My most memorable, and physically exhausting, experience while I studied abroad in Beijing, China was one hellish train ride during the National Day Fall Break. Five friends and I embarked on a 10-day trip to Nanjing, Huangshan and Suzhou. Overall, the vacation was amazing, particularly camping at Huangshan (Yellow Mountain), which was home to the most spectacular natural scenery I have ever seen. Furthermore, my companions from that trip are now my lifelong friends. But this is largely because we have been through so much together - namely, the overnight train ride from Nanjing to Huangshan.
Because we traveled on National Day, possibly the busiest travel time of the year in China, we could not purchase sleeper car tickets. We thus had to buy "hard seat" tickets for the entire 15-hour journey.
The train itself was the most crowded, densely populated space in which I've ever been stuck. The bench seats meant for two actually contained three or four people, while five or six people squeezed into seats built for three. People filled every square inch of floor space, including the aisles and under the tables between the seats -- an area normally designated for legroom. A few nimble people even managed to sit up in the overhead luggage bin.
At many points throughout the trip, I would have said the train was filled to capacity, but somehow at every stop one or two dozen people boarded the train. To this day, I still have no idea how that was possible.
Of course, when we got on, our "reserved" seats already were occupied. We made everyone get up except for a grandmother, a mother and her infant who were sitting in two of our seats and looked at us pitifully, begging us to let them stay. As a result, two from our group had to stand throughout the trip, which we did in shifts.
However, sitting wasn't much better. On one two-person bench, an old peasant woman (whom we had generously agreed to share our seat with) continually made liberal use of her sharp elbows in order to carve a little more space for herself on the edge of our seat.
Nevertheless, my friend Laura had managed to doze off for a little while, when she was awoken by a terrible surprise. The woman next to her was holding an infant in her arms. Chinese babies do not wear diapers, but instead have special crotchless pants so that the parents can just aim them in a convenient direction.
Unfortunately for Laura, when the baby suddenly started peeing, the mother didn't notice until both Laura and her seat were drenched in urine. Laura immediately jumped up to clean herself off, and when she did, a woman threw a newspaper onto Laura's seat and sat down! At first, we tried to make the woman get back up, but she stubbornly resisted. Eventually we gave up, largely because there were only three hours left, and Laura didn't really want her urine-covered seat back anyway.
When the train pulled into a station at 7:15 a.m., we thought our ordeal was almost over, since we were scheduled to arrive at 7:30. The train sat idle for a long time, and as we waited, another train pulled up along side of us - a luxury train. From our window we had a perfect view of the luxury dining car, where waiters attentively served the passengers who were eating caviar and drinking champagne.
Perhaps these last details are not entirely accurate, but in comparison to our situation, I felt like I was looking at the Sultan of Brunei's personal yacht.
Finally, after torturously waiting at that station for over an hour, our train pulled into Huangshan at 9 a.m. Those 15 hours - the only bad experience I ever had on a Chinese train - remain the most unforgettable event of my semester abroad.
Read More
A second chance to dress for graduation
By Julianne Saunders | YesterdayI have learned to see my college graduation not as a way to make up for the past but as an event worth celebrating on its own.
How study abroad taught me to stop studying
By Grace Scott | May 10, 2024Turns out, it took attending one of the most prestigious universities in the world for me to realize there's more to life than studying.
Collyn Clark reflects on Space Workforce 2030, building an inclusive space industry
By Carly Stender | May 9, 2024Clark said programs such as the SWF 2030 internship can serve as launch pads for a career in the aerospace industry.
