My wonderful teaching assistant Jing from the University of Hull, once met a girl from Scarborough in Yorkshire, U.K., who was telling Jing how big Scarborough is and blah blah. Jing, coming from China, has of course a different sense for dimensions. To Jing her hometown Shenyang is a village, even though it has a population of 6.3 million (census 2010, source: Wikipedia). I have to admit that I found it strange hearing Jing calling Shenyang a village, but I can understand her now. Guiyang is slightly smaller and it feels like a small town. I have been to places of about a million people and those were the equivalent to our villages.
To cut a long story short, Jing told that Scarborough girl that the train station of Shenyang (she used the words 'my village') is bigger than Scarborough, and made the poor girl go quiet. I couldn't stop laughing when Jing told me this story, but now I realise that she wasn't exaggerating.
China is a massive country with a population, distances and dimensions that go beyond our imagination. You can't understand it, unless you come to China and experience it yourself. Neighbouring cities may be close by bullet train or airplane, but not by car. Cities of one or two million people are considered villages, cities of five or seven or even more million are called second tier cities and the rest are proper cities.
Of course Jing was right by saying that the train station of 'her village' is bigger than Scarborough. I had to think of her words on several occasions while travelling around the country by train. The photos underneath were taken at the central station of Shanghai. You see thousands of people lining up in front of the building, going around like in a maze, waiting to go through controls. Access to the train stations (not all of them), have only travellers. You can buy your tickets online or offline and in both cases you have to pay the ticket office a visit (that's where you collect the tickets you have bought online). That's either in a different building or in some cases in the train station building, but everything is written in Chinese and hardly anyone speaks English. Good luck with that!
Then you walk to the actual train station building and you queue up, go through controls like at airports, have to have your luggage scanned, need to show your ID and ticket (both are checked at one of the numerous desks as soon as you enter the building), and there's a body check too. Men will love the body check, because it's done by (often good looking) women in uniforms, who grab and touch you all over your body if you're a westerner and if they are in a good mood. I for my part always smile at them and feel disappointed if they don't grab my behind. I bet for them it's the highlight of their lifetime to touch a westerner all over his body.
Once inside and through the controls, you have to find your way round. There are screens with all the info in English and in Chinese. Announcements are usually made in Chinese only. And then you have to walk. Be prepared for a long walk. Be also prepared to go upstairs or downstairs by normal old fashioned stairs and not some brand new flashy escalators, simply because they either don't exist or are out of service or go the wrong direction.
While you walk around trying to find your platform, you will pass food stalls, restaurants, various shops, coffee and tea places, etc. You will have the feeling of being in an airport, rather than a train station. Half an hour later (no kidding!!!), when you will reach your gate, you will be tired but happy and would love to sit down and relax for a bit. Unfortunately, most of the time all seats will be taken, so you'll have to stand. Like at an airport, you wait at a gate, not at the platform. An announcement is made and all people queue up in order to go through a ticket control. What looks like an insanity and makes you think that it might take ages, it actually doesn't. It is a very quick process. Once through the ticket controls, you go to the platform and have to follow some signs. What signs? Well, there is a carriage number on your ticket and those numbers can be found on signs on the platforms. Since the trains are really long with many carriages, you go to the designated area and wait for the train to arrive if it isn't there already. The train departs not even three minutes later.
If you're lucky enough to have a seat number, you simply go to your seat, if you're unlucky, you have to stand somewhere for the duration of your journey or hope to find a free seat.
There are various train categories and classes. Second class on bullet trains is cheap, but the seats are not really comfortable. First class seats are better, have more legroom, are more comfortable, have sockets to plug in your devices, but are more expensive (in some cases not that much more, but in other cases a lot more). Bear in mind that first class in China has nothing to do with first class in the western world. There's no extra service and it's not quiet. It's loud and it's packed. Vendors go through and sell food and drinks, people who have no seat reservation enter in search of a seat and stand in the corridor, passengers talk with each other and shout into their mobile phones or play loud music or watch films without the use of headphones, children play computer games, etc. It's definitely not worth the money. It's an experience, though. If you want a first class service, you will have to travel business class and pay a small fortune for it. At least there you get a warm meal for free.
If you need to go to the toilet, be prepared for a long walk. There are western style and Chinese toilets on the trains. The first ones are the ones we know, the latter are a hole in the ground. At least there is toilet paper and if you're fortunate enough they will be clean and tidy.
There's also a hot drinking water dispenser where the Chinese fill up their flasks and bottles and a sink where you can wash your hands. Those facilities are usually opposite the toilets.
The bullet trains are likely to be the only place in China where smoking is strictly forbidden, which makes it hard for the chain smoking Chinese. That's why you see them queueing up in front of the doors before the train arrives at a station and jumping out when the train comes to a halt. Since the stops are extremely short with under three minutes, they smoke as fast as they can in that given time.
If you would like to read more by me, here are my novel and my diary from Ar'ar, in the northern Saudi desert. Both available on Amazon as soft and hard copy.
