Transportation

And vacation has begun!

As was mentioned previously, IST (In-Service Training) was a mandatory Peace Corps training session held back in Chengdu.  On the date of departure, I left my apartment early in the morning, joined fellow volunteers Bethany, Dustin, Todd and Jessica in Guiyang, and had a nice, relaxing afternoon before our 4:27 train was to depart.  We decided to play it safe and leave Todd & Jessica's house at around 3:30, an hour before arrival, to take what should be a 15 minute taxi ride, you know, just in case something went wrong.

Well, things went wrong. They always go wrong. After waiting a good 15 minutes for a taxi, we FINALLY were successful.  However, what we were unaware of is that, considering this is Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) season, an estimated 100 million people are traveling around China every day.  Guiyang, whose population is more than 3 million, was no exception.  Our taxi, literally, could not move.  We begged, we pleaded, we offered money, and still he could not move.  To make matters worse, for the first time in the entire 6.5 months I've been in China, I saw police actually monitoring the roads.  We have NEVER seen police monitoring roads EVER, but of course, Spring Festival is the exception.  What would normally be a casual ride weaving in and out of traffic, crossing lanes, running red lights, almost hitting an estimated 100 people in a 10 minute car ride, etc., suddenly became like a street in America (well, okay, that's a vast overexaggeration, but still, the driver wasn't going to run any red lights for us and risk a ticket...).  Before we knew it, it was 7 minutes until our train was to depart and we were still about a mile away and not moving.  We contemplated getting out and running, but realized that was even less likely of a possibility of success so instead we staid in the taxi while I kept reminding everyone "well, guys, there's no sense in stressing, it's not going to help us move any faster. Let's work on channeling positive thoughts" while silently I was entering a point of loose bowels filling my pants from nerves.  All the while our phones kept frantically ringing from our friends, already on board the train, reminding us that "you only have 4 minutes!". It was stressful.  Finally, at precisely 4:27, we pulled into the train station, threw money at the driver, grabbed our packs and bolted in hopes that this train, like almost all others, was running behind schedule.  We shoved people and yelled "move!" "go!" "hurry!" at people in Chinese, flew through customs, ran up the stairs bypassing the escalator, thrusted our tickets at the ticket woman...The ticket woman slowly read my ticket, looked calmly at me, calmly out the window, and then waved out the window. I glanced out and saw a train, our train, pull out. It was on schedule. And we missed it.

After screaming some English curse words that I'm sure even the uneducated Chinese people could identify, the five of us contemplated our options.  Remembering the season, we knew that getting another train ticket was virtually impossible, getting a plane ticket would require a lot of money and some serious guanxie, and taking a bus to the nearest city and hoping to catch our train from there was almost destined to fail considering the traffic.  After much negotiation, Dustin and I sent the rest of the volunteers to go buy lots of chocolate and wine and return to Todd and Jess's house while we try to negotiate with the train station.

The lines were astronomical. This, however, played to our favor.  Being the only white ones amidst hundreds, we were clearly noticed and the object of attention.  Once a police officer discovered we could speak Chinese, let alone that I could speak Guiyang dialect, we were in the clear.  We chatted with him for a LONG time, and by the time we got to the ticket booth we were friends.  We asked the ticket woman if we could, please, pretty please, exchange our ticket for the next train to Chengdu.  I remembered that Keke (Ricky) told me his aunt worked for the train company in Chongqing and that they always hold "guanxie tickets" during Spring Festival, so I was hoping for some pull by simply being white (there are very few times where I am glad to be white in Southern China...this was one of them).  The woman looked at us, didn't respond, and simply walked away from the ticket booth.  After waiting for at least 8 minutes, our police officer asked us to wait (as if we weren't already...) and went behind the ticket booth.  Moments later, the woman returned and low and behold she had 5 of the EXACT same tickets (with a bed in the same booth as our original...) for the next day. No additional cost. That was a proud moment in guanxie history. Thank you, kind police man.  Thank you, Chinese guanxie.

