A Train ride home, during China’s Great Migration

Words cannot begin to describe how gleeful I am to have spent an entire day traveling by train from Beijing to Hong Kong, four days before the Chinese new year, to partake in the annual homecoming ritual for migrant workers. These few days before the Chinese new year mark the annual period (春运) during which migrant workers in job-rich coastal cities like Beijing bring their bounty home and share their faraway tales. To be sure, my family in Hong Kong hardly needs me to lavish them with largesse from the north, and, most certainly, my faraway tales, already piped a few times a week back to Hong Kong by way of cellular and electronic communications, are hardly so outrageously sodden with juicy bits as to command an in-person delivery.

But the presentation of a bounty and a tale is not the point. This annual period is also when migrant workers would go out of their way to find their way home, despite the all-impossible task of scoring a ticket when millions of other souls would try to do the exact same thing; despite the fact that China’s domestic train system would be stretched way beyond its designed capacity; and despite the fact that a good portion of this migrating population would actually travel without an assigned seat, be left standing in the train car for hours upon hours before legs would buckle and knees yield, only to still manage to drag their carcasses home and then be awakened from the dead by the heroic cheers of their home crowd upon their return. The point: I want to participate and immerse myself in the migration process in order to fully understand what it means to survive the journey and find destination, where, allegedly, pompoms gyrate and firecrackers await for the hero returning from the capital city. A train ticket would buy me an immersive experience that my Dragonair ticket, bought a month ago, never would. Thus, three days before I were to fly back, I canceled my flight and opted instead to take a train — with a standing room ticket for the most honest, proletarian form of experience — from Beijing to Shenzhen. From there I would take the MTR home.

On the night of my departure, Beijing’s temperature dropped precipitously from mid single digits to negative teens, yielding a severe condition that was depicted, ever so creatively, as “colder’n a witch’s titty” by Kaiser Kuo, a friend in Beijing. Because I came to the train station prepared for a Siberian winter, I was happily surprised to find a train compartment filled with fuzzy warmth upon entry. While this warmth was partially attributable to the train’s adequate heating system, I suspected that the fuzziness was chiefly due to a combination of air-tight insulation and the sheer overcrowding in the train car. The train car in which I stayed, apparently designed for 120 sitting folks and another dozen or so stand-uppers, ended up engulfing, by my count, more than 200 homecoming souls. This insular body heat, together with the corresponding body odor and bad breath, was much of what I had to come to terms with on the way home. The standing room was jam packed with standers and littered with bounty bags. The compressed crowd reminded me of the Hong Kong MTR during the rush hours, but such comparison would end as soon as I reminded myself that I never had to stand in the MTR for 23 hours with neither a bed nor an assigned seat.

As soon as the train started to move, the first order of business, for those with standing room tickets, was to jostle for valuable space. Reclining surfaces for leaning onto, valuable; middle aisles, not. Since I didn’t act quickly enough, the only spot left for me to claim was between a six-foot tall man and a broad-shouldered college student; both, like me, were left standing in the middle aisle, with neither reclining surfaces to lean on nor enough space to fold ourselves in a more restful, genuflecting/squatting position.

The unintended intimacy with my two fellow passengers could have been very awkward had we not attempted to strike up some conversation – after all, parts of our bodies would occasionally touch each other for the ensuing 7 to 8 hours. The tall man has been working in Beijing for the past 7 years, first as a construction worker and now as a HVAC manager at a commercial building in the CBD area. The man, with an acutely chiseled countenance and a robust body frame, was at first terse in his conversation and overly protective of his privacy. But after half an hour or so, he warmed up enough to slowly reveal his usual loquacious self, and started talking incessantly about his work and life in Beijing. He beamed a clear partisan affection for Beijing, and was obviously very proud of what he had achieved while managing about in the capital city. He was excited about going back to his hometown, near Ganzhou (赣州), for the first time since he left for a job opportunity in Beijing, a heavy handling gig in the construction of one of those spaceship-looking buildings in Zhongguancun (中关村). He was also slightly perturbed by his prolonged absence – that he wouldn’t recognize his rapidly developing hometown. A cloud of anxiety also gathered around him as he explained how everyone back home had expectations of him, and how he, the supposedly vagabond shoes-wearing king of the hill Beijinger, would now not only recount his experience in the vast land’s capital but also spread and share the material wealth. That was the focal point of his anxiety: he confessed that while he brought dozens of MP3 players, cell phones and other electronics, he may still not have enough units to go around. More significantly, he may not have bought enough good-quality trappings to satisfy the mushrooming level of expectations. After all, in this age of ferocious advertising and relentless product placements, his folks back home are all too familiar with the iPods and iPhones of the world, and the knockoffs (山寨机) that he could afford and bought, considering the not-so-insignificant quantity needed, were anything but. His honest re-weaving of the social fabric of his more down-to-earth hometown vis-a-vis that of a rapidly cosmopolitan-izing coastal city like Beijing caught my full attention, but apparently didn’t impress the computer engineering college student well enough to keep him from leaving our conversation and submerging into his PSP screen.