To cut a long story short, Jing told that Scarborough girl that the train station of Shenyang (she used the words 'my village') is bigger than Scarborough, and made the poor girl go quiet. I couldn't stop laughing when Jing told me this story, but now I realise that she wasn't exaggerating.
China is a massive country with a population, distances and dimensions that go beyond our imagination. You can't understand it, unless you come to China and experience it yourself. Neighbouring cities may be close by bullet train or airplane, but not by car. Cities of one or two million people are considered villages, cities of five or seven or even more million are called second tier cities and the rest are proper cities.
Of course Jing was right by saying that the train station of 'her village' is bigger than Scarborough. I had to think of her words on several occasions while travelling around the country by train. The photos underneath were taken at the central station of Shanghai. You see thousands of people lining up in front of the building, going around like in a maze, waiting to go through controls. Access to the train stations (not all of them), have only travellers. You can buy your tickets online or offline and in both cases you have to pay the ticket office a visit (that's where you collect the tickets you have bought online). That's either in a different building or in some cases in the train station building, but everything is written in Chinese and hardly anyone speaks English. Good luck with that!
Then you walk to the actual train station building and you queue up, go through controls like at airports, have to have your luggage scanned, need to show your ID and ticket (both are checked at one of the numerous desks as soon as you enter the building), and there's a body check too. Men will love the body check, because it's done by (often good looking) women in uniforms, who grab and touch you all over your body if you're a westerner and if they are in a good mood. I for my part always smile at them and feel disappointed if they don't grab my behind. I bet for them it's the highlight of their lifetime to touch a westerner all over his body.
Once inside and through the controls, you have to find your way round. There are screens with all the info in English and in Chinese. Announcements are usually made in Chinese only. And then you have to walk. Be prepared for a long walk. Be also prepared to go upstairs or downstairs by normal old fashioned stairs and not some brand new flashy escalators, simply because they either don't exist or are out of service or go the wrong direction.
While you walk around trying to find your platform, you will pass food stalls, restaurants, various shops, coffee and tea places, etc. You will have the feeling of being in an airport, rather than a train station. Half an hour later (no kidding!!!), when you will reach your gate, you will be tired but happy and would love to sit down and relax for a bit. Unfortunately, most of the time all seats will be taken, so you'll have to stand. Like at an airport, you wait at a gate, not at the platform. An announcement is made and all people queue up in order to go through a ticket control. What looks like an insanity and makes you think that it might take ages, it actually doesn't. It is a very quick process. Once through the ticket controls, you go to the platform and have to follow some signs. What signs? Well, there is a carriage number on your ticket and those numbers can be found on signs on the platforms. Since the trains are really long with many carriages, you go to the designated area and wait for the train to arrive if it isn't there already. The train departs not even three minutes later.
If you're lucky enough to have a seat number, you simply go to your seat, if you're unlucky, you have to stand somewhere for the duration of your journey or hope to find a free seat.
There are various train categories and classes. Second class on bullet trains is cheap, but the seats are not really comfortable. First class seats are better, have more legroom, are more comfortable, have sockets to plug in your devices, but are more expensive (in some cases not that much more, but in other cases a lot more). Bear in mind that first class in China has nothing to do with first class in the western world. There's no extra service and it's not quiet. It's loud and it's packed. Vendors go through and sell food and drinks, people who have no seat reservation enter in search of a seat and stand in the corridor, passengers talk with each other and shout into their mobile phones or play loud music or watch films without the use of headphones, children play computer games, etc. It's definitely not worth the money. It's an experience, though. If you want a first class service, you will have to travel business class and pay a small fortune for it. At least there you get a warm meal for free.
If you need to go to the toilet, be prepared for a long walk. There are western style and Chinese toilets on the trains. The first ones are the ones we know, the latter are a hole in the ground. At least there is toilet paper and if you're fortunate enough they will be clean and tidy.
There's also a hot drinking water dispenser where the Chinese fill up their flasks and bottles and a sink where you can wash your hands. Those facilities are usually opposite the toilets.
The bullet trains are likely to be the only place in China where smoking is strictly forbidden, which makes it hard for the chain smoking Chinese. That's why you see them queueing up in front of the doors before the train arrives at a station and jumping out when the train comes to a halt. Since the stops are extremely short with under three minutes, they smoke as fast as they can in that given time.
Queueing up to enter the train station building. The entrance is somewhere where the red umbrellas are.
Walking towards the gate. Still half an hour walk in front of us.
Queueing up at the gate for the ticket controls and being allowed onto the platform.
The tall white guy is my colleague and programme leader Andrew from Scarborough (hihihihihi)
Can you spot the ticket controls at the far end? No? Neither do I.
We have almost made it.
The platform. Only one escalator.
Our bullet train. Now we have to find the entrance to our carriage.
Second class. Two seats on the left, three on the right.
Waiting to get off the train.
If you would like to read more by me, here are my novel and my diary from Ar'ar, in the northern Saudi desert. Both available on Amazon as soft and hard copy.
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