The Qinghai-Tibet Railway

I am on the most breath-taking train ride in the world. I am on the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, and the scenery is absolutely spellbinding. No where in China would I imagine such an open area, free of pollution, enterprises & peddling people. This part of the country is untouched - the Southern Region of Qinghai on into Tibet. If Lhasa is touristy, dirty & dismal, only China is to blame. If Lhasa reeks of China, at least I will have had the experience of this beauty. I am in awe of this beauty. Google the pictures and no justice is given.

I am traveling with 4 people all together. Ann and I met the other 2 in Chengdu, at the Youth Hostel. The 4 of us signed up for the Lhasa "tour-permit" at the cheaper price of 1000 yuan, or 250 each. We all got our permits, but no one has asked to see them yet. I do not see anyone who would care. Foreigners seem to be no problem on this train. I have only seen one other foreign-looking person.

The scenery really is beautiful, and I do not believe even American can offer such beauty. This train-ride is 48 hours if you can believe it, and one of the chief concerns of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway is altitude sickness. Oh, and minorities (non Hanzu) seem to be a majority on this train. I am seem Muslims, dark-skinned folk and people with different styles from the Han. Maybe the Han are in the sleepers? Ann and I paid for sleepers, but we are trading in-and-out with Kathy and Jason (the other 2 people we met at the hostel; they are British but their parents are Hong-Kong born). Kathy and Jason did not get as lucky...they had to suffer a long night in the the hard-seater section of the train. Poor Kathy has AMS and has already thrown up a few times. She and Jason just left to nap in our beds. Ann and I have a whole seating section to ourselves right now. We are filling out health cards saying we can adept to the 3000-meter altitude. I guess we can!

I am writing and trying to make my sentences go someplace exciting! This train moves slow, but at least the blue skies and green hills make up for it, and maybe it is the vastness that makes the train feel so slow-moving. In fact, there are faster trains than this one, I believe.

When I walked by a foreign man, he said, "Hello, very much!" Another man I walked past said, "Thank you!" when I asked to get by. Ann is studying Tibetean right now. What is the point? Nothing will ever be comunicated during this short trip besides things the listened already knows, Hello, Goodbye, Sorry, thank you.

I thougth I knew how to say, "Do you speak English" in Tibetean, but I already forgot. Oh well! I wrote a bunch of postcards - nearly the whole book, but I have no addresses. I have no way to get some of these addresses anyway, unless I have them written done in Suining someplace.

The train ride must be 5x longer than it should be. We are making a horse-shoe. Where is the logic?

The Qinghai-Tibet Railway is a wonder of the world with startling views, high altitudes, and crystal clear views to free your wandering mind. I see snow-covered mountain peeks, blue American-like skies, winding streams of blue, and open plains of green and white. How I detest the Han as we slowly approach Tibet.

It was snowing when I woke up. We are now embarking upon the highest point of the journey, over 5000 meters high! I feel swollen and sore. The outside beauty is so striking, and that is because the beauty lasts and lasts. A beautiful nature that lasts for 40 hours. Earlier we rode past the prettiest lake I have ever seen - the lake with the highest altitude in the entire world. The water was this crystal blue-green-turquoise.

"Dear Passengers..."

"Dear Passengers..."

"Dear Passengers, you will never forget your journey on the Qinghai-Tibet Railway. The opening of the railway on July 1, 2006 is a date we will remember forever."

"Dear Passengers..." Ann and I had to laugh at the stupid announcements that kept coming on, spoken by a Chinese man with a British accent.

I hope something incredible happens. Not an iPod explosion (apparently that has happened, and Ann's iPod does not work in these high altitudes. Mine is smaller though.) No, but something incredible like the lyrics of my John Lennon album that I play...I just took a picture of myself to see if my ears are really bronze, as Ann said they are. How strange...

Suining, China - no man's land

I will further write about my experience in Suining, Sichuan, a medium sized city of 300,000 tucked nicely between Chongqing and Chengdu. 我会在这里当一年的老师, 我学校教四川职业技术学院. I will teach English the remainder of this semester, break all summer, and then teach next semester. I'm here alone.

