My stories 06: The old green trains

I remember when I was little, I used to take the old green trains with “the adults” from Guangzhou back to my mom’s hometown in Gansu province of China. Then we’d take the train back again, and each way took two days and one night. That route still exists now and I guess the duration is the same even today. When I was very young, we went in the hard sleeper coaches. We even travelled with hard seats once and that was quite a terrible experience…yep. Along the way, there were three stops that left the deepest impression in my memory. The first stop was Wuchang (one of the three major districts that make up the city of Wuhan now), which I can’t be more familiar with in present day. On the return trip to Guangzhou, the train must cross the Yangtze River Bridge before arriving at Wuchang station. Every time we were crossing the bridge, my third grandpa would remark with excitement, “We’re at Wuchang, we’re at Wuchang!” And that was the earliest that “Wuchang” entered my vocabulary as a place in China. The second stop was Zhengzhou. I didn’t know where Zhengzhou was back then (now I know that it’s the capital of Henan province) and I only knew that it was a major station, as the train stopped there for nearly half an hour. The adults would get off the train to stretch and walk around, but I’d always worry that the train would leave before they returned, so I’d keep urging them to get back onto the train. The third stop was Xi’an, also a major station. During those years, there’d be vendors selling food and snacks on the platforms. You didn’t even have to get off the train – you could open the window and buy whatever you wanted. I remember there was someone selling roasted chicken at Xi’an station and oh man, that chicken looked extra mouthwatering and irresistible. But then, the adults never bought anything from the train stations. As a small child, I could only watch as that delicious-looking roasted chicken, which I never got the chance to taste, disappeared in front of my eyes. Today, I can most certainly afford to buy a roasted chicken myself, but no one sells them on the platforms anymore…

Slow green trains on the platform. Nowadays, many people in China choose to travel with the high-speed trains for speed and convenience, but many of the slow train routes, including the one from Guangzhou to Gansu, still exist.

(This short essay was written on August 26, 2019.)

What I wanted to be when I grew up…

When I was a very young child, the first thing that I wanted to become when I grew up was a scientist. In my mind, scientists were those people in white lab coats that would hold a test tube, shake it a little and look at it for a long time. Back then, that seemed really cool.

Plastic, disposable test tubes, nothing like those nostalgic ones in my memory.

Two weeks in China, part 3: Guangzhou, my hometown

This turned out to be more of a personal reflection post rather than a travel log, and so doesn’t have a lot of pics. For the photo album, click here.

So then, the second and last stop during my trip to China was undoubtedly that place so dear to my heart – my hometown, Guangzhou, or Canton, as known to some of you perhaps.

As soon as I knew about the conference in Chengdu, I started to think about making a trip to Guangzhou afterwards, just for a week. I mean, if I were already in China, it only makes sense to visit my hometown. And I’ve never been back to China without dropping by Guangzhou. So the request for an extra week off was made, granted, and I was off.

This is the Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall situated near my grandpa’s house. I remember being here with my aunt when I was very young, cluelessly pointing at the statue of Sun Yat-Sen, asking, “What is this thing?” What I find funny till this day is that I didn’t even as WHO it was, but WHAT it was. Did I not clearly see that it was a man?