The Passion of the Sleepless Westerner

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February 20-21, 2009,

Like all stories, this one should be told from the beginning. Towards the end of my stay in Guangzhou, Guangdong province ( it lasted 8 days), I had a spontaneous urge to see Vietnam. On my 7th day in Guangzhou, I had already obtained my Vietnamese visa, so I was ready to go, but, of course, I needed to know how to get there. After much inquiry through one of the reception workers in my hostel, The Pearl River Youth Hostel, I was told that the best way would to go to Hanoi, Vietnam was from Nanning, Guangxi Province. When I had asked about the most convenient mode of transportation, the female receptionist was quite vague ( she spoke Eglish fluently, for the record) but wrote down an address in Chinese for me to give to a taxi driver, only to later find out, upon arriving, that her answer took the form of a huge train station littered with Chinese people and contained big red Chinese characters. One would think that bars of gold ( or something equally valuable) were being distributed nearby in large amounts by the way these people rushed about, pushed, shoved, and camped out on the outdoor waiting platform.

The taxi ride took about 20 minutes due to the heavy traffic ( It was during rush hour) and during that time, I held in my urine, which was as eager to come out of me as I was to get out of China and into Vietnam. So, the first thing I did upon arriving was find a bathroom, and when I did, I ended up waiting in line for five minutes while enduring a horrible smell. The smell made me feel as if I had vomitted, drunk and swallowed it, and was ready to vomit it out again. It was the second worst smell I had endured in my life. While Chinese are notorious for frequent, blatant, and seemingly reckless spitting, those in that bathroom seemed to have lifted all the usual restraints and fired those saliva-balls as if firing missiles on a foreign enemy; some hit the floor, others hit the wall, while most hit the urinary depositing area. Many were smoking while urinating. The bathroom floor had rubbish ( mainly used hankerchiefs, empty cigarette packs and buds, empty bags of chips etc.) , seemingly permanent dirt stains, dirt/water puddles, spit, and the walls had chinese writing in markers, probably by hooligans, drunks, or pranksters. None of this helped my feeling of nausea! This whole episode lasted approximately 8 minutes, which had to be one of the longest eight minutes of my life.

I walked into and through the outdoor platform among the rapid bypassers and camped people ( some of them were migrant workers based on the sort of bags they were carrying) to arrive at the room where one buys tickets. I waited on line for roughly 25 minutes only to be directed to another window, where there contained the only sales clerk who spoke English. Luckily, this line was comparatively short, and I finally got to the clerk after 10 minutes. I told her I wanted to purchase the cheapest ticket possible, feeling that in order to pull off all my future traveling endeavours, I must endure all the hazards that naturally follow extreme budget traveling. Life would later prove me wrong, and Regret ( spiteful as ever) would forever throw that in my face! The train ride was to be as follows: a 12 hour, overnight, non-sleeper train ride which was scheduled to depart at 18:00 and arrive at 6:00 the next day. I forget exactly how much it cost, but I remember patting my self on the back for having received such a good price. During the following day, I arrived at the train station two hours earlier to ensure that I could catch my ride. So finally, about 35 minutes prior to departure time, we began to board, and once I got to the platform, I saw large crowds, all using as much force as possible to get inside. After 5 minutes, I finally got in. I don't remember if I looked at my ticket to see if I had an assigned seat, but looking back at it now, I doubt it. There were so many people- a fair number of migrant workers- and for that price, I doubt they even bothered to assign seats, knowing full well that many Chinese would fill nearly every portion of space inside that train, which turned out to be the case. There were so many people that the corridors themselves were too crowded, so a girl I met while waiting to get in ( Rachel was her English name, and who spoke the language quite well) ended up standing by a small room where one goes to wash one's hands; while there, we literally had enough space for only the two of us to stand and could put our stuff no where else but between our legs. Luckily, I travel light.

The first 4 hours were pleasant, as Rachel was both informative and entertaining. After the 4 hours, the train stopped and Rachel got off at the relevant station. A Chinese man then quickly seized the opportunity to talk to me ( evidently Rachel discouraged him) in his intermediate English, and from there, a flock of people followed. A few youths tried to say something, and once the man started translating their comments and my responses, others nearby ostensibly thought that they could have theirs answered. So within minutes, a crowd of people emerged, some watching while others asked their questions to be translated. Some questions were as follows: " Where are you from?"," Where in China did you travel?" "How do you like China?", "Do you have a girlfriend?", " Can you play basketball?", "Do you like Jet Lee?" " What's your favorite American movie?"," Do you like Michael Jackson?", and " Can you slamdunk ( I kid you not)"? Those were just some among others. Some of these questions may seem silly, but some Chinese like to ask silly questions to provoke laughter among the whole group. This lasted about 3 hours until the train stopped, and at that stop, many people got off, inculding the English speaking man. The youths nearest to me then tried to converse but to little avail, as I only knew how to say "Xie xie ( shee- eh- shee- eh, meaning thank you)" and "ni hao ( nee- how, meaning hello)" in Mandarin and they spoke as little English.

