So I wrote this a few days ago and I don't feel like changing the tense. As I wrote it the woman next to me was staring over my shoulder trying to look at what I was writing, as if she had any means by which to understand it. Maybe no one writes in China, maybe it's the act she found so mesmerizing.
So I'm on the train from Hangzhou to Guangzhou for the next 20 hours and when I first boarded there were more people on the train than I can recall ever seeing on any train, anywhere, and that's saying a lot because I went to India once. There were people all through the aisles, in the bathroom, in the little cranny next to the bathroom, in every seat, some even sitting on laps of others, very possibly strangers. And there was luggage everywhere, in places you would never even think to put luggage, and no clear space for my hulking bag.
So I located my seat slowly and, unsurprisingly, found it occupied, but, somewhat surprisingly, by a baby. I had a quick discussion with him about how he was in my seat and surely he had simply made a mistake, but only after I showed his mother and every other person around me my ticket, emphasizing the seat number with my finger, did anyone move at all, and even then, very casual and begrudgingly. But happy day I got the window seat by some stroke of luck and there was no way some fucking baby was going to deprive me of that sweet, sweet joy. It truly is the difference between a night of a little sleep and a night of no sleep whatsoever.
Even after getting the baby out of the way, no one was moving to actually allow me access to it, so I threw my man purse over several people (they are rather small, it was easy) and landed it perfectly in my berth.
Next up, my backpack, which was going to be more difficult as I couldn't even move enough to get it off my back. I tried making gestures to my back and then up to the luggage racks and then moving from side to side a bit as if to say "could you please get right up out my way", and soon the man next to me sprung into action, parting the crowd toward the only space I could see in the entire car big enough for my bag, and when we got there he bent down for a moment and materialized some magic purple duffle bag from out of the ether and lifted it up to place into my bag hole. Dick. Even when you think you've found a good one, you haven't.
I realized that my usual approach of polite, soft-voiced tones and incoherent hand gestures wasn't going to work this time; I was gonna have to go Chinese style. I forcefully pushed my way past two people, nearly lifting one of them off the ground, then gently urged a man out of his seat so I could stand on it to begin rearranging the luggage rack to make room for my own. After 5 minutes and with shockingly little regard for any luggage that wasn't my own, I had managed to a small space to fit it, sideways and hanging precariously over the edge, but rammed so tightly between two others as to provide me assurance enough against it's dropping in the night onto some poor Chinese head.
There is a dude whose job it is to walk the entirety of the train making sure all the luggage is safely stowed, moving it around when it isn't, and when he made it my bag he said something rapidly which I took to mean "who in Mao's name does this one belong to?", because directly afterward everyone around pointed and looked straight at me. Then he muttered something like "why did I even ask" or "fuckin' white people" and moved on without doing a thing.
Luggage stowed, I climbed down from the seat and let the rightful owner re-occupy his place and in his movement to my right side used him as a buffer to move past him and, with that new momentum, past the family who hated me with their eyes and their immovable bodies and landed safely into my beautiful window seat.
I've yet to get out of it in six hours because I worry if I do I'll never get back into it. And I worry that if this little kid decided to bounce off me the entire night I might have to club him like a seal. Just kidding, but seriously, just kidding. I saw this kids mom get so pissed at him earlier that when he turned his head away she pushed it right into the table and tried to make it look like it was his fault. He wailed and wailed and at the time I felt quite bad for him, but now I no longer do.
It remained pretty much like this for 21 hours. It was great.
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