Kneeling on the floor next to us was an affable couple, a husband and a wife who were both janitors at a military hospital in Beijing. They told us that they moved to Beijing to work at their current jobs a few years ago after getting recommended by a militarily-connected relative in Jian (吉安), their hometown. While reminiscing their previous journeys on the same train in the years gone by, they were initially perplexed by how this year’s bounty bags were plumper, and the fellow passengers’ wardrobe sharper, despite all indications of a recessing economy and a tougher road ahead, even for these richer coastal workers migrating home for the new year. They professed that, while their jobs were relatively secure, they could observe society’s economic anxiety by how people would spend at the grocery store or at the eateries – that the days of unruly big spending, noted the wife, were gone. Her theory was that these migrant workers had to channel the “all is good” message back home, lest their family back home be disgraced by a returnee not living up to full expectations. Her intuition was grim but, in my view, dead-on.

A few hours later, the sardine-like packing eased up slightly because, as if by osmosis, some folks eventually found less crowded cars to stand in. Some other passengers would arrive and disembark. It was by this time that we had more space to move around, untangle our legs, and either find fresh faces to chat with or just slip away into solitude.

As folks began to acknowledge each other’s presence and acquaint oneself with others, they loosened up not only their guard but their bounty bags too: a few took out fruits, biscuits, breads and noodles to share with fellow passengers, cultivating a season of warmth and good fellowship in an improvised pot-luck feast. The camaraderie of this working class underscored all the goodness of humanity, and presented a welcoming contrast to the foreign media’s oft-Hobbesian portrayal of an unruly Chinese populace…at least that portion of the population practicing ruthless entrepreneurship and those now embroiled in food safety, toy safety and corruption scandals.

After standing on my feet for 18 hours, I finally found myself an empty bench of seats vacated by a group of disembarking passengers. In the subsequent hours, I rolled myself into a deep coma, thoroughly exhausted but amazed by my two legs – a couple of workhorses that never let up and buckle. When the train finally stopped in Shenzhen, I felt renewed and profoundly enriched. The erstwhile day slipped by as if in a blink of a moment. Two hours later, and after a dinner with a friend gracious enough to cross the HK-China border to meet up with me at the Shenzhen train station, I reached home, glad to see my parents and happy to unload my bounty of a thoroughly sumptuous, uniquely relishing experience.

Millennium Park, Chicago

Can you find me?

Can you find me now?

You know you’re a nerd when…

…you see computer icons wherever you go. Case in point: I was awaiting my flight at Beijing’s new airport terminal Saturday morning, when I suddenly found myself looking at a familiar icon: the Gmail icon. Am I hallucinating, or is the nerd in me manifesting himself?

Do you see the Gmail icon?

American Troops at DFW

After a rough ride and a hard landing, I arrived in Dallas. It was a blurry Monday morning, with cold drizzles falling amidst a twirl of cool spring wind. Just as I was about to leave the security area, I heard an intermittent scattering of claps and cheers, only escalating as more people seemed to join in. After looking around, I realized that the cheers were directed at American troops returning home from Iraq. Most soldiers looked blurry-eyed; some smiled and waved back while others simply walked on. Before long, at least a hundred passengers at the terminal were cheering for the troops. It was quite a scene.

The troops were on the arrival level.

To breathe and experience Seoul like another (local)

I don’t know how to begin describing my visit to Seoul, for it fell well outside of my normal travel paradigm. Unlike previous trips, I neither defined any goals (e.g. to visit a physical place of interest, or to eat at a well-known establishment), nor immersed myself with the destination’s culture and history (e.g. by consuming related reading materials). My unpreparedness was compounded by two not-quite-insignificant factors: a language that is completely foreign to me; and, since it was my first visit to Korea, the lack of any prior experience to fall back on. Finally, I know not a single soul, other than a friend who now lives there.

