trained train post

On Sunday night I went to meet up with Dennis, a family friend of Uncle Oen’s. The subway ride over to where he lived was a pretty fun experience – every time I go abroad it always seems like public transportation beats the pants off of that in America! There was of course the obligatory moment where I stood in front of the ticket machine trying to figure it out as small children dash up and get it to work for them in three seconds, as well as some other confusing bits, but overall I kept quiet and nobody else on the subway seemed to notice that I had no idea what was going on for most of the time. Dennis met me at the Fuchengmen rail stop, and treated me to a very nice dinner in a Beijing hutong (alley – some of those hole-in-the-wall places have become pretty popular) and introduced me to his friends and girlfriend. We had a really interesting conversation about American politics and intrigues – he’s a great guy and I think he’s reading this now, so thanks for dinner again Dennis! Next time I’ll treat you, though. I took a cab on the way back and mustered a conversation with the taxi driver, which consisted mostly of a two-way language lesson and a friendly goodbye. I hope the Shenzhen taxi drivers are as welcoming and relaxed.

The next day was our last in Beijing, and the conclusion of our practice teaching was kind of an anticlimax: our kids were too busy practicing the English skit they were going to show the school officials later in the day to pay attention to whatever lesson plan Benj and I had worked up for them. So we just sat back and watched them sing Disney songs for a period, then went off to take our own dust-up examinations. That evening would end in a Chinese banquet room receiving our fancy TEFL certifications disguised in PKU diploma cases and with us trying dishes that later necessitated my first tryst with Immodium.

The day afterwards we all tousled out of bed and rolled to the Forbidden City. We only had an hour to tour the place, so we essentially made a straight line from its northern gate to the Tiananmen side. I did remember seeing these places before with my family in a summer of 2006 and before again when I was five, but I didn’t reflect much on any of it. The whole group was just a bit antsy to get on with the day and into the train, especially because our hotel rooms were now off limits to us and our things stored away in a temporary area.

We’d been warned a lot about how busy and rife with thieves the Beijing train station would be, but overall it turned out to be a bit of an anticlimax. The train ride itself might have been notable, but I was asleep for most of it, tucked away on a hard board that served as the middle bunk. Each train car had separating walls that divided the car into open compartments, with three bunks attached to each side of the wall (making for 6 bunks per compartment). Things were very cramped, but clean enough, and I spent most of the 24 hours lying inserted into the bunk (it wasn’t tall enough for me to sit up in) and trying to jot down a plot outline for my novel. Everyone was very happy to get off the train a day later!

(I did see the Chinese landscape pass by from the train window, and most of it was rural. The skies cleared after the northern areas and the scene looked actually very beautiful – blue skies with white clouds over green terraced farms and rolling forest hills. I was curious about whether we ever passed through Fujian, where our family descended from, but I couldn’t tell.)

Edit: I guess we didn’t pass through Fujian after all. Here’s the map:

View Train Ride! in a larger map

We got off the train at about 9pm at the Shenzhen railway station. Didn’t see the hookers that I was told to expect. We swam through more crowds of people, emerged into the Shenzhen night (muggy as hell!) and bussed over to the hotel where we’re currently at, which is somewhere in the Futian district (or is it Luohu? I’m getting them mixed up). Here we are getting health examinations, signing work forms and being interviewed by the Shenzhen police bureau. By Saturday we’ll know for certain where we are working and we’ll be shipped off to those locations too.

I know that I’ll be working somewhere in the Nanshan district, as those were the papers I was signing just earlier. More specific knowledge will have to wait till Saturday, it seems.