That Ten-Hour Hard-Seat Joyride from Beijing West Station to Jining, Inner Mongolia

Datong station, August 2018

I remembered that ten-hour hard-seat joyride from Beijing West Station 北京西站 to Jining 集宁, Inner Mongolia because of this article which was about mean people who hogged seats which didn't belong to them on a train somewhere in China.

It was a little different on the ten-hour hard-seat joyride from Beijing West Station to Jining, Inner Mongolia, because when it started, there was not enough seats for everyone. I had a ticket in hand which had my seat number on it, and I assumed it was same for the others, too. Even so, many people had to be content to stand in the aisle. How this works is still a mystery to me.

Jining is not very far away from the capital, just about 500 kilometers. Train-wise, this translates to eight hours, because although rail between major cities in the country have largely become high-speed links, the region of Ulanqab ᠤᠯᠠᠭᠠᠨᠴᠠᠪ remains for now a forgotten backwater country brimming with clean air, friendly bogans, barbarians on horseback, and a crap ton of nothing. No high-speed rail just yet for this place! Seats on Chinese trains came in four grades: soft bed, hard bed, soft seat, and hard seat. The last one has the sole advantage of being cheap as dirt. It was also the only one available because I booked my seat too late. I say this in my defense! No one in their right mind puts themselves through this ordeal willingly.

Before the train left the civilized world, I had some time to text Mom: my train is now sprinting towards the open steppes, at snail's pace! I spoke too soon! Very soon the train came to Yanqing District 延庆区, a mountainous area which (I learned later) was prone to landslides. Rail operators here become tetchy over the mildest drizzle and would grind the train to a halt whenever it began to look a little wet. The PA system put it this way: we are stopping the train because of heavy rain. What rain? I looked out to see slightly damp trees swaying gently on verdant slopes. Meanwhile, the eight-hour ride morphed into a ten-hour ride before our very impatient eyes.

I must mention here that the rail service hires peddlers to sell anything from packed lunch, stationery, cheap toys to spectacles and medicine to the passengers. These people are overjoyed about the delay and wasted no time making the biggest profit they could out of our misery, raucously announcing their goods up and down the aisle. You have no idea about the amount of useless crap people would buy when they have been jammed in together in hard seats and needed something to distract themselves with. I bought a novelty smartphone holder this way; I bought two, actually, but they weren't very good. 

Milk candy for the lactose tolerant, USB cables for phone addicts, reading glasses for old people — and, of course, who can forget the local produce? To the refugees from Beijing's apocalyptic hellscape, Mongolia must have seemed God's own country, flowing with milk and honey! We grow blueberries here, announced one, rattling off a list of health benefits of the fruit which erupt from the soil of the unspoiled steppes with the most bombastic wholesomeness. You! She pointed at me — I was wearing my Dad's Xiamen University 厦门大学 shirt that trip, accidentally marking myself as a hapless southerner — Betcha don't get that good shit in Fujian! And so this show played out all ten hours, while the train swung first by Kalgan 张家口, then by Datong 大同, then finally to Jining, where my friend Peter and his parents were waiting.

An eight-hour train ride is terrible, but a ten-hour train ride is something that will forge undying friendship between complete strangers. I offered my seat to a random dude in the aisle, feeling slightly guilty of keeping the seat all to myself. This he accepted until a short while later when he offered it back to me again, and I would sit for another half-hour, etc. Eventually, we both agreed that the hard seat sucked, and that we would very much prefer just standing in the aisle together. He tried to start a rapport with me by asking for some light reading, but demurred when I said it was a Taiwanese book, written with traditional characters. 

A lady was bringing her daughter to see her grandma in Jining. The girl was cute and smol and hyperactive, in other words a huge headache for her mother, who wailed: come back! What's wrong with you? They'll kidnap you and you'll never see me again, you little devil! as she ran up and down the length of the cabin. I laughed and rooted for the kid inwardly, because she is meant to be as free as a bird, and this metal tube is no place for her. Gosh, I hope they are doing well now.

I think I'll always remember this Ten-Hour Hard-Seat Joyride from Beijing West Station to Jining, Inner Mongolia. This shall go down as an unexpectedly awesome decision that I would never make again. All you future pilgrims and tourists, best be flying in next time!