Beijing to Hanoi - Grounded: A Down to Earth Journey Around the World - page 57

our tickets from us, pointing at the small print. We knew this seemed too good to be true. We're starting to
fear we'll never leave Beijing.
But wait, she's smiling. She's directing our gaze to a silvery patch on the back of the tickets. Ah, a
scratch-off component! We exhale and pull out a coin to try our luck. I've no idea what we might win, but
I'm hoping it's a kilo of Szechuan peppercorns.
Once we've sanded away all the flaky silver stuff, it reveals . . . several Chinese characters. We expect-
antly hand our tickets to the clerk for interpretation. She squints at the characters, shakes her head, and
hands our tickets back. Better luck next time.
I'd have liked to come out a winner, but still—you have to be impressed with China's unquenchable
thirst for gambling. They manage to inject an element of chance into even the most prosaic of transactions.
I wonder: Could this be the secret to reenergizing America's sagging public transport systems? Imagine
you're deciding between a taxi and the subway. The taxi is faster and easier, but the subway ticket includes
a scratch-off chance to win three hundred bucks. Turnstiles, here we come. Failing infrastructure: remedied.
THAT afternoon, we pack our bags and head for the Beijing West railway station. This is the busiest train
station in Beijing, in a week when all of China is on vacation. We're about to become a part of what is
literally, by my calculations, the most hectic holiday travel scene in the history of holiday travel.
The Beijing West station is a massive edifice topped by giant pagodas and surrounded by spiraling taxi
ramps. Inside, it's like a shipping warehouse—that ships people. Every spot on the floor is covered by lug-
gage or a Chinese family. The staircases and escalators are full at all times. Get caught moving against the
flow of the crowd, and you'll take a fifty-yard detour before you're able to escape the current. If Rebecca
and I get separated here, I think we'll just have to resign ourselves to never seeing each other again.
Our train's designated waiting room is filled to overflowing. The people inside have that beaten-down
holiday traveler look you see at O'Hare on the day before Thanksgiving. The look that says, “Next year,
Grandma and Grandpa are coming to our house.” When an announcement in Chinese booms over the
speakers after a few minutes, the room leaps to life. We follow the herd outside, where the platform is bed-
lam. The line of train cars stretches out of sight, and people are streaming into every open door. There will
be easily more than two thousand people on board by the time we depart the station.
We hop on and begin moving down the train's length to find our assigned seats. In the spaces between
cars, grimy groups of men squat on the floor, rolling dice and drinking liquor. We tiptoe around them, even-
tually finding our seats in the crowded scrum of a third-class car.
The wooden benches are arranged to face each other, and my knees are in firm, constant contact with the
thighs of the old man who is sitting opposite me. He's shouting peevishly at his family—a bevy of kids and
grandkids sitting together on the other side of the aisle—but his family is completely ignoring him, gabbing
with each other or looking out the window. Soon after the train pulls out of the station, the old man gives
up his hectoring, takes out a small pair of scissors, and starts trimming his fingernails. Over my lap.
Filthy fingernail crescents cling to my pants legs. I can't move, as I'm wedged between Rebecca and the
guy sitting next to me—whose elbow is lodged in my rib cage. Meanwhile, I've noticed an odor wafting
forward from somewhere in the back of the car. It's that nose-crinkling, high-toned tang specific to those
who have urinated upon themselves. No one else seems to pay it any mind.
I'm trying to envision how I might have reacted if, a few months back, you'd plucked me off my com-
fortable couch in D.C. and set me down in the middle of this claustrophobic madness. Even though I've
done a fair amount of challenging travel before, I'm pretty sure that my response to the sudden contrast
would have been to freak out, jump off the train at my first opportunity, and hightail it for a luxury hotel.