Trains (part 3) Of Trains and Toilets

Having missed my train (read about it here in part 2) I quickly made my way to one of the ticket booths. To my great relief, the lady working there was able to speak a smattering of English. I told her my tale of woe

Trains (part 2) What was I thinking?

This is the second part of some of my crazy experiences with trains in China.

What Was I Thinking?

I was staying in Shanghai and had to make a trip to meet some people in Hangzhou, about 170km south of Shanghai. The journey takes about an hour in a high-speed train. Being the seasoned traveller and well-adjusted digital immigrant that I am, I had purchased my tickets on the internet weeks in advance. There was no way I was going to mess this up. The day before my trip, I meticulously planned my route from my hotel to the Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station, giving myself plenty of time to get there. My train departure time was 8:36a.m. - a small warning bell should have gone off in my head when I saw that departure time. Why 8:36? Why not 8:30 or 8:45, even 8:35, but 8:36? Anyway, I got to the station at around 8a.m.

The first surprise of the day was the size of the station. I am not exaggerating when I say that I have flown on international flights out of airports smaller than the Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station.

Covering an area of 1.3 million square metres, and with 16 platforms, it is the largest railway station in Asia. Undaunted, I found my departure gate and since I had plenty of time, set off to find some breakfast. Having travelled on trains in Asia before, I wasn’t too concerned about time. In Thailand for instance, departure times are printed on tickets merely to give one an approximate indication of the day on which the train will be leaving. Being such a seasoned traveller and confident in my experience of Asian train timetables, I took my time and enjoyed my breakfast at a leisurely pace. Afterwards, I even stopped on the way to my gate to buy some gum and pick up a bottle of water, which is given free to all ticket holders - I thought that was rather a nice touch. I arrived at the gate to the platform from which my train was departing at 8:30a.m, but then I noticed that there was an “A” gate and a “B” gate, at opposite sides of the concourse. I was at the B gate. I quickly looked at my ticket and in the midst of a lot of Chinese characters I saw an “A”, but a little further down, I also saw a “B”. I wasn’t sure if I needed to be at A or B, so I walked about 100 metres across to A and asked one of the passengers queuing there. Fortunately, he spoke English and informed me that my ticket was for B.

I should briefly explain at this juncture, that this station, unlike any other I have ever been in, is built above the actual railway lines. The gate is a solid high-tech sliding door which leads through to an escalator, which descends down to the platform. One is unable to see any trains in the concourse area and the first glimpse you get of a train is when you get to the bottom of the escalator.

Anyway, it was now 8:32a.m. as I quickly made my way back across the concourse to gate B and joined the long queue there. I wasn’t at all surprised when by 8:34a.m. the gate still hadn’t opened. By 8:36a.m. I was feeling smugly justified in my assessment of Asian train time-tables. Then my eye fell on a small sign in English just outside the sliding door of the gate that read, “no entrance to platform permitted after 5 minutes before train departure”.

Huh!? I saw the words, but something was not computing. I read it again. There was no mistaking what it said and yet, here I was in a queue at 8:37a.m. with hundreds of other travellers waiting for the 8:36a.m. train.

Or...
were...
we?

With growing trepidation, I read the sign again and then in a moment of startling clarity, noticed, for the first time, that the tickets in the hands of my fellow passengers were a different colour to the ticket clutched in my, now suddenly sweaty, hand. I quickly looked at the ticket belonging to the chap next to me and saw that his ticket was for the 8:55a.m. train. I felt the blood draining from my head as I realised that my train was gone already and these fellow passengers whom I was happily queuing with were actually not fellow passengers, but travellers getting ready to depart on the next train... because everybody knows that train schedules in China run like clockwork and that the gates to the platforms open about 15 minutes before the trains depart and close exactly 5 minutes before departure...don’t they?

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Trains (part 1) Need for Speed

In May I had the privilege of travelling to China. Apart from some amazing cross-cultural experiences, I also had some interesting train-related experiences which I will blog about in two or three parts.

The Need for Speed

My travel schedule included a few days in Shanghai, so I turned to Google for some information and travel tips. There I discovered that Shanghai has the world’s first commercial magnetic levitation train that travels from the Pudong International Airport into town. Its called the Maglev. Its not the most creative name, I’ll admit, but I’m sure it has a more exciting Chinese name. The Maglev is a marvel of science and engineering. It has no wheels, axels or bearings, instead it has a bunch of magnets which lift, suspend, steer and propel it - very quickly. It was completed in 2004 at a cost of $1.2 billion. Naturally, I put it on my “to do” list.