---

Suining is really an interesting place, touched only by Western thought through commercial goods. There is little Western-living they can imitate, as there are no Westerners living here. (Western is such a bad term, but I use it when speaking of, oh I don't want to say it, I guess the developed part of the world. Japan included.) As I have said, I am one of 3...now 4...foreigners in this city. There is Rod Stevenson, an Englishman who spent the past 5 years teaching English in Thailand. Then there's Dahai, a Canadian whose real name is Gilles, but since he is married to a Chinese woman and seems keen on staying-forever in China, we all call him Dahai. Btw, his Chinese is horrendous. And now, there's a black guy named James. I no little about him, only that either his mother or father is from America and the other is from Cameroon. I am not sure what his native language is, but I am pretty sure it is not English. He kept leaving out important verbs in sentences, such as "to be." Then again, that could have been the alcohol.

Okay, now, it is clear I am not a journalist. I have nothing newsworthy to write about. I can only compare 2 cultures - mine and this backward, timewarped China. And my reflections are noteworthy, mind you. Mind you, you haughty Westerner who has flown to Shanghai, to Beijing and to Hongkong. You haughty Westerner who has stayed in 5 Star hotels and experienced only the best delacacies of China with your English-speaking host. (I am joking. But you may be better groomed than I.) I can only afford to live here, and yet my experiences are immense. What I have gained just by seeing China life as it really is can be a lifetime of cultural knowledge for your average person. I do not know what I am trying to say. But the difference of living between here, Suining, and Shanghai is different.

But there are always just your poor, Chinese men. They exist everywhere, and their lives consist of maintaining a living for themselves and their family. (My previous post comments on living-wages in China and the importance of the family when it comes to living.) Today I realized that I haven't recognized him enough...this simpleton...this average fellow. I have not recognized the tri-cycle man with his worn tennis shoes.

Or maybe he has new tennis shoes, shoes that are white and clean and do not seem to match the rest of his tattered outfit and tattered look. His shoes are new and white, and his pants are gray, rolled up, revealing dirty, tanned legs. His fingers are dirty, as he lifts and cigarette to his mouth and scans the crowd. He is looking for a customer. He is looking for a man, woman or child to board his tri-cycle for a 5-10 minute ride. His pay will be 2 yuan.

I have not thought of this man enough. Aye, I am that haughty Westerner. I walk around with my headphones in my ears. I keep a fast pace. And I wear nice clothes...nice clothes that match and could be expensive...I mean they look expensive. That is because I do not go out of my way to be showy or flashy. Chinese people simply do not realize the paradox of the clothes they wear. In wearing expensive looking jewels and lots of colors, they actually look poorer. The need to understand the age old lesson of "less is more." But, as I was saying, this does not matter. This materialism I obsess over does not matter. I need to consider the poor Chinese man more.

and if the man needs to be considered more, the woman certainly does

I'm terribly bad at yoga.

So what did I do today?

I woke up late. Around 8. And caught a cab to the new campus for my "meeting" (for what, I had no idea) with my boss "Jack." Turned out that he wanted to teach me some Chinese, which was much appreciated on my end, as I had only been trying to teach myself out of dictionaries and phrasebooks. I desperately needed the guidance of a fluent speaker. Anyway, I've been studying a great deal - any time I am doing something without using Chinese, I feel a bit bad for it. The question pops into my mind, "Where would a be a year from now or 2 years from now if every free minute I had was spent on studying Chinese?" The answer is - I would be pretty damn far along. And so, when this thought comes to mind, I instantly put down or turn off whatever English-using device I am using (iPod, AIM Chats, books even) in preference for Chinese language tapes or rummaging thought a dictionary.