The youths later directed me to follow them. By this time, the corrdiors were empty and thus no longer occupied by people; all that remained filled nearly every seat, and I thought that perhaps they were taking me to a place where I could finally sit. We ended up walking to the train car where people were playing cards, eating dinner, and drinking beer. The youths then approached two policemen ( or soldiers..I forget...either way, they were wearing green, unbuttoned uniforms and hats with the communist party badges) playing cards, drinking beer, smoking cigarettes, and eating peanuts ( as most of the people in that cart did) and after a 10 minute discussion among both parties, I was directed by the youths to sit down at a conveniently empty table over at the end of the car. We were served some Chinese dishes, beer, and peanuts. I tried to pay for it but they strongly discouraged me, which took little effort ( Be fair, I was on a tight budget). For the next three hours they did nothing but desparatey try to learn more about me, but none of us had a dictionary. The only thing we managed to establish that's worth talking about is that they respected America and wanted me to feel welcome in China- all that was finally understood within three hours! The rest of the time was spent telling them the English/Chinese equivalents of surrounding nouns- believe me, it gets boring very fast unless interested in the language. Eventually, I felt like an overworked cryptologist. So, finally, I decided to leave and one of the youths who, from what I gathered, tried to persuade me to return to their table and continue deciphering their extremely broken English and playing their vocabulary game. I was adamant yet respectful in declining their offer. One of the youths followed me through two adjacent cars, but I continued to be persistent and he finally gave up. I then wandered around every car looking for a seat but all were occupied. At that point, I was convinced that I was the only non-Oriental in the whole train. It was no wonder that I received such unusual attention and stares, even by the standards of China. After perceving the uselessness of the task, the feeling of defeat made me feel so tired that I decided to go to one of the many areas which each marks the border between cars and contains two exiting doors and where one can smoke. While there, I gathered as much newspaper as I could find, lied on the floor, and used my packpack for a pillow as I slept.


At 2:00, a train conducter woke me up and guided me to an available seat not too far from where I slept. Each row had three seats and mine was the seat nearest the corridor and farthest from the window. The remaining people were predominantly migrant workers. Many were sleeping with their shoes off, showing their dirty feet- I recall one man whose feet was black on many sides and whose toe nails were nearly as black as a gothic person's. I wondered if he had danced on coal before boarding the train. Their bags were equally dirty and dusty, too. Their feet stunk. And many of them put this filth on the tables and chairs. There was rubbish such as gum, empty bags of chips, plastic bags containing peeled orange skins, cracked peanut shells, and spit on the floor nearby. A few took up all three seats for every row just to sleep more comfortably- how I envied them! My head needs to rest on something stable in order for me to sleep, no matter how tired I am. On a few occasions, I managed to fall asleep, but always awoke ten seconds later on average. I was always on the watch for a window seat, but everytime the train stopped and one got off of one, a nearby person would simply take the spot. In this case, it wasn't merely the earliest brid that got the worm, but the closest -_-*. Sleeping on the window seats was a rare priviledge, and those nearest to me did not move for the remainder of the ride. I wanted to go back to where I was but feared I'd cause trouble if I had to be woken up again.

The train finally arrived in Nanning as scheduled. As soon as I got off, I saw the youths again from a distance and they called me, but I kept walking and ignored them, partly because I was tired and partly because I began to fear that they wanted to rob me ( during sleep deprivation, my mind invites all sorts of irrational thoughts =/). I then decided to go to the ticket booth to buy the ticket for Hanoi despite my state of mind. I was told to come back in two hours. Too tired and hungry to wait, I decided to buy some food and then find a hotel. I wasn't up for a long search, so I decided to go to a hotel across the street from the Nanning Railway Station. It was a bit expensive, but at that point, I was happy to sleep anywhere with a pillow. I was physically and mentally beaten at that point. I was escorted to my room and proceeded to sleep in a room with an extremely comfortable bed and curtains so thick that it made the room extremely dark. I slept like a baby and woke up at 14:00 that afternoon =].

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