11/17 Friday

In the morning, I rode my bike to interview at an English School called Oriental Youth group. The bike ride took about half an hour, but I was bundled up and comfortably warm. I met the woman who I had been in contact with over email at the classroom space they owned in an office/apartment building. She was extremely nice, and told me all about the teaching methods they use, but how they are small and can only afford to pay teachers 100 yuan and hour. They are opening more branches and constantly getting more students, so she told me that they would probably be increasing the salary in 2007. The teaching methods seemed like really nice ones, ones that would be very comfortable and fun for both the teachers and the students. For example, at the beginning of every class for the younger students, the teacher leads the children in singing a western children’s song. Because of this, I had to sing at the interview, and chose Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Apparently she thought it sounded good enough. The rest of the interview went well, and she said that I should call her if and when I move from the music school, because I might be moving closer to one of the school’s new branches. She also said she might need me as a substitute teacher sometimes. I biked home and had lunch at the school cafeteria.

Later in the evening, I went out to have dinner with Caroline and Terry as well as one of their co-workers from the office. We went to an Italian restaurant and had pasta and pizza.

I then decided to go say goodbye to everyone at the train station before they took their 11:30 train. Caroline, Terry and I met up with the rest of the group and headed to the Beijing train station on the subway. They all had backpacks packed for the weekend, with extra clothes and food, because apparently Da Tong is very cold even though it is almost level with Beijing on the map.

On the subway ride, Lac told me that actually there was an earlier train on Sunday from Da Tong that could get me back to Beijing at 1:30. My soccer game would start at 4:00, giving me enough time to get back to my apartment to get my soccer kit. They also told me how much I would be missing if I didn’t come, and that they were going to see some famous World Heritage Sites. So as we were arriving at the train station by subway I decided to go along with the group. I didn’t have time to pack anything obviously, and would have to survive with what I was wearing at the time. I didn’t have my camera or anything I would normally bring traveling. Luckily I had been wearing my warm hat all day, and had my 130 yuan fake down jacket on. I also didn’t have very much money and didn’t even have a train ticket.

We asked about buying my ticket, and they said it could be done on the train. At around 11:05, we headed to the gate and tried to get through the gates to get on the train. Caroline was the first one to try to go through, and was stopped. The woman said we had gone to the wrong station! Our tickets were for the Beijing West Station, and we were at the normal Beijing Station. Having 25 minutes before our train left, we frantically asked what could be done, and they said we could not exchange out tickets and would have to try to make it to the correct station before our train left. We ran out of the station to the street and tried to get into two taxis to go to the West Station.

At this point, we experienced something like a living nightmare. It was corruption and capitalism at its best. The drivers knew that we were in a rush, and someone told them that we needed to make a train at the West Station in 25 minutes. The first set of taxis we got into wanted an additional 250 yuan per taxi for them to get us there on time. We refused and got out and went to another set of taxis, knowing we might get there on time on a normal taxi ride. The same thing happened in the other taxis, but for maybe 200 yuan. The taxi drivers were all yelling at each other, telling each other that we were stuck and that we urgently needed to catch a train. We ran down the street with our bags and hailed another pair of cabs off the street. We told them to go quickly, but before they left, a cyclist headed down from the other cabs and pulled alongside the two taxis telling the drivers of our plight. We were all terribly flustered at this point, and were yelling at the cab driver not to listen to the cyclist and to just take us to the station. It soon was 11:15 and we hadn’t started driving. Finally we told the last pair of drivers that we would give them a bit of extra money if they got us there on time. We set off and watched the clock tick past 11:30 a couple of minutes before we got to the station. We had missed our train.

We got to the station and ran to the terminal just to check if our train had left already. Indeed it had. We asked the people at the gate what could be done, and were escorted to the ticket office. Apparently there was another train scheduled for 12:15 to Da Tong, but it was running an hour late. We inquired about getting refunds for everyone who had already bought tickets, and they said the best they could do would be to give us a spot on the next train, but they couldn’t guarantee that they’d get beds. We decided to try to catch the late 12:15, which would apparently be getting in at around 1:20. The people at the ticket desk stamped and signed the old tickets so that we could get on the next train.

We all went to the terminal to wait for the train. The place was absolutely packed, and a security guard, upon seeing us, went over and roused some people who were sleeping across some benches so we could sit down.

We had been sitting for around 15 minutes when there was some commotion in another row of benches. There seemed to be an old woman attacking a security guard, and another old woman grasping her arm trying to hold her back. We watched in amazement as she grinned and spit at the guard and tried to attack him with her free arm and legs. The fighting continued with the woman restraining her friend and the guard attempting to calm her down. Soon enough a ring of people had formed around the fighters, and they were all looking in to see a piece of the action. The security guard kicked the woman brutally a few times on the shins but she kept on coming at him and grinning. We were beginning to think she was deranged.

In all probability, this woman was a vagrant who was attempting to sleep in the station because she didn’t have a home of her own, and had been unable to present a valid ticket to the security guard when he asked her for it.

Eventually the guard went and got a length of plastic cord to bind the woman up. It was hard to see through the thick ring of people, but the guard pushed the woman on her knees and began to tie her hands up behind her back. He had been calling for help the entire time, but we hadn’t seen any more security arrive.

Off to the side, a child started crying because of the commotion, and her mother approached her and smacked her brutally on the face in order to make her shut up. Of course this made the child cry even more, and the mother slapped the child again.

At long last, a bunch of paramedics came and took the woman away. They were probably taking her to an insane asylum or something worse…

We got on the train at around 1:00 am and couldn’t find anywhere to sit or sleep. We were made to buy tickets again to supposedly supplement our old tickets in order to get some beds in one of the sleeping cars. We were given hard sleeping bunks, stacked three high, six to a room, and about 72 to a car. I took the top bunk and got almost no sleep. My neighbor, a Chinese person about 2 feet away from me, was snoring so noisily that I didn’t fall asleep until around 4:00 am. I got up a few times and descended the three bunks to sit by a window in the passageway; it was cooler there, and I could watch some of the night scenery go by, dimly illuminated by light cast from the inside of the train.