Notes From Xi'an 西安随感

This time last year I offered a “Contemporary Chinese Nod Towards the Ubiquitous New Year Calendar“. This year, I will continue in a similar vein but this year the images will come from a recent trip to the small canal town of Xītáng, which is located not far from Hángzhōu.

We took a Christmas break to the Eastern canal towns and thoroughly enjoyed doing so. It was cold but not too cold to happily wander around, though, we were lucky we had the sun on our side. Being the winter season there weren’t too many people around, which was also good. I really did enjoy taking it easy by the waters of Xītáng, but I was also impressed with the thought that has gone into developing the city of Sūzhōu, compared that is to many other Chinese cities – Hángzhōu and Xīān included.

*With this not being a “real” calendar the images all come from Xītáng during our visit in December and are not representative of the different seasons that the months below might suggest – and as someone recently questioned.

JANUARY - A whole bunch of dedicated art students braved the cold to enjoy some fresh days and produce some fine work.

FEBRUARY - The boatman drink a lot of tea this time of year, but it was a pleasure to watch a few of them still manoeuvre their boats rhythmically down stream.

MARCH - This is a tourist town but it is still a good spot to take it easy, especially this time of year - and certainly between monday and friday - when there are few tourists around.

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New Year in China isn’t just what you celebrate but where you celebrate and what it tells us about what we already know but maybe don’t always quite see, that China is a country of migrants. Though, it is not as it is in many western countries a migration of national peoples. Here it is a migration from the country to the city, from small town to large, most often within the same province, although ofcourse the general mass movement in recent decades East and South has been huge.

Having spent the previous Spring Festival (CNY) in Xi’an, I saw a modern city with a very large population become quiet over a fortnightly period. Streets usually bustling with people were strangely, at such a festive season, quietened. Restaurants I was used to frequenting, closed. The train and bus stations were fit to burst with an annual magnitude far exceeding reasonable fore planning. Though, I might add, the ease and general peace that received these time–delays, queues and the simply huge numbers of people in transit is an example to us all. The stoicism that these delays and conditions are met with is nothing short of inspiring for most of us now so used to credit-card bookings and us Brits used to our fair share of train delays. I will stop though from making any further sweeping statements about matters of reliability and forbearance here in China, or elsewhere, and just simply acknowledge that this is a pretty crazy time to be travelling in China, mental preparation may be as important as the packing checklist.

This year I have visited my girlfriend’s village and nearby hometown. A small town that come evening has a friendly, seaside promenade feel, even in winter and even though it is probably over a 1000km from the nearest beach. (Though during this visit we discovered that the wide but slowly drying river running through the middle of town is to be damned and a water park developed between the two town-boundary bridges). However, the masses that I have witnessed on the streets here this time compared to previous visits has been phenomenal.

As my bus pulled into town the sheer number of motor bikes and pushbikes parked on the sidewalk created a sparkling, star swept vista of chrome and coloured metal; resembling a massive second-hand market of 2-wheeled vehicles rather than being simply the exterior of a supermarket, where bikes were being left while shopping was being bought. It is an image I will not easily forget, not just because of the sheer quantity of bikes but because it reminded me of a life somewhat passed in many parts of China.

In some of the slower developing areas here you actually see some of the things that maybe you still expect to see upon arriving in China but actually do not necessarily find. In this case, roads here are filled with bicycles and not the electric mopeds and 4-wheeled Hondas and Audi’s of downtown Xi’an, though the bicycle is certainly rivaled by the motorbike. The masses have returned and they are doing so all over China and they are doing it by plane, train and a variety of automobiles.

* This photograph isn’t mine but I like it.

Tomorrow is another day but I was up again and heading off to the bus station just as I had done two days earlier. This time as I arrived at the station I was relieved to see the line pleasingly manageable, probably about where I had entered it the first time just this time I was to do so legitimately and with over an hour before the station doors were to be opened. I had a good book tucked in my pocket but was more interested in just watching the morning’s activities unfold from a more secure vantage point than previously, although with a gathering crowd that was beginning to look increasingly unmanageable.