So it came about that with eager anticipation I collected my luggage and followed the overhead signs to the Maglev train station after I landed in Shanghai. With mounting excitement, I purchased my ticket and took up a strategic position right in front of the platform gate and waited. After a short while, the gate opened, and in true Chinese fashion, everybody pushed and shoved past me. By the time I had made it onto the train and stowed my baggage, all the seats facing forwards had been taken. Unfazed, I took a seat that was facing backwards and waited for the adventure to begin. There was a twinge of apprehension as I wondered if my fillings would all fly out of my mouth like BB pellets and stick to the floor when the magnetic field was turned on. It turned out that my fears were groundless, and with all my fillings and other metal bits still firmly in place, we moved out of the station with a silent woosh. I watched the speedometer above the door as within seconds we passed the 100km/h mark, then 150, 200, 250, 300, 350, 400. Just when I thought we had reached top speed, it inched upward to 415, 420, 425 and held steady at 430km/h, easily setting a new land-speed record for me.

Now it must be said that I am all for speed, and that’s why I took this train. But, to be honest, it is somewhat disconcerting to hurtle backwards at 430km/h. As I flashed backwards above the Shanghai traffic at 430km/h some doubts flashed through my mind. Let’s face it. We have all at some time or another purchased some cheap “made in China” electronic marvel that either has not worked from the outset, or has died the second time we’ve used it. We have also all heard some of the horror stories about lack of quality control and corners cut on Chinese construction projects. I wondered what would happen if a few magnets were to fall off the Maglev and get sucked into the transwarp inductor, causing the flux capacitor to explode and the train to be launched off the track at 430km/h, like some North Korean test missile. I briefly pondered if there would be any remains to identify should the unthinkable happen.

At that moment, unseen by me because I was facing backwards, another Maglev train approached from the front and passed our train on my side of the carriage with the noise of ... well, a train travelling at 400km/h. Two walls of air being pushed by two fast trains collided with a combined speed of more than 800km/h, making a lot of sudden and unexpected noise and causing the train to jolt quite violently. Whilst I’m sure, with the benefit of hindsight, that there was plenty of room between the two trains, it felt to me in that instant that the other train was mere millimetres away from my left elbow which was resting on the window. I instinctively jerked my arm away and I guess my normally cool, calm and collected demeanour gave way temporarily to an expression of sheer unbridled terror, because the gentleman sitting opposite me, who had seen the other train coming, was unable to prevent himself from grinning broadly. I was not amused.

My heart rate had just about returned to normal when we glided to a silent stop, the 30km journey having taken a mere 7 minutes. You’ve got to hand it to the Chinese, for all the cheap junk that comes out of their country, they sure know how to build a fast train.

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Striving for excellence or just OTT?

Singapore is a great place and there is much to love about it. It is clean, organised, safe and generally well-run. One of the things I have struggled with in Singapore, however, is the obsession with academic excellence prevalent in all the schools. Don’t get me wrong! I think it is important that children are taught well and encouraged to succeed, but here in Singapore, I think they have taken that a bit too far. Let me give you two examples, both involving our youngest daughter.

In 2012 she was 5 years old and in her first year of kindergarten. What are 5 year old kids supposed to do at kindergarten? Play, draw, make stuff, play, colour in, paint, play, eat play-dough, play...right? That’s what I thought, until we received her mid-year “report card”. The teacher’s comment, “Nina must strive harder!” Seriously? A 5 year old in kindergarten must strive harder? To do what? Colour in better, eat more play-dough, or play harder/better/faster?

She’s now 6 and in Primary 1. What are 6 year olds supposed to do in Primary 1? Play, draw and colour in (better than they did in kindergarten), learn to read and write and learn the basics of mathematics. Well, a few weeks ago Trish received a phone call from Nina (using her brother’s phone). The reason for the call...not that she was sick, hurt or otherwise needed her mother’s help. No, she was phoning to ask her mom to pray for her because she was nervous about her class spelling test. A 6 year old nervous about a test in Primary 1? You’ve got to be kidding me! 6 year olds are not supposed to be feeling nervous, stressed or anxious about tests in Primary 1 (and it's not like Nina is a stressed child - in fact, of all her siblings, she’s the most laid back).

I think it's a rather sad indictment on a society when children, who should spend the bulk of their time playing, not doing homework, and whose biggest concern should be how many presents they can expect for their birthday, are asking for prayer because they’re stressed about school work.

The only ray of hope in this story is that our 6 year old, in her hour of need (in Primary 1!) has the wherewithal to turn to God for help.

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Lost in Translation

Having spent a number of years in Thailand, learning the culture and grappling with the language, I really empathise with people who have to communicate in a language other than their own. I am deeply grateful for my Thai friends who patiently smiled and nodded, and gently corrected me, as I massacred their language over the years. There were a number of embarrassing moments when I said things that came out wrong, or that just didn’t make any sense at all. These were all very frustrating at the time, but one thing that helped me to keep things in perspective, and to see the funny side of language study, was when I came across some equally horrendous English translations.

I once got involved in an online debate about the effectiveness of Google Translate. I argued that it was only of value if one was able to speak a moderate amount of Thai or English and that it could never be used to converse with people in Thai if you were English, or in English if you were Thai. The reason is that it provides a direct translation of a sentence word for word and is not (yet) capable of translating an entire concept captured in a sentence. This is patently clear from the examples below of menus that were clearly translated using something like Google Translate - broken up into its component parts, each of these translations are correct, but as you will see, the overall result is less than satisfactory.

