Ticket to Ride

by Tom Chesshyre

  We are in Shaanxi province, one of 23 in China. This province is rich in gas and coal reserves in the north, while Xi'an, the capital, is known for its textiles, electronics and for factories connected to the 'National Defence System – they make aircraft, rockets for space, things like that'.

  Sally says that iPhone 6s are extremely popular, that mortgages have become commonplace in the past ten years, and that 'there is a big gap between the rich and the poor'.

  'There has been corruption. Some people want to take investment money for themselves. They have been caught, according to CCTV News. This is good thing. Deng Xiaoping said it does not matter if it is a black cat or a white cat: if it catches the rat, it is a good cat. In the 1980s and 1990s, the first people make a lot of money easily. Deng Xiaoping, he allow this. He said we should mix with the world and if some people get rich, we can get rich together.'

  I'm just about following her. But there's another saying attributed to Xiaoping that's perhaps more pertinent to this journey: 'A socialist train coming with a delay is better than a capitalist one that comes on time.' It sounds as though this 'truism' was an excuse for stagnation during previous regimes. These days, however, the socialist trains seem to be pretty punctual, too.

  Judging by the Aston Martin and Lamborghini showrooms in downtown Xi'an, there are some very rich people indeed in this communist country. Sally and I drive about the fancy malls and hotels of downtown Xi'an to see the attractions.

  At the 64-metre-high, seventh-century Great Wild Goose Pagoda ('the only leaning pagoda in China'), I ask her about Tibet. Sally just looks at me and laughs; talking about Tibet with foreigners is obviously not a good idea.

  We drive to the marvellous, mesmerising Terracotta Army, where I buy a book about the 2,300-year-old figures – considered by some to be the eighth wonder of the world – and have it signed by one of the farmers who discovered them while drilling for water in March 1974 (and who appears to have long since retired and moved into the publishing world).

  I see a Tang-dynasty-style show at the ornate Shaanxi Grand Opera House, where I'm fed dumpling after dumpling served with slices of tongue-like meat with plum sauce – all washed down with fizzy Snow beer. On stage, women in gold and blue costumes dance to jolly Tang hits such as 'Breeze Dancing on Water' and 'Girls Look Forward to a Nice and Happy Life'.

  I go for a walk from my hotel to watch a flag-lowering ceremony by the town hall – marching music echoing across a square – and to see elderly men cracking whips to keep spinning tops going in a park.

  Then the next morning, Sally takes me to a museum with propaganda posters including one that is part of a current Communist Party campaign and depicts a mother using a basin of water to wash her feet, with a child who asks whether she can help clean the mother's feet too.

  'Children can sometimes be very selfish in China,' Sally says. 'They are spoilt as they are only children. They are given everything. Sometimes they are so spoilt they do not know how to consider others. So we need to relearn our doctrine, to consider our parents, to pay them respect.'

  The single children are a result of the one-child policy mentioned by Jangei – although this has been relaxed in the countryside to allow two, says Sally. She also explains that when two city-dwelling single children marry, it is possible to request permission to have more than one child (apparently because their families' offspring rate is already low). A report in this morning's English-language China Daily newspaper quotes figures from the National Health and Family Planning Commission showing that 26,000 couples living in Beijing had made such an application so far that year, which does not sound all that many in a city of more than 21 million.

  'Ha na, ja mah, na, jah!'

  Xi'an to Wuhan

  That's Xi'an. I won't dwell on it; you don't have time for lengthy reflections on a high-speed rail tour of China. Onwards!

  After exchanging email addresses with Sally, I'm back by the tracks almost before I know it – about to head for Wuhan, a car-manufacturing and cigarette-producing city with a mere ten million inhabitants.

  At the station, a man holding a plastic bag is taking pictures of the bullet train with his mobile phone. I appear to have found a Chinese trainspotter – possibly even a Chinese gricer, judging by his dishevelled look. I ask if he is one.