Chengdu was nice.  Really nice.  During our pre-service training I remember thinking Chengdu was an awful place, and all throughout the semester when students or other Guiyang people asked me how I had liked living in Chengdu, I honestly told them that I didn't like it and much preferred Guiyang. I was a fool.  The moment we pulled into Chengdu we were overwhelmed by how CLEAN the city was! And how Western! Tasty food was everywhere, white people were seen on every other corner, even black and middle eastern people were to be found! It was overwhelmingly unfamiliar.  I felt as if I had been living in the Appalachian Mountains for the past year and a half and suddenly just stepped foot into Chicago.  Chengdu is a beautiful place. And of course, without needing to say much about the inevitable, getting back in touch with all of our old friends/trainees was beyond fun.  A nice, rejuvenating couple of days (I even found a Western import store that had green olives!!!!!!).  As far as other events that took place in Chengdu, you'll have to contact my parents.

Yesterday was yet another educational endeavor in Spring Festival transportation.  Training over, I ventured out with four good friends, Bethany, Colleen, Kim and Melanie, to begin our journey south-eastward.  First on our itinerary was the beautiful city of Panzhihua, Colleen's city, which is where I'm currently writing this blog from.  Unfortunately, when trying to buy train tickets, Melanie was unsuccessful and was forced to settle on a "hard seater" train.  We were not excited about not having a bed, but I've had to stand on trains before so the sound of having a seat wasn't completely miserable and of course just knowing that we were successful in having transportation meant we could bare it, right?  And then we got on the train. And it was miserable.  By "hard seater" they literally meant "hard." Instead of plush seats, like is normal, the train had benches similar to American school buses, only with less padding and more vinyl. And it was, no exaggeration, the most filthy thing I've ever been in. Ever. I won't get into specifics, but really, it was awful. And we had to ride it for 19 hours. With no heat and 3 people to each school-bus-bench. Awful. Mid-way, giving up all chances of enjoyment, we decided to settle for buying 7 bottles of Baijiu (the "official alcohol of China") and orange juice from the train vendor and make screwdrivers...with Chinese characteristics. It made the time pass and helped us warm up. Until night time, when we were miserable, the booze's warming effect wore off, and they didn't turn the lights out to even let us fake our bodies into being comfortable. It was a long 19 hours. And we laughed uncontrollably for a good portion of it.

Annnd Panzhihua! Panzhihua is beautiful! It's a new city built in Southern Sichuan at the basin of a mountain (I think China may have knocked down a few mountains to build it...) and is seriously like a modern Chinese suburbia.  Everything is clean, there are only 1 million people in the entire area and so for the first time since leaving the US I can walk down any given street and not see more than 20 people or cars anywhere, when getting on the clean buses there are multiple seats to choose from and actually sit in, and I haven't seen a single stray dog anywhere. It's pretty. And clean. And warm and it has palm trees.  But actually, while riding the bus occupied by very few people to Colleen's school, I found myself feeling rather nostalgic for my crazy Longdongbao transportation.  While I've never appreciated it before, there's something comforting in having to pile more than 90 people into a city bus for a 40 minute drive into Guiyang, or take the mini bus (a van without van seats) at night crammed between 50 people on roads even a Jeep would be leery of taking. I've never appreciated it before, but it's nice not having to worry about falling if you don't want to hold onto a bar because of the knowledge that at least 89 other people are there to keep you up on the bumpy roads. I mean, Panzhihua doesn't even have any pot holes. Where's the fun in that?

Last but not least, I will leave this blog on a quote I read today.  I'm currently reading the book "Beyond the Sky and the Earth: A Journey into Bhutan" by Jamie Zeppa (thus far I highly recommend it), which is about her accounts of teaching in rural Asia.  While the problems she encounters are vastly different from my own, the idea of going well beyond yourself is universal.  When struggling on whether she wanted to stay in Bhutan or return to the comforts of home, she is told by a more experienced volunteer "you know what they say about these overseas postings: anyone can live anywhere. You think you can't in the beginning, but then you do."

And so I do.