(These pictures are by Justin Unrau.)
I can't really argue. Fresh canola plants and pea shoots fried Sichuan style are good for the soul. A Saturday morning group bicycle ride - me, Deb, and Michelle on the three-seater - bumping past fields of bright yellow canola flowers. Our spirits were hardly dampened when the people at the soy sauce factory (after a call to their boss) couldn't give us a tour. We played and walked until we exhausted ourselves, then ate like we had earned it. The Muslim restaurant on Saturday night had crispy spring rolls that tasted like tacos. Easter lunch was noodles at another Muslim restaurant.
In the morning there were absolutely no seats inside the tiny brick church. The old ladies tried to force us to take theirs, but I followed stood with William outside and we stood our ground. A man seated on a folding chair in the doorway near us carried the makings of a lunch in a sturdy plastic shopping bag that read, in English, "Graceful."
The 33-hour train ride, apart from my minor depression (sparked by the news that I would be three hours from ZX and not seeing him) was more or less unremarkable. We didn't really talk to anyone, though the hallway seats were lined all day and into the night with chatter.
The girl who slept above me, a migrant worker I put at about 22, was strangely both polite and obnoxious. Once when she wanted to walk between our bunks to grab her cellphone from the second bunk, she asked our permission. I was so confused I didn't answer.
She bought food from the train attendants, and once, a noisy hand-held video game in plastic to play an hour or two. She talked non-stop, mostly about her boyfriend and how beautiful he said she was. She wore bright pink high heeled shoes that looked like they were made of plastic. At night when they rested under my bunk next to the aisle it was easy to find my way back from the bathroom. In the morning of the second day she applied full make-up, mostly in pinks and blues. I assumed she would get off soon, but apparently it was just for the short sloppy guy in the compartment next to ours. They joked and flirted by flinging insults the whole day and into the evening after the man had changed into his long underwear and was holding court on (from what little I could understand of his dialect) all affairs economic and political. I kept hearing "Taiwan" and "US" popping up in heated discussion. I didn't find out until the next day that elections (though it was called "leadership selection" or something by Beijing) in Taiwan had been held and the non-pro-independence party won, much to all of China's delight.
A prisoner with an empty eye socket was handcuffed to the lower bunk two compartments down for the length of the ride. Every few hours he'd be released to shuffled down the hall to the bathroom, shackles dragging along, his guard trailing behind him. Once when they passed I took the opportunity to go fill my water bottle when I wouldn't have to go by them. It made me uncomfortable to pass the staring red eye cavity.
Tibet. Still makes me want to cry. It's clear that the protest/riots have spread and involved a lot of people and places, and it's clear that there's been a lot of violence against the Han people and property. Apart from that, not much is clear, and for me that's frustrating, and scary. China has basically closed down everything west of Chengdu, and shipped in LOTS of troops. They claim that there are far more Han people being hurt than Tibetans, and that six hundred protesters have "turned themselves in" but how is anyone to know?
We rode the bus through the Tibetan area of Chengdu, and there were, literally, police cars on every corner. I asked two taxi drivers what they thought (taxi drivers are usually pretty honest and willing to talk) what they thought of the situation, and both of them just spewed prejudice against Tibetan people. When the meter reads 15 Y, they want to give 10 Y, one said. I can only take four people, and they demand that I take five. "Sounds pretty normal to me," I said. "I'm guilty of the same thing," and he laughed with me.
"We help them so much," I keep hearing over and over, "they get even more privileges than the other minorities." You don't get in a fight with a Tibetan, because they get more leniency than everybody else. That and how it's all under control.
ZX and I discuss Tibet almost nightly. Both of us bring hard core concern for justice . . . and the gigantic assumptions of our cultures. I want no government "protecting me." I argue that its our responsibility as world citizens to care about what's happening to other world citizens. For him avoiding chaos trumps a lot of things, and the hypocrisy of the Western governments and media is as bad as that of China. A lot of people here are pissed about the Western media's biased reporting, and I would agree that a lot of it is biased. I've been impressed with what The Guardian's been doing, and that's what I read. I don't go near something like CNN, and will not defend it.
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