Decorations

Well, they don't understand the reason for it; but, our Chinese colleagues have given in on the point. We, the foreign teachers, have our own classrooms. It is great to not be lugging stuff all over the campus and to not be running from class to class. It has also given us the opportunity to do something very un-Chinese, to decorate our classrooms.

As the normal mode of operation is for the students, and the teachers to be constantly changing rooms, it is not common for anything to be done to them. Further, because no one is permanently assigned to a room, the rooms are, generally, filthy.

Along with rooms, one thing we requested were trash cans for the rooms. This is turning out to not be as easy as we had hoped. Getting the trash cans was no problem, the problem is getting the students to use them. They are conditioned to, just, throwing trash on the floor. Or, leaving it on the desks when they leave, for the students in the next class to throw on the floor. It is a lifetime of cultural conditioning that is proving to be hard to break (remember, we are teaching western culture as well as English, this is our job).

I also had the college provide me with a large thermos (or kettle). It seems that I do something very odd with this. I allow the students to use it. Remember, there are no drinking fountains and no one drinks tap water.

Before I go to class I pick up my kettle in the room with the boiler and fill it. I then pack it up the five floors to my classroom (this is China, no elevators). I then put it next to my desk. If a student needs water they can then fill the bottle that they have with them (all the students carry small water bottles); however, if they empty it, or I go to use it and the re is not enough, then the student who used it last will go and refill it. Then at the end of my day I take it back down to the boiler room and leave it for the night.

I have done a couple of things, so far, to decorate my class. The first thing I did was to get some plants. He Zhi Qing and I went and got some plants. We then had them delivered on a motor trike. He then dropped them off on the ground floor. At that point He Zhi Qing said that I should goto the dorm and call out my name and for my students to assemble (something like, "English majors! classes 5, 6, 7, and 8! Assemble in the front!"... she says this is how things are done...), grab a few "volunteers"out of the number that do respond and have them pack them the plants up the stairs.

This seemed too weird to me so I grabbed on side of one of the three, large, potted plants and told her to grab the other. We then packed it up the stairs. Her expression when she realized what we were going to do was evidence that she has mastered the, female, "your an idiot, and I'm being to forced to do something that I don't want to do because your an idiot," (...as she read this, she claimed to have no idea what I was writing about here). When we finally got to my classroom she told me to wait there; which was fine, I had something I needed to do. In about ten minutes she walked into my classroom with a self righteous grin on her face; you guessed it, she was followed by a number of the young men in my classes, carrying the rest of my plants.

In addition to plants, I have also ordered some posters. It is important that the posters be in English. This is to set to tone of the class. I found that several US government agencies will send free posters on request; so, I requested them. So far, the only ones I have gotten (they arrived on Friday, after class) are a set of tourism posters and maps from the Maryland Department of Transportation. I am also expecting some from the EPA.

The students seem to be very excited about the attempts to make the classroom more attractive. It is just not commonly done in China.

Beijing Vacation

I finally got a day off work. I have a three day weekend, It is national Tomb Sweeping day. The decision was made in China to have less week long holidays and to have more three day weekends, more or less on the western model.

I first thought of going to Wuhan and then to the Three Gorges; but I was not sure of the weather. So, I decided to go and spend a few days in Beijing instead. I have only been to Beijing the one time, when I arrived in China. I am often asked if I had been here and I always had to say no.

I do have to say that I came prepared to not like it. Making the arrangements was easy. I wrote to the hostel and told them what days I would be in Beijing and they confirmed room availability. He Zhi Qing then went and got me train tickets. I wanted a sleeper that would leave after school on Thursday and a "D" train to return on Sunday. Surprisingly, that is exactly what she got for me. She even got me a bottom bunk, as I requested.

She was not able to come with me as she is preparing for a retest of the TEM 4. It is shocking to Chinese when we travel alone, as I have said, they are uncomfortable doing things alone. I find it interesting that they see the words, "alone, " and, "lonely," as being synonymous.

I packed and wandered down to get a cab to the train station. Interestingly enough, the cab drive had no trouble understanding my instructions, in Chinese, and we went right to the train station.

You may have heard that there were some localized problems in China recently. I have little else to say on the at issue at this time; however, I saw that it has brought a change to even our small city. The first class waiting room now has a luggage scanner. There was a bit of a row in the waiting room that had the rail police involved; but, it was resolved before my train arrived.

The car was unusually loud and stayed that way most of the trip. However, I did eventually get to sleep. There wasn't much else to note until the next morning, after breakfast. I met some Americans, one was from Arizona, the other was from South Dakota. They were both living in Zhengzhou and were also visiting Beijing for a short vacation. We chatted until it was time to get our bags and prepare to leave the train.

I quickly found a cab and had no trouble getting to my hostel. I am a bit disappointed that this hostel lacks wi-fi. I later rented a bicycle and rode over to Tian'anmen square. I was surprised by the lack of street shops and vendors. It looks like L.A. during the ugly, modern, period of the seventies. there were not many people walking. I am staying in the Hutong district; which is a bit... colorful... but it really is hidden off the main areas and only accessible through narrow, and unmarked, alleys.

I returned to my hostel to find that, while I was gone, He Zhi Qing had cleaned my flat and chatted with Debra for a while on skype. I am also been keeping in touch with people in China by SMS messaging them. SMS is a lot more common here than it is in the states. I was using it as an opportunity to practice my Chinese as I was sending them messages in Chinese; however, to reply, they still need to send the messages in English. I can read very little Chinese; but, as I use it more, when sending messages, my ability to read it improves.

