Beijing to Hanoi - Grounded: A Down to Earth Journey Around the World - page 58

Now, with seven thousand miles of railroad under my belt over the last two months—much of that in-
volving Russians—I take a potentially overwhelming scene like this entirely in stride. It's not that I've
grown to adore the chaos. It's just that it's expected, untroubling, and oddly invigorating. Yes, an adven-
ture. The train is alive and different in a way a sterile airplane flight out of Beijing could never be.
And, fellow passengers aside, the train—if not fancy—is very nice in its way. It's clean and well main-
tained. It even has flat-screen TVs in each car. When we first boarded, these TVs played a loop of Chinese
nationalist imagery, all set to a stirring orchestral soundtrack. Soldiers marching in lockstep. Military jets
flying in formation. Footage of an ICBM test launch.
Now, though, the TVs have switched over to a blooper show. It looks like America's Funniest Home
Videos (and the bumbling doofuses in the clips are all westerners), but there's something off. I could swear
the show is using a batch of grade-D, subpar bloopers, packaged solely for the export market. It's like
a blooper arbitrage scheme. Some savvy L.A. producer must have realized that the Chinese demand for
bloopers was going unmet—and was also unsophisticated—so he threw together a reel of clips off the cut-
ting room floor.
Sure enough, everyone around us on the train is cracking up at a clip of a toddler who simply falls
over and starts to cry. Oh, the undiscerning palate of a developing nation. In America, a blooper like this
wouldn't merit a chuckle, and it would never make it onto a televised show. One day, I expect the Chinese,
too, will reserve their laughter for more refined and complex videotaped mishaps. Like, say, when an obese
woman in a dress bounces awkwardly off a trampoline, exposes her underpants, and lands on a cocker
spaniel.
WE'RE coming into hour two of a twenty-eight-hour train ride. I'm not sure I can spend the next twenty-
six consecutive hours sitting upright on a bench, my knees and elbows jostling for space. I'm holding out
hope that somehow, before sunset, we'll be able to talk our way into a pair of sleeper-class bunks.
An American friend we met up with for dinner one night in Beijing (a guy who works for a trade agency,
greasing the gears of the Sino-American money machine) taught us the concept of bupiao . We understand
this to be the Chinese word for “upgrade.” Our friend instructed us to keep shouting it at every train worker
within earshot until something good happened. He assured us—based on his own experience—that we'd
eventually get lucky. We've taken his advice, shouting “bupiao” at anyone who'll listen, but so far we've
nothing to show for it. Only apologetic shakes of the head.
At one point, Rebecca notices a crowd forming at the end of the next car, so she sallies forth to check
it out. It's a five-deep crush of people, all waving their tickets in the air and screaming at a clerk who's
standing behind a little counter. Rebecca assumes this must be a mad scramble for upgrades, because bunks
have opened up when people disembarked at stops along the route. She wades in and manages to wriggle
her way to the front. Once there, she shouts “ bupiao!” with a victorious flourish and waits to be handed
her new seat assignments. But again, nothing. The clerk meets her cry with a blank face. Was this mob
gathered for some other reason? Perhaps another lotto drawing?
Rebecca returns, defeated. “I think we're going to have to tough this ride out,” she says.
I can't face the thought of trying to sleep bolt upright. Ten minutes later, after the crowd has dispersed, I
decide I'll approach the clerk again. This time, I'm prepared to offer an exorbitant bribe.
When I get to him, the clerk's still tidying up the mess of discarded paper scraps the crowd left behind.
“Bupiao?” I ask, fully expecting a refusal—which I will counter with the thick wad of bills I'm gripping
tightly in my pocket. But it never comes to that. Upon hearing my request, the clerk immediately punches
a few buttons on his machine. It spits out two tickets. He hands them to me and goes back to his cleaning.
We've been upgraded.