On the night train...

Night train to Xian (Shee-an), China
We hopped a hard sleeper train from Nanjing to Xian (Shee-an). Wow, that was a first/different experience! The train itself was fine, not a high-speed bullet though, so it took around 18 hours to get to Xian, whew. Getting on the train was quite an experience. Imagine about 200 people jockeying and pushing and shoving to filter through 2 turn styles to gain entrance to the train platform. No que line, no boarding pass number, no orderly line, just everyone fighting for themselves to get through, it was like its own little mosh pit, everyone trying to converge on the same point at once, luggage in tow. Christina looked at me and rolled her eyes while we put our elbows out and forearms in front to make our way through. Grown men were shoving each other and I had to clothesline a 5’2” China-woman to ensure Christina could gain access to gate. If you don’t hold your own here, you’re gonna get run right over. F-ing Crazy! King of Fun, but crazy and not expected. Ahh the contradictions. China- How can you not design an orderly boarding line and yet produce trains that go 220mph??? No idea. We realized what the fighting was about to get on as fast as possible though. On the sleeper trains you’re given 1 of 6 bunk beds in a room about 7x8 ft. Yep, 6 people sleeping in a virtual closet and the ones who get into the room first, get to throw their luggage and accommodate themselves much easier than the ones who arrive late (so if you want your luggage to have a spot, you gotta fight for it, seriously). There’s not much room for common politeness or courtesies, eat or be eaten  gotta love it, just be prepared.
The train was fun though, we had a little 12 year old boy (English name-Nick) who spoke amazing English and was a chatter box. His hobby was, studying English, wow! We quickly became his first American friends and enjoyed his youthful view on the world and played cards, he wants to be a Doctor and help hurting people. He shared his candy with us, which ironically turned out to be a push-up of “Duck’s belly”, much like beef jerky. Needless to say, Christina hid hers and did not partake  , so funny, not the candy we were expecting when he wanted to share. Nick’s little 7 year sister Judy was quite excited to have foreigners near. Nick harassed her most of the trip, saying “Judy, Judy, Judy” about hourly. Turns out, Judy was actually Nick’s 1st cousin, but since children rarely have siblings in China, their cousins are referred to as sisters and brothers (something new we learned), he did not understand the concept of “cousins”.
Yes, the one child law is still in affect here, there are a few conditional exceptions, but it’s pretty much the law of the land. Chairman Mao encouraged massive families a while back and viewed China’s greatest resource as its labor force and population, turns out, he was kind of correct. But there’s so many now that a great drain on natural resources is eminent and a true need for corrective policy seems reasonable, radical, but reasonable. Although America consumes 10x the natural resources per person, we could have a far greater impact on the world by reducing our consumption at home even though we have only 1/5th of China’s population.