All that, however, didn’t amount to a blatantly pathetic oversight, because I did plan on experiencing South Korea not through the polished lens of popular recommendation but by my intuition and improvisation. My (true) plan, conjured up as I was aboard my short flight from Beijing to Seoul, is two pronged. While my friend was at work, I would spend as much time as possible walking the streets of Seoul and soaking up the city’s aura and energy. While he was not at work, we would spend time at places where locals would escape to and deflate the day’s pressure.

After breezing past immigration, the first thing that came to my mind was to turn on my mobile phone. I was not expecting any calls; nor was I ready to make one. Instead, I was eager to find out, and be gratified by, the beauty of 3G’s ubiquity across different 3G standards. (Prior to 3G, a GSM phone from China or Hong Kong would not work in South Korea.) When I saw those four bars of salute (i.e. signal strength) lit up next to a 3G icon on my Nokia 6280, I beamed with unspeakable elation, not least because the techie in me has just jumped out in full force but because, over the years, I have been championing the ideals of cross compatibility in 3G (my cellular provider operates exclusively under one 3G standard, while SK Telecom operates another). With all the Jockey Club’s bet spreads and Yahoo! Finance’s stock quotes suddenly available to me through my 3G connection, I was too preoccupied to pay any attention to the rolling hills and calm waterfronts that galloped past me as I was bused from the airport to Seoul’s city center.

By the time I realized that my data roaming bill was getting obscenely enormous, I was already in the city center, at a stop just between City Hall and Deoksu Palace. A bit about Deoksu Palace: dating back to the 15^th century, it is a walled compound of palaces that has served many a royalty of the Korean Empire. Decorated with groomed and forested gardens, the compound’s palaces capture the brashness of the Empire’s past glory while its manicured gardens define the more subtle, refined essence of the aesthetic past. Today Deoksu Palace is surrounded by a countless number of concrete high rises, including, most visibly, the Imperial Palace Hotel which stands, at more than 20 floors and merely four traffic lanes away from the Deoksu Palace, as though it was seeking to outshine its namesake forebear. When I turned into the side streets that radiate from City Hall, I discovered a plethora of sensual stimulants: simmering pots of soups would effervesce a potent, gritty smell of cooked meats and a more subtle, delectable bouquet of blossoming spices. Hunks of pork and beef, grilled and slightly charred over choice charcoal, would emanate the rhapsodic aromatics of cooked animal fats and proteins. The most extraordinary, however, was brought forth by a middle-aged man who, standing outside what seemed to be his proprietary used-book store, would charcoal-grill a fat slab of squid, seasoned with salt flakes and little else, over a small, make-shift stove. When the grilled squid was ready, the man, with his stentorian voice, would make dinner calls to his neighbors. Upon his and his neighbors’ insistence, I tried a piece of his masterpiece, which turned out to be a genuine pleasure as the squid retained much of its impeccably fresh juices just as the charcoal heat worked magic to provide a smoky surface flavor. My only other thought at that time: if only I had a cold beer handy to wash it all down. Anyway, these small but amicable side streets would eventually merge into larger streets where larger buildings would dominate. These imposing concrete monsters were bustling with energy as office types shuttled in and out of the revolving doors while jumbotrons flashed endlessly into eternity. As if there wasn’t enough emotion, psychedelic fractals were projected onto facades of many of these big buildings, where they danced merrily to the music of pedestrian and automotive traffic.

