Laughing all the way to Lhasa on the KTV express
Isn't it odd that trains are the only vehicles in China in which onboard entertainment is absent? I am talking about a rail network, where it is possible to travel at top speed in a straight line for more than two days without coming close to reaching an international border; where train journeys are so long that a migrant laborer may be labelled a workaday commuter if his ride home is less than 24-hours in duration.
Planes have glossy magazines; inter-city buses have sing-along MTV videos and dubbed Hong Kong movies; and even taxis and subway trains have cheeky embedded screens, which allow teenage pop sensations to deliver important messages about sports footwear and/or packet noodles.
Hitherto, long-distance train passengers have had to make do with a broadcast PA system that delivers perfect silence for 95 percent of the journey before crackling into life at 6 am, just seconds after you've finally managed to fall asleep.
"Quick, wake up. No time to rest. Only 7 hours till you arrive," the voice over the loudspeaker says.
But it seems times are a changing. Formal "entertainment" is shortly to be instituted on China's long and winding railroad. The soon-to-emerge "tourist trains" to Lhasa will be the first in China to pay heed to the modern traveler's well-documented need for moving pictures, quick edits and love ballads from the early 1970s in order to nullify the threat of having to start a conversation.
Yes, on-board karaoke will be offered to passengers bound for Tibet (and a few puzzled trackside herders, presumably). Why the Tibetan plateau has been chosen for this pioneering new step remains unclear.
The splendid views make this one journey where interior distractions are surely superfluous. Try the Beijing-Guangzhou route hour after hour of flat hinterland and clutches of dusty villages that look a good 10 years off the discovery of tarmac. In that context, a chorus or two of Yesterday Once More has always seemed appropriate.
Maybe I do a disservice to the current rolling stock to suggest that entertainment is completely absent. It's just that what fun there is, is somehow more "organic".
I did once encounter an attendant who, citing the excuse of Chinese Valentine's Day, used a platform megaphone to treat passengers to a series of folk songs while a colleague did a jaunty dance in the aisle.
Then there are the chirpy salesmen who produce a show worthy of the circus in an effort to flog knick-knacks. With a "Roll up, Roll up!" refrain, passengers are challenged to rip, cut, tear or chew a sock into shreds, only to be told it was forged from polyethylene and is actually indestructible. "Originally 100 yuan, yours for just 5."
And let's not forget the fun that can be had playing the "guess the professional snorer" game with your immediate neighbors, or the pleasure of adopting bovine eating habits and spending the journey relentlessly chomping through 5 kilos of sunflower seeds.
Come to think of it, train travel really isn't that bad at all. If only it could be just a little quicker.
(China Daily 05/15/2007 page20)
