Lanzhou
Before I start writing about my stay in Lanzhou, I comment briefly on the train ride from Urumqi to Lanzhou. It was about 1200 km from western China to central China and the end of my Central Asian adventures. The first eighteen hours I had a bed. It was a very relaxing way to travel. Using my Chinese book, I came up with two sentences to explain that I wanted to buy an onward ticket on the train. At first I interpreted the response as that it is impossible to do so. But shortly before arriving at the destination stated on my ticket, I was led into a hard seat cart and allowed to buy a ticket for the next six hours. I found a seat and because I wasn’t able to answer the first three questions in Chinese, I was left alone by my traveling companions. Three hours later the guy sitting next to me, who had not spoken a word to me, grabbed my leg and gestured that my leg was so big and his small. After 21 hours on the train my patience was not very big, I still left it with giving him a look of disapproval. That did not stop him from touching my arm. After this experience I came to the realization that many Chinese people behave like little children. Perhaps because of their unbroken childlike curiosity is enviable, but also very demanding when it comes to social conventions or obeying the rules.
In the early afternoon I arrived in Lanzhou and bought a ticket to Xi'an for the following day. Then I tried to find a hotel. I found one after 17 or 18 attempts. The problem was that the cheap hotels weren’t allowed to host foreigners; the expensive hotels were clearly outside of my budget and moderately prized big were either fully booked or had the foreigner problem. Following this extremely frustrating experience I had closed the Lanzhou chapter. On the following morning I would take the train to Xi'an. After I had eaten dinner, I spent the rest of the day watching Chinese Kung Fu movies on TV and getting rid of prostitutes on the phone.
Before I start writing about my stay in Lanzhou, I comment briefly on the train ride from Urumqi to Lanzhou. It was about 1200 km from western China to central China and the end of my Central Asian adventures. The first eighteen hours I had a bed. It was a very relaxing way to travel. Using my Chinese book, I came up with two sentences to explain that I wanted to buy an onward ticket on the train. At first I interpreted the response as that it is impossible to do so. But shortly before arriving at the destination stated on my ticket, I was led into a hard seat cart and allowed to buy a ticket for the next six hours. I found a seat and because I wasn’t able to answer the first three questions in Chinese, I was left alone by my traveling companions. Three hours later the guy sitting next to me, who had not spoken a word to me, grabbed my leg and gestured that my leg was so big and his small. After 21 hours on the train my patience was not very big, I still left it with giving him a look of disapproval. That did not stop him from touching my arm. After this experience I came to the realization that many Chinese people behave like little children. Perhaps because of their unbroken childlike curiosity is enviable, but also very demanding when it comes to social conventions or obeying the rules.
In the early afternoon I arrived in Lanzhou and bought a ticket to Xi'an for the following day. Then I tried to find a hotel. I found one after 17 or 18 attempts. The problem was that the cheap hotels weren’t allowed to host foreigners; the expensive hotels were clearly outside of my budget and moderately prized big were either fully booked or had the foreigner problem. Following this extremely frustrating experience I had closed the Lanzhou chapter. On the following morning I would take the train to Xi'an. After I had eaten dinner, I spent the rest of the day watching Chinese Kung Fu movies on TV and getting rid of prostitutes on the phone.
No comments:
Post a Comment