I almost forget how hateful it was to take the train between my home and college, so I decide to write it down before it fades completely.

During the 35~48 hr travel, I usually sat/stood in the crowded carriage, watched other passengers going up and down, and witnessed the train became dirtier and smellier by our litter. Soon drinkable water ran out at each carriage, and later water for toilets was also depleted by the overloaded passengers. Men started to smoke at their seats if you did not excuse them to leave. The first time I got on the train from Beijing to Fuzhou marked the beginning of these messy treks. I naively carried many heavy books, and caught a severe cold on the way. I felt so exhausted that I would die halfway to fuzhou... When my parents received me on Fuzhou station, I was alive with the cold over, but they could not recognize me even though I waved at them continuously. The worst trips usually happened before and after every spring festival, when the heaviest traffic hits the railroad.  Medical schools have shorter vacation, and it aggragates the grief. Usually it took 30 mins fight a way from the midpoint of an aisle to one end, because non-seat passengers immobilized the whole train. Once I could not push myself through the crowd to reach water or the toilet, a youth standing on the side teased me, "say 'excuse me big brother', and they will make room for you to cross!" Soon I tried and discovered what he claimed was true.  Only one winter trip made me feel I would tolerate a bigger cram: my friend Minhui and I got on the train at beijing station near midnight, and noticed that the temproray train didn't have heating, just as we had heard of.  The leaking green train with metal walls ran slowly on the dark plain throught northern china's freezing night. At 8:00 a.m. I was finally able to inhale freely and stopped worrying about becoming an ice pop.

Summer is supposed to be less crowded and thus easier, but don't forget about nightmares before the magical torture on the train. Dealing with ticketing agencies was always annoying. I always worried a lot about the tickets, and always felt lucky if I was able to get one for home. Usually I could not get a bed ticket because there is only one train went to my hometown, which is the capital of Fujian province! To get on board, it was another humiliation for every human being. During one summer home trip, my student ID was torn because the woman at the station thought it was faked.. It costs me 40 yuan to beg a new and authentic one from the university, which innocently have the biggest share at "pseudo-certificate markets".

Perhaps because I didn't whine much at home, my father refused to buy air tickets for me. He insisted that it is dangerous to fly, and proudly believed that it was a training process to experience the tough part of life. i was outrageous and yelled at him, "You have never taken any long-distance train, leave alone that in the busiest season, how can you be the right person to talk about 'the tough part'? Why don't you try sitting on a chair at home for 36 hrs to have a flavor? " (I wasn't very polite to my parents. At middle school, I appeared easy-going except for facing one person -- I debated with my father through almost all the lunches and dinners, probably because of my rebellious adolescence.) My outbreak changed the situation. My father started to help me get the bed ticket when I need to travel from Fuzhou to Beijing. It wasn't very easy.  After numerous trials, he finally got the a street trick from insiders and able to get a bed ticket quite often (from windows! ). (It seems I benefits a lot from the qurarel... To some extent, he was right about the training process. Yes, it was such an experience for me to cherish, not just because it was difficult: I was able to talk to many kinds of people during the boring days and nights, especially when I didn't have a bed to lie down. Some of us became friends. I guess I wouldn't have interacted with this variety of people at college if I had flown across the country.  And I was exposed to the villagers on the boundless plain in northern China, which I had got no idea about before. I also noticed that how beautiful Fujian's mountain area is, in spite of the bad traffic conditions. born and raised among 'the educated community' in a cozy city, I understood other part of my country better by traveling on the train. And as my father hoped, I could comfort myself by referring to how bad the train was, when I encountered some problems at that time. Now this function is weakened, because my good/bad memory about the trip becomes vague together.

Rehearsing all these railroad indignities every semester, I swore that I would try to change the desparate situation in the future, either by donation, or by some other efforts. However, almost right after i left China, the railway was enormously improved without one bit of my contribution (if complaining doesn't count as contribution). Now it only takes about 20 hrs to travel between beijing and fuzhou, and there are more trains running between them. I haven't got the chance to taste the new schedule despite myself.