Qingdao

On the slowest trains in China, there are no trash receptacles, the squat toilet usually has a lifetime of stains, disguised only by the fresh ones on top of them, and, like pre-smoking-ban bars, there's no way to emerge from them without smelling like an ashtray. The next class of trains uses washable seat covers and offers a tin plate for accumulated trash. Finally, the luxurious new fast trains are more comfortable than airplanes, with adjustable seats, a free bottle of water, and music that, mercifully, isn't the annoying, easily downloadable tune that everyone uses as their cell phone ring-back.

 

Traveling to Qingdao and back last weekend, I experienced all three carriers, and was amused to note that the passengers don't really differ—they just behave differently depending on the setting. On slow trains, they spit sunflower seed shells on the table or the floor. Disgusting, maybe. But someone has decided riders on the slow train aren't civilized enough to use receptacles. The same seed devourers on the fast trains gingerly place their seeds in their own personal trash bag, supplied on the train.

 

Of course, in all three settings no one feels compelled to stand in a line when entering or departing. Crushed in the huddle for the train back to Beijing, I mused about my earliest lessons in "waiting your turn." I remembered my line buddy in kindergarten, a kid named Jeffery who picked his nose and was obsessed with singing "Take me out to the Ballgame." Fortunately, he moved away. But while he remained, I was trained to stand still next to him come hell or high water. I've seen the kids lined up in neat little rows at the primary school near my apartment, but as bodies swirled around me, pulling my backpack one way and my camera bag the other, leaving me stranded in the middle, I had to wonder if behind closed doors they don't give their kids lessons in throwing elbows as well as waiting patiently. There are some things I won't miss.

 

Chinese people have an uncanny ability to fall asleep instantly, almost anywhere. I admire and slightly resent them for this trait. I always notice babies and toddlers being lugged around in the most uncomfortable positions, bundled and resting on their mothers' arms, being jostled about through busses and train stations, or even hiking mountains. As I tried to contort myself a million different ways to sleep sitting up on the train home, I observed fellow passengers hunched over luggage in the aisle, or sitting on a stool with their head in a fellow traveler's lap, that traveler draped on top of the unconscious torso of their companion. I wondered sleepily about the benefits of sprawling out in car seats and strollers as a baby. Perhaps I was robbed of this basic instinct to become unconscious at will, regardless of spatial realities.

 

Our hostel in Qingdao was built in China's first observatory, an interesting, narrow building with a rooftop terrace and a huge telescope next to the bar (I shudder to think about the demoralizing things that telescope has suffered at the hands of intoxicated expats.) I traveled with Daisy, my student from last fall. Now, hostels are a scary concept for many people who haven't stayed in them—those of us who frequent them know they can be a blast, even if you do room with the occasional weirdo or the jerk who insists upon turning on the lights when they stumble in at two a.m., or stumble out at six. But for Chinese girls like Daisy, the fact that a foreign man slept in the bed next to her is almost too much to stomach. Even though he slept with his shirt off, she somehow hadn't noticed it was a guy until I told her later. A 28-year-old woman who took a day trip with us to Mount Laoshan was so shocked that she was sharing a room with some foreign men, she was thinking about staying at a different hotel.

 

The 2008 Olympic sailing competition was held in Qingdao, and it is rated one of the best places to live in China. While it doesn't escape the smoggy plague of most large cities (The Haier electronics factory is—proudly—stationed here) it is overall a pleasant city. Laoshan and the parks and streets within the city itself where covered with the pink and white blossoms of late spring. Dozens of couples taking wedding photos (formal photo shoots that happen with many matching costumes and cheesy poses, long before the wedding takes place) filled the parks and beaches. Germans occupied the city for a time, introducing beer and German architecture. The structures around the sea thus have a unique heritage, and one of the most popular beers in China is still brewed here.

 

The people were unbelievably friendly, which Daisy could not get over. She would ask someone for directions, and if they said our destination was five blocks down on the left, she would walk two blocks and check with someone else just to make sure we were still going the right direction. When we arrived at the turn, she would again ask, just to be sure, that we should turn left. Every time she spoke to someone, she would return to me wide-eyed and smiling. "These people are so nice!" She shook her head every time. I don't know if she ever needed directions—it was more of a social experiment, to see if 100% of the sampled population truly would answer her questions. After talking to an especially handsome man in a nice suit, she skipped over to me and remarked, "Ah! I am going to marry a man from this province!" 

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