  'Ah ha ha ha za la,' he answers.

  He hasn't the foggiest clue what I said, nor have I of what he's just related (I really should brush up on my Mandarin Chinese).

  During the four-hour journey to Wuhan I become acquainted with some very noisy neighbours. As we move away into the apartment-block haze that already seems so standard on the edge of any Chinese city, I realise that the man sitting next to me will neither keep still nor shut up. He is in his thirties and has a buzz cut, yellow teeth and high cheekbones. A set of keys is attached to his belt. He jiggles his legs as though this is a nervous habit. Doing so rattles the keys, creating a tinny sound. His chatter goes on and on; I cannot count beyond five during the pauses in his communication with two friends across the aisle.

  'Her, ter, der, cling! Her, der, der, der, ter, ter, cling!' he yells – or something along those lines. Loudly. The whole time.

  I'm sure it's a very interesting conversation.

  This continues for the entire journey, broken only by my neighbour knocking over his flask of water, a feat he achieves four times thanks to his leg-jiggling (once splashing the book I'm reading). His female friend across the aisle is even noisier. She is drinking a can of Tuborg beer and gesticulating wildly. What's in my friend's flask, I wonder.

  For lunch, and a break from the party, I go to heat my noodles. This turns out to be a semi-traumatic experience. The idea is to fill your noodle pot under a boiling-water tap. As I am about to do so, a small elderly female attendant begins jabbering at me. The way she does so makes it sound as though I am on the cusp of some sort of emergency.

  'Ha na, ja mah, na, jah!' she says. Rapidly.

  Language, if you do not have any, can be a problem in the People's Republic of China.

  She grabs my noodles, somehow indicates that I must wait for an orange light to turn on, and fills my pot at the right moment. I thank her and go back to my seat. As I return, I find my jiggling neighbour examining the label on a bottle of Perrier I took from the Xi'an hotel. Without looking at me, he replaces it on my table. Perhaps he was checking to see if it was a type of beer. Then he and his Tuborg-drinking friend pause for a while, watching me eat my noodles.

  So passes my time on the train from Xi'an to Wuhan.

  Despite its size – it's the biggest city in central China – Wuhan feels like a backwater. Not many tourists visit, and were it not for the high-speed line I doubt I would have ever gone. My new contact, Frank, is no-nonsense about the city, informing me bluntly that there is only one tourist attraction, the Yellow Crane Tower. He has a high opinion of this tower, telling me: 'I dare to say that, if people see it, they will feel fantastic.'

  Frank does not offer to take me there; he's an unusual sort of guide. He's just going to drop me at my Shangri-La hotel and collect me for the train on to Nanjing in the morning. He is skinny and his hair has a dyed-red tint.

  Frank likes the city's new bullet trains, which were introduced four years earlier. Wuhan has had trains of some description since the late nineteenth century. 'I think it keep pace with the world,' he says. 'Improve development of the city. Save lot of time. Your time is money. Everyone wants to do things very fast, right?'

  We cross a bridge over the Yangtze river; the Yangtze and Han rivers converge at Wuhan. It's an especially pollution-clogged afternoon. 'Wuhan has the worst air,' Frank says. 'When I was young, five years old, I could see blue sky and clouds.'

  But not since then, seems to be the implication.

  After dropping my bag at the hotel, I go for a stroll along narrow, chaotic, fuggy streets where elderly folk play mah-jong and little shops sell Singer sewing machines. There are many skyscrapers and numerous fashion s
hops. I find 'Walking Street', which the hotel concierge had recommended. People are indeed walking on Walking Street, past even more fashion shops. Just when I'm wondering whether I should cut my losses and call it a day, I stumble upon the 1911 Revolution Museum.

  This is where Wuhan comes into its own.