While my friend was at work, I would use all sorts of improvised body language to communicate with local folks to overcome my language barrier. I must admit I took pleasure relishing the fruits of the most minute communicative success, fully knowing that I would experience something entirely different if my friend, a native, were around and allowed me to fall into the conversational background (imagine being a Robin to the Batman, i.e. always there but never quite able to claim any achievements as one’s own). It would take me nearly twenty minutes to get my order right at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant, where I relied on finger-pointing and hand gesturing to tell the chef what I wanted to eat (by the way, my meal, which included fried rice with salted shrimp and kimchi, was delightful). One of my most memorable moments was spent at Sky Bar, a well-known drinking establishment in Gangnam that was unmistakably pompous and stylish. I was attracted to the joint because of its bird’s eye view of Gangnam and of the beautiful folks that adorned the place (surely I was superficial but, after all, I was on vacation). I was also attracted by its atmosphere, in which soft Korean ballades, played through Sky’s impeccable sound system, helped to smooth out (or perhaps blend with) the ruffles generated by a bartender’s mixer. I also had a few great conversations, one of which was with Hae Jin (慧珍), a bartender with big, sparkling eyes and a rubicund visage. Her flirtatious, feisty manners betrayed her inward sincerity – despite her limited English vocabulary, she was patient enough to communicate at length with me, often at loss over (the lack of) word choice but never faltered, and essentially became my first Korean teacher and my trusted, breathing guide book. What intrigued me in our conversation was this rhythmic oscillation between frenzied spontaneity and cold stillness –something that mirrored a side street’s vibrant sensation juxtaposed against the tranquil repose of an ancient palace. Also, as awkward as it may sound, Hae Jin also implored me to experience teenage authenticity by visiting a “DVD bar” where, originally designed for friends to rent and watch DVDs, teenagers nowadays would go and make out in privacy (I took her recommendation, sans the making out). She also convinced me to check out an exhibit at a vocational training school in the more industrial side of town. Helmed by her friend from high school and some other graduating students in industrial design, the exhibit was a mind-blowing experience as it amply disproved any notion that Asians always copy and never know how to create.

When my friend was finally not at work, we covered the city, checking out bars, restaurants, clubs, noraebangs (karaoke joints) as though I have been living in Seoul since time immemorial. My friend also took me to MTL, which is a “talking bar” in Gangnam (and a stone throw away from his house). In these “talking bars”, the bartender makes drinks for you, and for you only until you either decide to leave or run out of money. In other words, each bartender only handles one client at any given time, although a number of friends may go to such “talking bars” and engage an equal number of bartenders. The idea is such that the client gets to engage and talk with the bartender without the fear of losing the bartender’s attention. While one has to work hard to catch a bartender’s attention (and certainly as it was the case with me, to catch Hae Jin’s attention at Sky), a bartender at these “talking bars” is ready and willing to talk (again, at least until one either decides to leave or runs out of money). My bartender was a twenty-something college student with a porcelain face and slightly bulging eyes who hoped to enter into a career in beauty care after finishing design school, in a year’s time. She told me her life stories, in broken English and with my friend’s sporadic (and obviously alcohol-influenced) translative help. She also asked me about my life, although she seemed lost the moment I punched the two dreaded words: intellectual property. In any case, based on the way she groomed and handled herself, I had little question that she had all the aesthetic talent and mental toughness to do well in what she aspired to do. These “talking bars”, as I was told, are mainly designed for the working men of Korea who are too macho and proud to talk small talk with their wives at home but otherwise want to do so with somebody, even if they have to pay for it. Furthermore, it seems to me (though I may be wrong) that this format of “bartending” is very unique to Korean culture and not commonly, if at all, found in other countries. As far as I understand, although the clientele is predominantly male and these bartenders are predominantly female, such talking bars strictly forbid unseemly, immoral transactions beyond drinking/talking and are not, at least in principle, set up for men to “pick up” bartenders. Nevertheless, this makes me wonder whether the proliferation of these talking bars highlights a social ill in South Korea –that, because Korean men would generally prefer spilling their hearts to a stranger at a talking bar over talking to their spouse, there is something inherently missing in the typical Korean spousal relationship. I have tried seeking an answer to that question, but most people I have spoken with, including many of my Korean friends, have not formed any solid opinions in respect of such a warped social dynamic.

Attending an exhibit at a vocational training school or listening to a beautician talk extensively, albeit in broken English, about her career was not what I would plan to do in any other ordinary course of visit. But there was nothing ordinary about this visit. When I left South Korea, I didn’t bring with me any photograph of me standing in front of one of those luscious palaces that would prove my visit. Yet, by doing what locals do, I have breathed, lived, and experienced a South Korea in a way that was very raw, yet, at least as it seems to me, honest and authentic.

An Amusing Sight at Beijing Capital International Airport

As I was about to board a China Eastern flight MU5087 to Seoul Incheon, I found out that in a little over two hours’ time, another flight, JS252, would go to Pyongyang. I doubt many airports on this planet can claim to fly to both Seoul and Pyongyang…anyway, quite an amusing sight.

Of course, the airline code, JS, refers to Air Koryo, DPRK’s flag carrier.

Update: I just read that, starting in January 2008, Air China will launch a new (and what is presently the only) commercial service to Pyongyang. Click here for the story.