Negotiating the Chinese public transport system

Nearly halfway through his China TEFL internship, Dave still finds it a challenge to find his way through the often chaotic Chinese subway system…

I have been placed in a school that seems, at first, irritatingly far away from civilisation. Now, however, I have realised that any situation, that doesn’t involve tremendous physical or emotional trauma, can be great if you can find the good in it.

A day in the life of me trying to get into town, which I do almost every day involves a tremendous amount of willpower and dedication just to get out’ve the school. I walk out’ve the big imposing government gates that stop children from escaping, and stop people sneaking into kill teachers. From here I walk down a dusty path, and see the construction site around me full of workers who are currently building the school next door to the one I’m in. There is a small family running a shop out’ve their house. A house that is so small you wouldn’t be sure there would be enough room for atoms to vibrate let alone enough room to host a whole range of household items and beverages. They are always remarkably happy to see me and are very patient and polite when it comes to me ruining the sound of their language while trying to indicate which version of water I want.

After this I often walk past a man herding sheep or goats either to some grass or possibly herding them to their doom. If I glance left I will see a variety of old people dancing or doing TaiJi (Tai – chi) and then finally I reach a road with a line of dumpling and hot pot restaurants. These restaurants sell more food than I’ve ever seen for the smallest amount of money you can comprehend. At this point I cross a bridge, almost always with a snickers and a bottle of water from a nearby shop, and wait for a bus. The bus system here is similar to what I have experienced in London, there are electronic beep-ity-beep cards that I have to top and these are used to pay my fare when I am on the bus. Also on the bus is an angry-sounding but probably pleasant woman with feats of hair I have only seen behind those cages that these women live in on the bus. She is often yelling things to the people who wish to pay in cash that sound like she is cross-examining a witness she knows to be guilty. These busses can comfortably seat about 20 people and uncomfortably stand something close to the population of Qatar.

After alighting as fast as possible I end up in mini-merica where one can go to Pizza Hut, McDonalds, Starbucks, Dairy Queen and a 7-11 which is a strangely nice salve for the frustration of the ecosystem of dust and workmen that I live in. Once I have chosen 2 of these 5 buildings to waste time and money in, often for the sake of utilising the wifi connection, I get onboard a subway train. Every trip to the subway is like training for an airport, some of them use metal detectors. They all, as far as I can tell, make use of x-ray machines so they can look at all my stuff to make sure I’m not going to highjack a train and take it to its destination anyway, due to the nature of trains and tracks. I will often around this point drink whatever it is I’m holding with an almost Shakespearean amount of dramatic flair to indicate that it is neither explosive nor poisonous to human beings. The same beep-ity-beep card from the bus can be used here to get on the subway which is a very efficient web of trains often housing either eight people or some exponentially larger number allowing you to get up close and personal with a tremendous amount of people who are dying to take your photo. A lot of the stations are also wrapped head to toe with adverts almost all featuring Angelababy, a Chinese actress/musician/model who is airbrushed to a perfection that could cause a weaker man to go blind. A lot of the train lines have a flick-book picture effect of lit up images on the outside of the train that also display a highly neon video that reminds me of a reimagining of early 20^th century cinema.

In Beijing the transport is very efficient, though there have been the most irritating traffic jams, they are infrequent and I’ve learned more Chinese on the bus than in any classroom. The subway has a way of being deserted then suddenly packed full of more than enough people, all with their own smells, attitudes and ethical codes on spitting. The transport in Beijing is incredibly simple and straight forward and therefore not something you will have to worry about much. Except the first time, when it’s like trying to do a Rubik’s cube in the dark with no hands.