Go ahead and train yourself

A 50-something sock seller shuffles down the train carriage aisle kicking his box along the floor and screaming at the top of his lungs: "These are the greatest socks in the history of the world, and wearing them will make you rich, sexually powerful and prosperous."

Train travel is a terrific way to see the real China because an expat will meet some of the most interesting people and the further away you get from the big cities, the more interesting it becomes.

In fact, if you haven't ridden on a long-distance train in China, you are missing out on discovering this complex and charming land.

Isn't this why most of us came here?

I recently took a 12-hour, overnight train from Beijing to Nanchang in Jiangxi province. It's cheap and a one-way hard sleeper ticket sets you back 300 yuan ($43). The bunk bed set up provides a comfortable ride but they turn the lights out at 10pm, so I only had a couple of hours to get to know my new bunk buddies. This middle-aged group of Jiangxi people had just toured Beijing for the first time. It seems the Bird's Nest is hot spot for mainland tourists to the capital.

When training yourself, you need to be able to say a few things in putonghua. Name of country, marital status and type of work are handy but if you get stuck, always say: "The Beijing Olympics were great, weren't they?" This statement will win many friends. A Chinese-English dictionary comes in handy.

I was bound for a special mountain in Jiangxi, called Sanqingshan, which was about another 4-hour train ride from Nanchang and it was on this trip I met the sock man.

Waving his pairs of 3-yuan socks in both hands, the salesman passionately pleaded with passengers, but despite doing the rounds four times in an hour, there was little interest. He only sold one pair.

The sock seller did not give up, and repeated the same deafening performance 15 minutes later hoping some travelers had changed their minds.

As the hawker made his eighth trip down the aisle, I pointed out to a man opposite me that the train had not stopped at a station in the past hour and no new people had boarded our carriage. "Why does he think people will change their minds so soon?" I ask.

This 60-something man, with yellowish teeth and a wrinkled face, is wearing a mismatching blue suit jacket and pants. He looks startled by my question and leans toward me with a smile. "Ni shuo de hen hao (you speak good)," he says.

Like many questions I ask on my train trip, they are completely ignored. It's not what I'm saying, it's how I'm saying it.

He turns to his traveling companions and nods. "Wow, this foreign speaks a bit of Chinese. Fancy that. You don't see that every day."

Now the ticket collector wants to chat. Where are you from, how long in China, what do you do? As we talk, a small group gathers and one young fellow, wearing another mismatched suit, stands close and stares at me with a goofy, bewildered grin.

We run out of things to talk about and there is long silence. Ah yes!

"How about those Olympic Games? Great stuff eh?" And the train rolled on.

(China Daily 11/17/2008 page8)