The Long Journey Home

Traveling during May holiday without any prior reservations is not a fun thing to do. It would be a long journey, standing room only, with a sleepless night ahead.

After dinner, the journey would begin with a four hour bus ride to the nearest train station. The four hour ride was through the mountains in the dark. The Chinese engineers who accompanied me on the trip to the train station told me to get as much sleep as possible. In the darkness it was no problem and I was sleeping during most of the trip. This bus ride would prove to be the most quality sleep I would have the entire night.

When we arrived at the Xuzhou station, we went to the ticket office to buy my train ticket home. Because of the May holidays, everyone would be traveling home and no seats to Suzhou would be available. I would have to stand between two train cars for the whole nine hour train ride to Suzhou.

As I was waiting for the train, the Chinese engineers would keep telling me, "Remember, what ever you do, don't fall asleep." It was an eerie feeling to hear them tell me. They would repeat it several times just to make sure I completely understood. I felt like I was in "A Nightmare on Elm Street", and as soon as I would fall asleep, Freddy Kruger would jump into my dreams and tear me to shreds with those blades on his hands.

As soon as I got on the train, I found a place to stand and would stay there most of the time. It was a strange picture being the only foreigner on the train and on top of that, the only foreigner standing.

I started to talk to a young man who was also with a standing ticket. He was on his way to Suzhou from Guangzhou. His whole trip would be over 24 hours standing until he would arrive in Suzhou. Because of the economic crisis, he had lost his job and was moving to Suzhou to find a new job.

He had found a nice place above the conductor's safe where he could sit down, get some sleep even though he was with a standing room only ticket. I imagine, he must have been one of the first passengers to board the train. He was a very kind guy and he let me take turns sitting so I could at least get some sleep.

When we arrived to Suzhou, I helped him with all his belongings he had which was just two large suitcases and a backpack. It reminded me of the U2 album, "All You Can't Leave Behind", better said, the song "Walk On". One part of the lyrics states, "the only baggage you can bring is all you can't leave behind". It also makes me think what did he leave behind.

Recently, we packed and moved most of our belongings back to the States. We packed 84 boxes of things to ship to the US. I still have 17 boxes in China. I think we Americans have become too materialistic and if someone actually tells us, "the only baggage you can bring is all you can't leave behind", could we fit our life into two large suitcases and a backpack? What would be in your luggage?