chapter 7 - the perils of punctuality

We’ve heard stories of full trains leaving early, so left for the station immediately after checking out. Or maybe it was just me. I got so impatient waiting for Hamish to pack. He had socks scattered all over the room and it took him ages to find everything and squish it in his pack. I rushed him out before he could find another reason to sit down again.

“Why do we always have to get to places so early?” Hamish moans.

“I’m worried about being late.”

“But we’re not anywhere near that.”

“I guess it’s from my childhood. My mom was always late for things and I hated it.”

“You missed a lot of trains?”

“Yes. No, not trains specifically. But it was the anxiety of it all, and the attention, everyone staring at me when we turned up late. I always hated it. Come on, move it!"

"I'm coming as fast as humanly possible! Why don't you focus less on me and tell me more about this phobia of yours."

"Ok, if you promise not to daudle. I know, ok, I promise. I don't know where it started. I guess the worst time,was during spring break when I was about 15. I know I couldn’t yet drive, and it was after the trip to London I had made with my band class, so I must have been 15. Babby was in Reno, you know she always used to spend part of her winter there. Anyway, she was still there at Spring Break and had invited me to join her, to fly down on my own, and we’d come back together. I was thrilled. Just me! A jet setter! And with the rest of the family going to Victoria which we did every year.”

Hamish smiled. “I can just imagine you all dressed in 70s glitz gambling with your Babby.”

"Well you have a pretty good imagination because it never happened. As usual Mom was fussing around with what I should wear and what I should take. She kept tucking more things into my suitcase, bringing me scarves and other things of hers to add, trying them on me first to see how they’d look and to show me how to wear them. I probably wasn’t much help standing there like a stick of rhubarb. I hated being dressed up by Mom. She never seemed to see me. I was just some mannequin to her. Anyway, then she fussed around with her own clothes. I mean she was only taking me to the airport! But in the end I went and sat in the car getting more and more stressed. Finally she was ready to go, we got to the airport and had a tearful goodbye, which you can imagine that I, at 15, just loved. Everyone else standing around looking sympathetic as if I’d never left home before.

"I heard the final boarding announcement for my flight and tore away from her, only to find a long line to get into the passenger area which seemed to take forever. I didn’t dare tell anyone I was in a hurry. They’d either make a big deal about it in front of everyone else, or they’d make comments about how I shouldn’t have left it so late. Finally I got through and ran as fast as I could to the gate, bumbling along with a ton of hand luggage. I got there at last to find the gate had closed, the plane had already moved away, and the lounge area was totally deserted. I didn’t know what to do, so I sat down and cried. I was so mad at Mom for making me miss the plane and now I was stuck here at the airport. The rest of the family would be off to Victoria without me and I had nowhere to go or stay and Babby would be at the Reno airport waiting for me and she would be all worried that I didn’t arrive and think I had died in a plane crash.”

“You must have been hysterical.”

“Only on the inside. Outside I was just this teary, blotchy teen who was mortified at the prospect of asking someone for help.”

“What on earth did you do?”

“Oh someone came by, asked what the problem was, took me to a lounge full of people where they phoned my home. Of course my family hadn’t left for Victoria yet. I was put in a special area until they came to get me. Mom phoned Babby and told her I’d missed the plane, and we all went off to Victoria as usual. My sisters were merciless to me that trip, making fun about me missing the plane. I felt like a total loser.”

“So you never got to Reno.”

“I never got to Reno. Not that that was the worst part of it. It was the whole being centre of attention thing. Mom never realized how much I always hated standing out. She was the one who loved to make entrances, who loved to dazzle the crowd with unexpected drama. I know she was wanting me to swirl in too, get noticed by everyone and then spell the pants off them, or fly off in style, so she could bask in reflected glory. But all I wanted was to blend in.”

“Poor baby. Let me give you a hug and dry those tears. If getting to the train early helps you deal with childhood trauma, and prevents you from getting so worked up, then I will happily sit in a waiting room for hours on end.”

Which we did. In a crowded #6 waiting room we waited for train #282. And waited for hours. At least we knew we were in the right room Numbers are universal, and the Chinese travel authorities seem to love them. The waiting room was packed as usual, with a horde of people sitting on and near numerous boxes and bags, nets and bowls, all pushing forward despite a closed door at the end of the room.

By the time the train was ready, it was madness. Sheer panic on every face, elbows and shoulders in force. Having designated seats doesn’t seem to matter, everyone pushes and shoves to get on first. I’ve never seen anything like it before arriving in China. Now a bit more prepared we let ourselves get swept among them like a stick on a river, and I was able to only glance at our train. Magnificent. New and shiny, freshly painted and chugging energetically with steam pouring out. Yes, here it is 1992 and we are travelling on a steam train! This must be the last place on earth that steam trains are used as a modern mode of transport.

Our carriage is long, with a narrow corridor along one side and bunks stacked up on the other, six bunks to a section, and ten sections to the carriage. The walls dividing each section stop before reaching the ceiling, so the whole carriage is open and full of chatter.

We have a middle and an upper bunk, both hard and narrow but with sheets, a blanket and even a grubby looking pillow. The corridor has folding seats and several little folding shelves used as tables, a thermos placed on each. Trolleys of rice in white Styrofoam boxes trundle past, along with sweets and water. We were rather horrified to see everyone toss the empty food boxes out the train windows when they were done with them, where they joined a mountain of white plastic along the track. Before long we settled into the rhythm and the rattle of the train, people shuffling around making tea and going to the toilet, a smelly, wet squatter that opened right out onto the tracks rushing below. We determined to keep tea consumption to a minimum if only to avoid visits to that hideous spectacle.

Little villages with red brick buildings flashed past. Tiled and thatched roofs and unshuttered windows glowed with candles or weak light bulbs. Old people in blue suits and wicker hats squatted over gardens, young men in white singlets and trousers with rolled up cuffs walked by with yoked baskets, and girls with long braids crouched over fields of rice or cucumbers. An old man rode by on a bicycle. Valleys of terraced rice fields, emerald green. Further on, the land gradually became rockier, the soil lighter in colour, houses now of stone, landscapes fading into the grey air. I had previously associated China with the colours red and gold, but now I’ll always think of it as green and grey.

We ate buns and oranges and made friends with a family of three that shared our section, a father, daughter and friend travelling to Luzhou. We showed photos and tried out our Chinese, filling in with gesticulations and smiles. The father is a purchaser at a Malaysian-owned hotel and hoping to improve his English so he can become a receptionist and earn 250 yuan a month, which is only about $10US. He said he has learned a lot about people while working in a hotel, and when we asked what particularly he had learned, he answered that he had discovered homosexuals. He looked amazed even just telling us, and added that he had never heard of such a thing before! Not quite what we were expecting when we asked the question.

The loudspeaker continuously plays very loudly, mostly Chinese songs but we did hear renditions of “Edelweiss” and “Auld Lang Syne”. We wondered if it stayed on all night, but it abruptly went out at 10 pm along with the lights. Thank goodness we were already in our bunks armed with torches, for it was dark as tar. Hamish reached down and took hold of my hand and gave it a squeeze. I kissed his hand and held it next to my cheek, then let him take it back for the rest of the night.