Bound for Jinan
I’d planned to
visit Jinan last weekend, but less than a week before my scheduled departure,
my friend Ping sent an email saying it was not possible. She teaches at what we would call a junior
college, Shandong Institute of Commerce and Technology. The honchos had
suddenly scheduled a weekend long meeting. Precipitous changes in plans occur
all the time in China. I never get used to it.
I was days away
from departure for the US, I’d have to go right away if I was to see my friend.
Zhang Dianyu (Daniel), my friend, host and colleague had held off purchasing
tickets. I would have bought them
several weeks earlier and might not have gotten a refund when I had to change
dates. Daniel’s a full professor with a
US doctoral degree and very well traveled. Daniel knows know China.
For short trips
like this one, I get by with a purse and a backpack. I also carried a shopping bag full of
provisions—peaches, tiny tomatoes, water and liquid yogurt. Railroad food is
expensive and not very .
I live at the
Jinjang Inn, perhaps a mile from the Weihai North Station. My train would leave
at 10:20. At 9:20, Daniel arrived.
“Plenty of
time,” said my friend. The station is not very far.”
To me, this
sounded like cutting it close, but Daniel would know.
The Chinese rail
stations don’t use E-tickets yet, and the ticket lobby was crowded. It’s
vacation season. Normally, Daniel uses ticket machines, but an agent had to
look at my passport. Daniel told me to rest at the back of the room. The
Chinese are constantly telling older people to rest. People crowded before a glass window and
T-shirted children ran in and out of line, playing with pinwheels and plastic
swords. After ten minutes, Daniel got to the front.
My friend returned and said we would have to
wait in a different line as my situation was considered a problem. There was no record of Daniel’s purchase of
tickets which had been done on computer. We joined a slow parade of disgruntled
passengers. The official settled some issues quickly. But other people spent
five minutes at the window shuffling papers and shouting, while the agent
shouted at them. Then two women, who
may have been running a business, tied up the line buying multiple tickets. In
China, records are kept about where people go. For each ticket purchased, these
buyers completed a form, then presented a government ID. The agent scrutinized
these items and a little machine spat out a ticket. Then the process began
again. By now, it was nearly ten, and I was becoming frantic.
A
woman in golden flipflops and a T-shirt studded with rhinestones now shoved in
front of us. In Chinese, Daniel shouted she could not do this, and I, a native
New Yorker, tried to assist him by shouting at her as well.
“Don’t you dare
cut in line! We’re all in a hurry.”
The woman tried
to move past me and put her hand on my shoulder. I found infuriating--
I don’t
like for strangers to touch me.
“And take your
hands off me!”
I was embarrassing Daniel, so I stopped
talking. But I turned my head to the side and glared at the woman as I had
unruly students when I taught Junior high school. The woman backed off, though
it was clear she would spring in front of anybody who’d let her.
It was three
past ten when we got to the window. Only
seventeen minutes before I boarded my train.
Daniel produced our transaction number, the agent looked at my passport,
and the tiny machine spat round trip tickets for me. My hands were shaking as
they often do when I’m stressed. I hoped my friend did not see.
We made for the
waiting room where passengers were lining up for the bullet train. Still
shaking, I showed an attendant my
passport; dropped my backpack, my purse, and the shopping bag full of provisions
on the conveyer belt; and mounted a platform
to be frisked by security. Perhaps because I am old, white and speak
very little Chinese, an officer let Daniel into the waiting room with me. We
found my line and I slid my ticket into the kiosk. Since I was at the back of
the line, no one was pushing me as sometime happens, and it was easy to get
down the escalator.
The train
wasn’t in yet, but people were lining up for the various cars. I’d been assigned
to Car 2. I asked an agent where the line for my car was: “Qing wen, er che zai
nar”?
When he pointed
to the right, I walked a short distance down the platform. Soon, the pointy
nosed bullet train was speeding past me.
I’d been directed to the end of the train. Had the agent not understood me. Or did he dislike Americans?
Neither. The Chinese number their trains from the
rear.
Shortly after I
boarded, Daniel texted me, asking if I was all right. Maybe he noticed how I’d been shaking. He
worries about my ability to navigate China. Truth is, I don’t negotiate China
as he does. Like many Chinese, Daniel
does things precisely and quickly, his habitual attentiveness to detail
enabling him to speed up if need be. If problems occur, he confers, bargains
and afterwards moves on decisively. In this country, things change quickly,
sometimes with little notice.
I, on the other
hand, constantly plan. I never like working too close to deadlines. I get to
airports two hours early, allowing even more time for international flights. I
don’t mind the wait—I read. Usually, I’m at school an hour before I teach. I ignore it when people say I’m
obsessive-compulsive.
“Well, you got
on the train,” Daniel said later on. “I
did not think there would be any problem.
There was still time.”
Daniel
knows China.
