The Middle Kingdom

Boarding the train in Guangzhou, one enters the "hard bunk" section of the train and swelters in the appalling heat and humidity. Guangzhou in August is more a steam room than a city, and the train, without air conditioning, unmoving and crowded, forces one to strip down to the minimum allowable attire, which for men is shorts and no shirt. Before long, however, the train begins to move, and a precious breeze begins to cool the interior of the car; at this time, I begin to see that "hard bunk" is the way to travel along the Chinese railways in summer. Unlike the miserable "hard seat," "hard bunk" is not an unspeakable press of humanity. Each passenger has a wooden bunk to himself, and each bunk has a tatami-like pad, which proves quite comfortable. And unlike the sterile, slightly musty, and air conditioned "soft" sections of the train, "hard bunk" is filled with ordinary people, with scarecly a communist party official to be seen. My fellow passengers are a friendly and gregarious lot, some eager to attempt a conversation in English, and all surprised that I can manage to communicate in Chinese. They are eager to tell me about the country we pass through, as the train makes its patient way along the valley of the Hsiang River, northward through Guangdong Province and into Hunan, the heart of South China. Around the river valley, low, rolling mountains ascend into the distance, slow-moving barges ply the river, and water buffalo raise just their eyes and noses out of the ponds, without showing so much as a hair on their necks. On occasion, we see other trains, some pulled by steam locomotives -- in 1988, China still had a few left. And everywhere there are people; again and again we pass through quiet rice-farming villages populated by peasants in the ubiquitous "coolie" hats.

As the long afternoon fades into evening, I break out a hsiangqi set (a Chinese game similar to chess), much to the delight of my fellow passengers, who quickly demonstrate that I am completely out of my league. I content myself with being a spectator to their matches. Later, after dinner and just before lights-out, I catch a young woman in a higher bunk across from mine staring at me in what I hope is not horrified facination. I smile at her and, embarrassed, she rolls away and hides her face. Sleep comes easily as the train continues its 18-hour journey to Changsha.

Rain on my face wakes me in the middle of the night. Thunder rumbles now and then, and a cool, moist breeze is blowing. I lower the window and sleep again. Later still, we wake as our train prepares to pull out from a station somewhere in Hunan. It had pulled in while we slept, perhaps at three in the morning, yet there were numerous passengers on the platform. Someone had raised our window from outside the train and stolen one of my travelling companion's glasses, which had been on a small table by the window. Again I drop off, and I do not wake again until morning.

Sunrise comes accompanied by a blast of patriotic music from the train car's speakers. All are jolted awake by communist brasswinds, distorted by the lousy electronics. Bleary-eyed, travelers attempt to refresh themselves as the train finally arrives in Changsha.

Changsha itself remains a blur in my memory. Our group stayed there only long enough to visit the excavated tomb of a Han Dynasty princess. Chinese archaeologists had found amazing treasures in her tomb, and if there was more painted wood and less gold than the tombs of ancient Egyptian pharoahs, the Han princess' wealth was no less spectacular for that. Most striking were wooden chests painted with figures of strange mythical animals -- creatures that seemed to be vaguely demonic combinations of men and beasts. Also, a painted screen (or something like that) with the nine sun-ravens of Chinese mythology on it lingers in my memory.

After a brief time in Changsha, our group boarded a mianbao che (lit. "loaf-of-bread vehicle -- what the Chinese call a mini-van) and headed north and west into a mountain region known as Wulingshan. In the heart of this area is the village of Zhang Jia Jie, where the mountain scenery testifies to the verisimilitude of the works of Chinese screen painters, who portrayed such improbably vertical mountains. Trails near the village pass through deep gorges and bamboo groves, and the casual hiker may see the deadly bamboo snake, or perhaps a monkey, though both are rare. The snake I did see, and I concluded from the emerald-like beauty of the creature's scales that it must be venomous. Mountain trails take one up into the clouds, and one imagines Taoist recluses must inhabit the high, wild areas, meditating in primitive huts or wandering along the tops of precipices. Unlike the rest of South China, Wulingshan and Zhang Jia Jie are moist and cool, as opposed to humid and hot. The land is a quiet region of stone and streams, forests and bamboo.

However, tourism has come to Zhang Jia Jie, and although certain trails allow the hiker some solitude, many are all too popular. High on Huangshishan (Yellowstone Mountain, remarkably enough), the traveler can purchase a bottle of soda. Merchants keep them cool by sinking sacks of them in the mountain streams. And atop the mountain is a restaurant, but one I cannot recommend, for while the food tasted good, it turned out to be far from healthful.

After our all-to-brief time in Wulingshan, our same mianbao che carried us to Yichang, a port on the Yangtze River, where we boarded a boat bound through the famous Three Gorges to the Sichuanese city of Chongqing. The boat was only slightly hellish; we were unlucky enough to get cabins in the interior or the boat (musty, hot), as opposed to outboard ones (airy, cool, or so I heard). Nonetheless, the gorges were worth the lack of sleep. I cannot describe them, and I hope you can get to see them before the Chinese fill them with water (they are building a massive hydroelectric dam at the east end of the gorges). The one recurring thought I have about the three gorges is that within them one loses his sense of scale completely. Until one sees an object of known size, one does not realize just how high the walls of the gorges are. Also, the Yangtze flows muddily and dangerously through the gorges; whirlpools abound, and one senses that falling in would be a fatal error. The walls of the gorges are not sheer, and in places small farming villages cling to their sides, with terraced fields rising crazily upward. Many of these villages are only accessible by boat, although in a couple of more years I may have to change that to read "submarine."

We disembarked in Chongqing, one of the "Furnaces of the Yangtze," and seldom have I encountered a more well-earned sobriquet. After a terribly hot and sweaty day, your fearless traveller and a group of friends sat down in an alley "restaurant" where Sichuan hot pot was available. This meal involves a pot full of peanut oil and red chilies, and, in our case, a very fresh chicken (killed, bled, and plucked right there in the gutter.) One of the charming aspects of Sichuan hot pot is that the vendors don't change the oil between customers -- they just add a few chilies each time. As we arrived there in the early evening, the oil was as red-hot as could be. Some hot foods burn the tongue and lips. Only Sichuan hot pot burns the outside of the cheeks as well.

After Chongqing came a white-knuckle flight to Xi'an, but for that part of my travels in the Middle Kingdom, you have to move on to North China.

Return to Homepage

Copyright © 1996 Scott Carr

This page hosted by Get your own Free Home Page