There words to my were roughly equivalent to: "as an American, you should leave Chinese matters to the Chinese police. The girl's parents had been contacted and they would pick her up." For a moment I thought that the situation was beginning to right itself. On the way out of the train, I asked the young girl one more thing as the police ushered me back to my seat. I asked her is home was a safe place. She shook her head as if the say no. My heart sank and the same uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach returned in folds. The police told me not to come back. I latter learned from other passengers that it is not uncommon in the more rural regions for a brother to sell his sister or a father to sell his daughter. She little girl was crying not because she wanted to go home, but because she had nowhere to go. The man on the train could have been her brother or father. It was something I had failed to grasp because of cultural and language barriers. The police refused me when I wanted to talk to her again. As the train rolled into the station where I was suppose to exit, I grabbed my backpack and exited the train. The feeling of being unable to help another person, is one of the worse feelings I've ever felt.
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