  The city, I find, was where rebels successfully overthrew local Qing dynasty officials, leading to the establishment of the Republic of China on 1 January 1912, and the abdication of the six-yearold 'Last Emperor' of China, Aisin Gioro Puyi, on 12 February 1912. Railways, I am surprised to learn, played a key part in this revolt. In May 1911, the debt-ridden Qing government ordered the nationalisation of railway lines that were owned by private investors. This sparked widespread discontent and is referred to in China as the 'railway crisis'. Strikes and protests were held, part of what was known as the Railway Protection Movement, culminating in the uprising in Wuhan on 10 October 1911, when there was mutiny in the Qing army.

  There you have it: no railways, no revolution. The emperors might still have been in charge and history would have been rather different.

  This is perhaps – I'll concede – a slightly simplistic take on Chinese history.

  Nearby, I take in a wall by a block of apartments upon which a series of sayings has been inscribed. Extravagance leads to insubordination, and parsimony to meanness. It is better to be mean than to be insubordinate. This is attributed to James Legge, a nineteenth-century Scottish sinologist who translated many Chinese classic volumes into English. He's also responsible for: The wise find pleasure in water; the virtuous find pleasure in hills. The wise are active; the virtuous are tranquil. The wise are joyful; the virtuous are long-lived. And for: When the solid qualities are in excess of accomplishments, we have rusticity; where the accomplishments are in excess of the solid qualities, we have the manners of a clerk. When the accomplishments and solid qualities are equally balanced, we then have the man of virtue.

  Wondering what on earth Legge was on about – and how the great Scottish sinologist would have categorised those who 'find pleasure in railways' – I get an early night, followed by an early train to Nanjing.

  This server cannot regulate that command

  Wuhan to Nanjing

  On board I meet Joe. He's sitting next to me. He's a financial investment student and he's travelling to Nanjing to see his girlfriend. He has widely spaced eyes that taper towards his ears, and a neat side parting. He's more than six feet tall and dressed in black. We strike up a conversation after I go to the dining carriage and return with a 'sautéed beef fillet with hot green pepper' brunch. The menu had been in English as well as Chinese and other dining options included: 'new farming braise in soy sauce beef noodles', duck tongue, stewed lotus root, 'oaten cake' and 'the spaghetti'.

  My steaming beef fillet with hot peppers catches Joe's attention.

  'Not the best Chinese food,' he says. 'Because it is on a train.'

  Chinese train food, apparently, has a bad reputation, though I quite like it. I ask Joe where he learnt English.

  'First it was as a child. I listen to music. Then learn at school. I want one day work for American bank.'

  He enjoys the country's new bullet trains: 'It make much more comfortable. A symbol of new China. Please eat!'

  I do, and as I tuck into the (very) hot peppers, Joe tells me his dreams. 'A big house! A lover!' he begins. 'Some friends, and I can do what I want and have much time to do what I want. Not to have to work. To do reading, sports, travel. First in China, then foreign. I have already been to England. My dad take me there when I was eight years old. My father was lecturer at university in Newcastle. I went for one month. I don't remember much except very large grass in a park and that even a small boy play football very good.'

  Joe is interrupted by an announcement in English. These come from time to time on the Wuhan–Nanjing train. We have arrived at a station: 'Please keep an eye on the gap between the train and the platform.'

  Joe says that his favourite pop groups and singers are Westlife, the Backstreet Boys, James Blunt and Michael Jackson: '"Billie Jean" – very good!'

  He is not a member of the Communist Party. 'I am happy,' he says, referring to the way the country is run. 'But not all people are. They make much complaints, but they don't work hard. So bad situation remains. They hate the bad situation, but they don't make change.'

  We zoom through paddy fields, some with farmers wearing conical hats. We slip through tunnels. We see tower blocks in the haze. We have arrived at Nanjing.

  Joe heads off, and I take a taxi to my hotel near the city's Confucius Temple. I am on my own in this ancient capital of the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), also capital of the Republic of China from 1911 to 1937.

