With Turtleface Joe and the Boys on the Beijing/Lhasa Local

I'm sitting by the window on the train to Tibet watching it get light. When the lights went out at 10pm last night we were climbing through the mountains but it was still 80 degrees outside. Now everything is white. The ground is blanketed in snow that looks like it extends into the sky. I’m starting to think a winter coat might have been a good idea after all. At least my backpack will be light since I’ll be wearing everything I brought.

Everything on this trip has so far exceeded my expectations, but this train ride takes the cake.  Not only have we gotten to see a huge part of China, but the experiences and people have just been amazing. We couldn’t all get beds together, so Dee and Keesler are down in a soft sleeper cabin in car 6, and Kim, Cici and I are in hard sleepers in car 13. The difference between the classes is pretty remarkable, but I must admit I LOVE where I am. Kim and Ceci are in one cabin and I am next door with roommates that are clearly 5 members of the Chinese mob. 

We got on the train at 9:30 Friday night, May 28^th, in Beijing. When we realized that the three of us weren’t going to be in the same cabin we made a brief attempt at trying to trade beds.  No one speaks English except for a few Koreans, who are the only other foreigners on the train, but we didn’t meet any of them till the next morning, and it wouldn’t have mattered anyway.  We learned one word of Chinese, Sange, but one word does not a successful conversation make.  “Sange” said the man, holding up three fingers than spinning one in a downward circular motion at us. “Sange” we agreed, smiling and nodding our heads. Yes we were sange … or at least we were pretty sure we were sange. He had tickets in his hand and happily displayed three that were together (among an oddly large stack for someone who didn’t actually work on the train).  He looked down the hall as a way of showing us where the beds were. “yes please” we nodded emphatically.  Somehow though he hadn’t realized that we weren’t all in the same cabin, and once he did the happy lilt from his voice disappeared and sange became a sad word. “sange” he said shaking his head slowly back and forth before turning and walking away. And that was that. Or so we thought. A few minutes later we repeated almost the exact same conversation with one of his cohorts.  What had seemed like a gesture to help the poor linguistically challenged white girls was really an attempt for the mafiosa to get a cabin to themselves.  In the end they were stuck with me. I had my stuff on what I thought was my bunk but they made it clear that in fact I was to sleep on the tippity-top bunk, where there isn’t enough room to sit without smashing my head on the ceiling.  I have to climb over all of them to get to my bunk, and while I am getting better, my lack of grace could be interpreted by some as a slight nuisance. I do it with a smile and an apologetic shrug though.

There were a number of other little gems that happened before we actually settled into our final situations.  There was only one man in my compartment at first, a friendly old Chinese grandfather and we exchanged many smiles, nihaos, and sympathetic gazes and I was a little sad when he seemed to just disappear down the hall with all of his stuff. We still share smiles and nods when he walks down the hall to the bathroom, but it’s just not the same. Knowing what I do now, his departure was clearly incited by Turtleface Joe, the ersatz-ticket man, the mob boss, and my roommate.

So, as I’ve mentioned I share my compartment with 5 middle aged men. The leader, Turtleface is logically named for his striking resemblance to a turtle. He seems hard, but he’s got a soft chewy center and a toiletry bag covered in hearts. Sergeant Snore, a younger fellow, is decked out in brand names from his Northface fishing hat to the Nikes on his feet, and his original name, Brandy, was reflective of this, but after trying to sleep directly across from him, Sergeant Snore is a better name for him. He too came off as a little hard, but has since softened and today we took pictures of each other taking pictures of each other and he even uploaded the ones he had taken onto my computer. There is also Captain Underwear. His name was acquired through an event that I will share shortly.  The other wingman is Mud Flap Moe due to the shirt he wears that has silhouettes of two naked women leaning back to back on the sleeves.  The other man seems to just be part of the entourage but hasn’t inspired a name yet.

