[back]

My trip began in Shenyang, a medium large city in the far northeast of China, just north of North Korea. A friend from college, Everett Griffiths, has stationed himself there as an English teacher for a few months. My arrival was his excuse to get on the overnight train and take me on a trip into the capital city of Beijing.

The train itself was one of China's shimmering streaks of gold; the train station was not. For far less money than what we would pay for a cheap motel room in the US, we got a clean bunk on a sleeper car for the 12 hour ride to Beijing. Our confusion in the train station about where to catch our train led us to ask questions of some uniformed officials, but they only made repeated demands for ten more yuan (about US$1)*.

Just as Everett and I were looking at each other, seeing if the other had clues to share, a nice Chinese woman, Anita, asked in English if we needed any help. She told us that they were trying to sell us insurance of some sort for the train trip. So much for trusting someone in uniform.

Anita's English wasn't strong enough to really explain what the insurance was, but it didn't really mater. This experience was just another example of the mayhem that we slowly came to expect while in China.

Anita (her English name; her Chinese name is Zhao Hexiao) as it turns out is on the same train as we are. She is going to Beijing to submit an application for a student visa to study at the University of New South Whales in Sydney, Australia. She came back to our car for another visit after we pulled out of the station and gave us more travel tips for Beijing. Another streak of Chinese gold.

*(US $1 = 8 yuan / slang: quai; 10 jaou = 1 yuan)

[more]