This time people were steadily allowed to gather in quite a large group around the head of the queue, with various characters skulking in the still darkened hours of early morning amongst them. Some of them, not happy enough to have slipped into a forward position while pretending to engage others with mild morning chatter, silently and slowly drifted even further forward in the line. Until a collection of men, who I had individually observed moving in and about the line, had gathered at the head of the queue; first subtly pretending to peer searchingly inside the as yet unlit station before forming a niche of bodies infront of all others. This whole time people were steadily arriving and noticeably, like myself a couple of days earlier, unsure whether to stand their ground around the head of the line or take their place in the ever extending train of people heading backwards. I began to notice that there were a few men seemingly quite familiar with proceedings and confidently bestriding the line. I also recognised a couple of men in the queue who I had seen the previous morning and began to get the impression that there must of course be some kind of third-party system for buying tickets.

The station attendants who the previous morning had been wielding people into line with their sticks were conspicuous this morning by their absence. I was, from a reasonable starting point, beginning to worry that the large crowd that had formed around the entrance would actually lead to quite considerable delays and even a little bit of chaos and anger, if they did not soon manage it. I need not have worried, although some earlier organisation may have been better for all concerned, but with only 10 minutes to go they arrived. The guards first, amusingly, removed the shadowy gentlemen at the head of the queue before creating a division between the single line and the rest. This was the time for some to take a place where they hadn’t previously but many were too slow to do so and were soon being jettisoned by a pointed finger, a shout, a rough banging of a stick on the ground at their feet or a quick pulling of an arm. From chaos moments earlier came calm; an orderly queue on one side and a collection of sleepy, unsure, slightly confused and frustrated, though still hopeful figures on the other. The line moved off inside the station.

I was one of the first in the queue and had my ticket in my hand within about 20 minutes, by which time the line at the window for my own particular destination was already over 100 souls deep. After some difficulty exiting the station through a mass of entwined queues and bodies I arrived outside again, to discover the line still disappearing into the distance down along the pathway. I was happy to have had this more sedately experience compared to the previous morning and the opportunity these two days to observe New Year matters down at the bus station, but happier still to be heading home with ticket tucked away securely.

Chinese New Year is fast approaching and people in their masses are heading home. Yesterday I wandered down to the bus station to buy a ticket for my girlfriend who is also returning home for Spring Festival, a few days before I join her. No problem I had thought, a bit of a wait then I would arrive back at the flat a knight in shining armour, clutching a much sought after ticket when she returned from work. However, upon arriving at the station I was faced with the unexpected sight of lines circling, exiting and then re-entering the building. This meant I would start off in the building, follow the line back out of the building, back in again and then wait with the 90 odd still ahead of me who were pressed as tightly together as possible, so to make the numbers seem smaller than they actually were.

Sadly, the numbers were themselves actually greater, swelled by those nipping in with the offer of cash to the lucky ones already edging towards the front of the queue. After surveying this scene I decided to check what time the station opened in the morning and what time I should realistically arrive. I was told it opened at 7 and I should be there by 6.30. Ok.

I awoke earlier than intended and headed off on my bike. Upon arriving again at the bus station, this time in the dim light of morning and with hat and scarf sheltering my face from the cold, I discovered the queue to already be leading away from the main entrance, along the path and around the furthest corner, the end out of sight! I hovered for a few minutes by the entrance working out if it was possible to just join the line at this end but the yelling and wielding of 1-2 metre long sticks by security guards made that option look bleak. The guards were creating a safety zone around the official queue so anyone attempting to push in would be spotted, prodded, potentially whacked and then ejected. I slowly walked the length of the queue weighing up the depth of my chivalry, as I considered the necessary 2-3 hour wait that now faced me. Then as I a sauntered back up the line un-decided, worried in true prisoner’s dilemma style that if I joined the line around the corner others would join it further up when the queue started moving, there was intense activity at the front of the line as the station opened.

At that point I was walking quite close to the queue and a gap appeared as people moved off ahead, without thinking I just stepped into it. It wasn’t my greatest chivalric moment and my heart was beating a lot faster having done so but I was glad to be in line. Many others had done the same and the guards began running the queue, pulling out people here and there and at one point one headed straight for me with stick brandished, but instead threw out a chap just behind me. I heard one man behind me say I was a Laowai (foreigner) and not to worry. Terrible I know but great! These actions meant that once inside I couldn’t bring myself to say anything to the ones’ offering cash to those just ahead of me in the queue, where otherwise I probably would have done. I was out of the station and home before my girlfriend had even left for work. However, I was unsafe in the knowledge that as I am planning to leave on Thursday and with the fact that you can only buy your ticket three days before departure, I would be back at the station on Monday morning for more of the same, or maybe a little worse.

Chinese New Year at Xi’an’s Bus Station. Part II.