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Development

I’m in Lampang at the moment. A largish town in North Thailand, about 100km south of Chiang Mai. We moved here from Chiang Mai in 2008 and I must admit, at that time, it was quite a shock to the system. You see, Lampang was rather, shall we say, ... rural. It has the unique, if somewhat dubious, distinction of being the only town in Thailand that still uses horse-drawn carriages. Well, the tourists use them anyway. The reason it was a shock to the system is because the entire town, with a population of approximately 160 000 people, had but one large supermarket, which stocked very basic goods. I had business in Chiang Mai about once a month and I would use that opportunity to stock up on “luxury” goods, such as chocolate that was made from milk, not wax, baking ingredients such as vanilla extract, jelly beans, and from time to time, clothing. On the rare occasion that the whole family went, we would splash out and go to a restaurant that served Western food (the closest thing that Lampang had in that department was a Pizza Company, which was more Thai than Western). Going to Chiang Mai always made me feel like a country bumpkin going to the city for the first time. I used to walk around with my eyes bulging and mouth hanging open at what the “big city” had to offer. If time allowed, I would go for a really big treat — an English movie at the cinema! And it was always with a sense of relief that I would retreat to the quiet country backwaters of Lampang after a hectic few hours of retail therapy in Chiang Mai.

But that has all changed! In the 2 years since we left, Lampang has shaken off its sleepy hollow image and has become a retail mecca to be reckoned with. There is a new, ultra modern, 3-story mall, complete with Starbucks, high-end clothing stores, numerous restaurants and even a 5-theatre state-of-the-art cinema, with English movies. But thats not all, in addition to the high-end mall, other large shopping centres have sprung up. A Macro, a large warehouse hardware store (my favourite kind of shop) and a few others. Lampang has rushed headlong into the 21st century at a dizzying speed, and in the process has lost something of the charm that it had before.

Now, far be it from me to deny the denizens of Lampang the pleasure of first-world shopping experiences and Starbucks coffee, but as far as I can see, there are no new corporations, factories or office buildings in Lampang. So I cannot help but wonder where these simple, country people have suddenly got the money from to spend at these high-end malls and shopping centres. I’m sure the marketers have done their research, but I sure do hope that the malls, the clothing stores, the restaurants and the coffee shops are sustainable in the long run, and I hope that hard-earned savings aren’t being frittered away, drawn by the lure of materialistic hedonism. And I hope that credit cards aren’t being maxed out in pursuit of worldly delights.

Sadly however, I suspect they are.

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Beginning of a new year

The Roman poet, Virgil, once wrote

fugit irreparabile tempus

which when translated from the ancient Latin vernacular means, "time flees irretrievably”. More commonly, we tend to say “time flies”. I guess its a shared experience between those of us who are older than 35 to be alarmed at the speed with which each new year comes by. In my experience, the extent of that alarm is directly proportional to one’s age. By the time I’m 60, I’m going to have take Valium with my breakfast come January 1. Now don’t get me wrong! I’m not old, nor do I feel old, but time does seem to be speeding up the older I get.

There are a few interesting theories that try to explain that effect. One is telescopy - this is simply the underestimation of time. Just as things look close when viewed through a telescope, so past events are seen as having occurred more recently than they actually did. Then there is the reminiscence effect - when we’re young, we’re doing new things for the first time, but as we age, we fall into routines (ruts sometimes) and what used to be new and exciting becomes mundane. I would have thought that would make time drag, but according to scientists, regular events tend to pass by in a blur because they are not emotionally charged. The third theory has to do with the ageing of the suprachiasmatic nucleus, or the brain’s biological clock - this has something to do with circadian rhythms and the ends of one’s DNA strands fraying like shoelaces...?

Anyway, it would appear that the perceived speeding up of time as we age is a scientific fact, not merely a sneaky feeling. And here we are, having sped, at a dizzy speed, through the first month of yet another year. I have a feeling though, that this year is going to be a significant one (not that previous ones were insignificant). Its just that this year will see me turning 47. It will see the wife of my youth turning 46, 44, er...45ish. It will see our 12th year in Asia (our 3rd in Singapore). Most significantly, it will see our return to South Africa in December.

This is significant because when we left SA 12 years ago, I thought that I would go back in order to retire. Happily, or maybe unhappily, I will not be going back to retire. Instead, I will be going back to start a new chapter in my life. A new work with OMF, done in a new way, in a new era. I am very excited about going back although I do expect things have changed a lot in the past 12 years. I know I have changed in terms of my thinking and expectations. My personal circumstances have also changed in that I will be going back with 3 children, having left 12 years ago with none. When we left for Thailand in 2003, we had to learn a new culture and a new language. We had to learn to live in a different country. The same when we moved to Singapore. I suspect, apart from having to learn the language, our move back to SA is going to require a similar learning curve to the one we went through when we moved to Asia.

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