  I take another taxi from the hotel to see the mausoleum of Dr Sun Yat-sen, one of the main revolutionary figureheads and the first president of the republic. He had been in exile – in Denver, Colorado – at the time of the October 1911 railway-inspired uprising. The mausoleum is at the top of a towering set of stone steps and within a pretty park with unusual sculptures of elephants and camels. So this is the resting place of the 'railway hero' who helped depose the Chinese dynastic line and is worthy of any train lover's interest.

  Afterwards, I stop by Confucius Temple, take in another Chinese saying or two ('I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand') and, with the main tourist attractions 'done', I go for pork noodles by Qinhuai river, watching rickshaw men in lurid lemon-yellow outfits eating their own noodles during a break. The Qinhuai looks sublime in the early evening, with light from the lanterns flickering on its placid coal-black surface and little tourist boats lined with red bulbs scooting here and there. Golden dragons adorn the walls of traditional homes with curl-topped roofs that pack the waterfront.

  I drink a Snow beer and read the papers. I have copies of China Daily and Shanghai Daily from the Wuhan–Nanjing train and they make curious reading.

  A man in Henan province has broken the world record for continually spinning his body for 14 hours (claiming to the reporter that he could read a book while turning circles). An eight-year-old girl from Chongqing has had a hairball the size of a newborn child removed from her stomach (she had, apparently, developed a habit of eating old hair). Two students from Yunnan province have been 'expelled over professed love' – whatever that might mean. A man in Shaanxi province has poisoned his neighbour's sheep for eating his pear tree. A mobile-phone thief in Beijing has swallowed five sewing needles hidden in his collar upon arrest but lived to tell the tale. While in Shandong province, men are signing up for 'childbirth torture' at a maternity hospital so they can empathise with wives about to go into labour. To achieve this, electric shocks are fired into the abdomen. 'It felt like my heart and lungs were being ripped apart,' says one participant.

  You couldn't make it up.

  In Shanghai, restaurants are in the news. A 'driver's licence' for restaurants is being introduced: 'Under the initiative, an eatery responsible for a death through food poisoning will lose its entire annual quota of 18 points and will be closed.' Deductions of 12 points will be made for food poisoning affecting 'fewer than ten people'. In a separate scheme, authorities are cracking down on restaurants with an opium habit: 'Putting poppy seeds containing morphine into food is illegal but some restaurants and snack bars still add it to their dishes to keep customers coming back for more.'

  As far as railways are concerned, China Railways Group has just secured a government contract worth 24.2 billion yuan (£2.4 billion) to build a Huaihua–Shaoyang–Hengyang line in Hunan province covering 215 miles. The deal is regarded by China Daily as a sign that the government is 'lifting investment to tackle slacking economic growth'. Trains, it would appear, are being used as a key economic catalyst, just as they were in nineteenth-century Europe. To put things in perspective, £2.4 billion is roughly equivalent to the GDPs (Gross Domestic Product) of Swaziland and Eritrea and slightly more than those of Guyana and the Maldives.


  I poke my noodles and look at them afresh after the opiumpoisoning story. They are very good indeed, though I'm not hallucinating, yet.

  A final article catches my eye. The Beijing Chaoyang People's Court has sentenced Yang Xiuyu, a popular microblogger, to four years for 'spreading rumours online'. This only merits a small space at the bottom of a page, and it's yet another reminder of the reality of life in a country with censorship. I have long given up trying to look up information online using Wi-fi at hotels as I'm sick of the message that this server cannot regulate that command.

  'Politics is very sensitive, my friend'

  Nanjing to Shanghai, a journey on the airport magnetic levitation train, and then on to Beijing

  I don't spend long in Nanjing. I'm soon on a bullet train speeding onwards to Shanghai, a journey of 1 hour 40 minutes. My circle of one section of the centre of the People's Republic is almost complete.

  On board, I sit next to Mr Lin, who wears a brown striped tie and has darting, lizard-like eyes. He tells me about the country's Air Quality Index. Today's measurement is 116, which is 'not too bad', though it still looks quite misty.