Almost immediately after it became clear that it would be complicated to try to get a room together, I came to the conclusion that actually I sort of preferred my sleeping situation. I mean how often does one get the opportunity to sleep with the mob, and the Chinese mob no less.  This is probably my only chance to have such an experience and oh man am I happy I embraced it.  My roommates have turned out to be endlessly entertaining, and while we can’t speak to each other, we have had many satisfying conversations and laughed heartily.

That first night, after someone came through the car closing the blinds and yelling something that apparently meant 'bed time', the lights were turned off, and I climbed the two flights up to my bed and settled into my cocoon. My roommates were staying up, and I could hear them chatting intensely below me.  Soon the distinct smell of hot dogs and yogurt came wafting up to the ceiling where I was lying.  Trying to stay quiet so as not to attract attention to myself I slowly began to edge my way to side of the cot so that I could confirm my suspicion that the men below me were eating a late night dinner of Wealthy Family Ham as they engaged in what I assumed was a lively debate over China’s place in the globalized world. I cautiously poked  my head over the guard rail and peered down. What I saw was not was I was expecting.  They were all sitting on the bottom bunks, having at some point taken their shirts off (a re-occurring theme I have since found out). Huddled close, they were each holding an egg -- hardboiled and definitely not from a chicken, these eggs were about twice the size and had a grayish hue -- and they were engaged in some sort of drinking game that involved peeling a piece of the egg, revealing something in the egg white that seemed to tell them their fortune and to take a shot at the same time.  They would show the newly exposed piece of egg, nod at each other, take a shot of grain alcohol, then a bite of egg and repeat the process.  Chests were slapped, cigarettes were smoked, and while I haven’t completely gotten over the fear that someone might lose a lung as a result of the extensive hacking that goes on, that night I decided that at least part of it was simply an expression of their manliness.

All of sudden, Turtleface must have felt my eyes on him and he looked up causing me to whip my head back, smacking it against the side of the compartment with a loud thud. The rest of my body followed, and in one motion  I slid down the wall and pulled the cocoon over my head where I spent the rest of the night hugging the side and praying that I wasn’t going to have to pee. 

Luckily I made it through the night without needing to get down, although morning came fast and started early.  After waking up I laid in bed trying to avoid eye contact with Sergeant Snore across the way who was watching something on a little ipod-like thing, until other people started to move about and brush their teeth around 6 am at which point I felt that it was safe to get up.  Around 8 am, Ceci, Kim and I began the trek down to the dining car to meet up with Dee and Keesler and have breakfast.  Each car inbetween point A and point B is distinct.  There are seater cars that, while they look the same, have completely different feels, although each is packed with more people than there are seats, and we had to make our way around at least one person who had managed to fall asleep sitting up.  This walk has become something I greatly look forward to, as the people change with each of the few stops we make, reflecting the different parts of China that we are in. For awhile there was a large number of Muslims, but they have since disembarked.  All of a sudden last night there were Tibetans on the train, which, although we tried to suppress it, caused Ceci and I to exchange a quick but giddy look. 

By the time we returned from breakfast, the party in my cabin was already well under way.  Beers were open, more eggs were to be had, the lid on an oversized can of sardines had been rolled back and its contents consumed, and the bones of some small woodland creature were scattered across a metal tray. By around 2 o’clock, shirts were pulled up revealing bellies that were engorged with food and alcohol.  Said bellies were being rubbed as if to both to settle them and move things around enough to find space to put more. Nap time came and after they were all nestled in their bunks sound asleep it was clearly time to take pictures of my bunkmates. Turtleface was the first to wake up, and soon after, tapped Ceci and I. We turned around to see him holding his camera and pointing it at his wingman, who had kicked the blanket off putting his legs and underwear on display.  We all began to laugh uncontrollably and I desperately wanted to reach for my camera and say “look! I took the same picture of your friend in his underwear!“ but in the end decided that probably wasn’t a good idea.