Overnight Train to Beijing

We are on the train from Hong Kong to Beijing. The same landscape has been whizzing by since I woke up this morning to see the sun rising out of the haze over the fields. Tracks of open fields, mostly fallow, lined with tall, sparse trees that are occasionally interrupted by unknown, sprawling towns and sliced up by elevated, concrete roadways. There are big, tall , modern apartment buildings with piles of rubble around mixed with what look like abandoned Mao-era government buildings. On the outskirts of the towns are the old town remnants – one story brick compounds with flared Chinese roofs that look like they have been around since before Mao. They look just like something out of “The Good Earth”. Rice and ears of corn are spread out on tarps along the side of the roads, drying in the sun (just like in Bali).

Outside looks more like what I thought China was going to look like. On the train yesterday afternoon we kept wondering when we had passed from Hong Kong to the Mainland. The Chinese woman on the intercom system did not give us any indication - at least not in English. The first thing we noticed before we arrived at Guangzhou station, where we knew we were in mainland, was that cars were driving on the right side of the road and the drivers were back on the left side of the car.

I wish I could remember more of what China looked like when I came with my dad 30 years ago. I remember 1-2 story brick and cinderblock buildings, everyone being dressed in their grey, dark blue, or olive Mao suits, and bicycles everywhere. I remember seeing the occasional old lady hobbling along the sideway with her tiny bound feet (I am sure none of them are alive anymore). We were here in April, I think, and I remember that it was mostly cold and dreary every place we went (Guangzhou, Gulin, Beijing, Shanghai). It is cloudy out now and I am sure the coolness will be a pleasant change for us.