So after my meeting with Jack, I went to wait for the bus to take me from the New Campus (where his office is and where all my teaching classes are) to the Old Campus (where I live). But while waiting, I ran into "Lemon," an incredibly sweet Chinese girl (aren't they all?) who desperately clings to me and talks to me in her decent English. I have started to speak Chinese more to these people who only want to speak English. I know half the people who come up to me as "good friends" just want to improve theirh English, but I'm tired of catering to people and thinking I should help them by only speaking English. Outside of class, I will do what I originally set out to do - Learn Chinese. And so I will only speak Chinese when outside of class. Too bad for all my new, dear close friends, such as Lemon. how vindictive of me. anyway, i met her and then her friend...whats her face...and they all commented on how good my chinese is (yeah, thanks, no no, thanks), how pretty i am (no no, thanks, no no), how white my skin is, whether I had eaten, and so on. Finally, I figured I had missed the bus, and they invited me to the dining hall with them. They clung to me arm-in-arm, and we three walked to the student dining hall.
Lemon said, "Oh, I think everyone wants to talk to you! You get so many stares because you are foreign and so beautiful!"
Their dining hall is nothign compared to what I am used to at VCU. Their campus is very dull and boring, lacking color or grass or anything vibrant. i feel bad when chinese people ask me what i think of their college. they ask me in a proud way, i can tell, because the campus is new and they want to show off. i always lie and say how beautiful and vast it is - in the city but right beside lovely, rolling hills. This is somewhat true, there are nice hills in the background, but, still the campus is boring, gray and ugly, and their Dining Hall has got to be one of the worst parts. I mean the food is lined up in these ugly gray bins, and piles of food are lined up - vegetables of all sorts, some meat selections, eggs, tofu, etc. The selection is not so bad, the presentation is majorly lacking. As with everything in China. I get my money's worth, but God Damn, it's ugly and ROUGH. The food was served in a small styrofoam, box. We also got rice, and ate in the dingy cafeteria, enduring stares and smirks.

After that, i came home to find my cleaning lady here. I took a nap while she cleaned, and when I woke up, she was still here cleaning. I do not know why she stayed for so long. perhaps she did not want to wake and disturb me. Anyway, when i woke up, i told her...my oh my you've been here a long time. go home! Do you want me to pay you today? She told me "Suibian, you decide how much to pay." Which pissed me off because she had been making Rod pay here 30 yuan each time. I wanted the same deal, especially because my place is smaller than his. Anyway, I offered her a 100 (see, I'm a pushover, always wanting to please other people before myself), and thankfully she turned this down and insisted 80 was all she'd take. Should have been 60, but who am I to turn down such a poor person compared to myself.

Then I went to the gym and tried to get skinny. In the shower room (where you have free reign to look at all the naked Chinese women you want), I noticed I had the best body there. but when i have clothes on, I always feel like i look so fat compared to these little Chinese people. But still, my body is strong and doesn't have fat rolls the way many of these women do. Their asses may be smaller, but they're saggy, same with their stomachs. Small frames but saggy fat rolls. Well, that isn't the case with all of them. I really wish I could be skinny to fit into Chinese dresses.

Anyway, i have so much to say, but i just don't feel like writing or typing. i am find it terribly annoying right now.

So much to do this weekend:

Tomorrow - Go to Tony's Office and WORK ON SCHOOL PLANS
5 - go to Anna's
7 - call Jack to meet me

Saturday -
Meet with students at 1:00
Hang out with Steph and Rod...whatever

Sunday -
11:00 meet with Richie.

And in my free time, I will plan classes and STUDY CHINESE.

Last night, at the gym, I went to yoga class after my mandatory 30-minute run. And I made a stink of myself. I am the least flexible person I know. The poses, the stretching, the breathing and sitting up-right were all just terribly hard on me, and I wanted to give up. But at the same time, I thought of myself as a skinny, flexible ballerina. Agile and suave and sweet and angelic. I want to be like that. I want to be able to bend and twist and sit down and meditate and be comfortable doing this. Instead, I am a strong runner who can do 5 pull-ups and 100 crunches. I can walk on my hands and run really fast. But I cannot touch my hands to my toes, which is really annoying.