June 30, 2006
T48 designates the sleeper train from Qiqihaer to Beijing and has two classes: "soft sleeper", or first class, and "hard sleeper" or second class. The hard sleeper is further sub-divided in price by bunk levels: lower, middle and upper. The prices rise as the bunk levels fall (the narrow ladders up are tricky.) Due to availability and cost, we ended up with two hard upper bunks. Each bunk level has progressively less space from lower to upper so a person can sit up straight in the former, while the latter requires a type of low crawling. Lying on my back with my arms over my head, my ankles hung over the end of the bunk. There was no worry that even a tall person would bump into them walking through the aisle because the height of the bunk is well above the top of the door frame (the nose-bleed section.) With my arms vertical and straight, I pressed both palms to the ceiling with my back and shoulders firmly pressed to the bed. When I lowered my arms to my sides, each elbow touched either the wall or the metal railing. Needless to write, I didn't sleep especially well.
The next morning, we met our neighbors, a family, grandmother, father, mother and son. The son, who spoke a little English, and I worked to communicate, but the going was difficult. In the end, he practiced some phrases, pointed out interesting sites in Beijing, and I worked on my pronunciation, especially the difference between two provinces we plan to visit, Shaanxi and Shanxi, which sound lightly separated by tone. Living in Qiqihaer, they were touring Beijing, which is the only place in China they have travelled. The previous night, the family did not speak to us because they thought we were Russian, which is not an uncommon identification for the northern Chinese who receive large numbers of vacationing Russians each year. The grandmother even thought Leah looked like a Russian volleyball player, which is funny because she hasn't played volleyball in years--I mean, ever.
-David