Having scouted the previous day, I was ready for my trip to Tian'anmen square. Getting there was a short walk of about three or four kilometers. To cross the major streets that are near the square there are several pedestrian subways.

At the square the first thing that is noticeable if the Mausoleum of Chairman Mao. It is a huge structure that, really, looks nothing like a mausoleum. on one side is the great hall of the people, there are no tours of this building. On the other side is a building that I was told I could lock up my camera and bag in. no cameras or bags are allowed in Chairman Mao's mausoleum. at the far end of the square is another pedestrian tunnel that leads to the entrance to the imperial city. The imperial city is also known as the forbidden city.

I did not go here first. Instead I went to the ancestral records area. This is a seldom visited section of the forbidden city and is not part of the forbidden city ticket. The ticket itself is very reasonable, at 2RMB. The buildings are part of the imperial city and are in areal photos of the city. The structures are very similar to what one would find in the, more crowded, main part of the imperial city. I recommend this side park to any person looking for the Forbidden City experience without the crowds.

From that quiet park I went to the part of the forbidden city that most visitors see. The first thing experienced, after walking through the large passage tunnels that are visible from Tian'anmen square, is a large plaza filled with people, vendors, ticket scalpers, and plain old hustlers of all forms. At the other end there are ticket booths to enter the main part of the complex.

After purchasing the tickets I also spent 40RMB on an audio guide The guide relies on small transponders throughout the park and frequently got lost (thought I was somewhere that I was not) and required frequent pressing of the buttons I was told to leave alone. An example this was while I was leaving the Louvre exhibit, the guide thought I was leaving the entire Forbidden City complex, instructed me on how to return it and retrieve my deposit, and shut itself off.

These little balls are embedded in the pavement all over the place, I never got a good answer as to what their purpose was.

The Louvre exhibit was one of the first things that I visited. A number of Napoleonic works were on loan and being displayed in the main gatehouse. These were not at all Chinese; but, interesting all the same.

In the side rooms of the entrance plazas to the Forbidden City were other displays featuring the arms and amour of the guards of the forbidden city. Photography was forbidden in these areas and they were watching and barking at people who ignored the rules. As a result I only have a few pictures of these exhibits. (Here I have a minor complaint about the Fiji S5/7/9 series. they have an auto focus assist lamp that is there to assist the auto focus function. It works well; but, it is a visible lamp. This has gotten me yelled at several times, and chased out of a temple once.)

Much of the forbidden city is under renovation; so, I can not comment extensively about these buildings. These buildings include the XXX building, the largest building in the Forbidden City complex.

After entering the inner court yard I was getting a bit tired, it was well after noon by this point. I stopped and took a short nap, only to be awaken by another napper roping his water bottle. I then decided to purchase lunch at one of the overpriced establishments in the complex. There were non any of these so the, typical, Chinese vendor effect was not noticeably, there were just enough of them to be useful.

It just struck me as wasteful to spend the money to enter the complex and then not enjoy it because I had neglected to bring my own water and lunch. I would tell anyone else considering visiting this World Heritage Site (worked that in to attract the search engines; see, I am learning) that they should bring a couple of bottles of water for each person and something to eat. It really is that big. The meal was not really overpriced, having just eaten a meal at the hostel (now, by Chinese standards, those meals are overpriced); but, I ordered beef curry and it really failed to set me on fire.

From there I visited many of the smaller, side, palaces. These were all interesting and worth the visit. I then went through the garden at the north end of the complex, which is also an exit for those who are too tired to continue. And, after having an ice cream (there is a reason that I can walk for 6 hours and loose very little weight), I went to the palaces on the other side of the complex.

Many of these were closed. However, one that was very interesting; both, because it was different than all the others and because it was unfinished for several reasons, was the palace that featured western buildings. unlike the traditional buildings, these were built in a typically western style. as such they were able to house many different programs and displays. they provide the research center for clay pottery preservation and on display are some very valuable, and interesting, examples of Chinese pottery.

From here I was working on my exit and saw several court yards from the other side. I returned the audio guide and there was no notice of my having used the "do not touch" buttons. It then worked my way past the crowd and the tea house scamers. I don't know if I described this scam in any detail in the past; so, here it is. Do understand that my knowledge of this scam is secondhand; however, the stories are plentiful enough to believe it is real (I do sometimes worry that I have brushed off a genuine student, or person trying to be polite; but, this is a "better safe than sorry" decision that I have made [sometimes it is better to miss an opportunity than to invite catastrophe]).

A young Chinese woman will introduce herself and try to make friends quickly. She will then direct the unsuspecting foreigner to a tea house (one of the reasons that I am, generally, leery of tea houses) and proceed to order some unreasonably priced tea. Then, when it is time to pay, they conveniently disappear. They later take a cut from the owner. And, pay note, do not pay with your credit or ATM card. There are plenty of stories of accounts being cleaned out.

The Art scam is a bit more straightforward and I hesitate to call it a scam. It is just a high pressure sales tactic. A person claiming to be an art student will ask you to come and look "just look" at the exhibition from their school or whatever. Then once you are there looking, the high pressure sales attic starts. Like I say, not really a scam, just something to be aware of if you are asked to "look" at a persons art

... Back to the story... From there I walked back and visited several music stores to see what a better violin should cost. I ha some trouble seeing much significant difference between the 4500RMB and the 12,000RMB violins. However, I did see a difference between the ones I was looking at and the one I am currently using.

I made the decision to wait until I have the violin teacher with me before making any purchase. I just wanted to look and see what a increase in quality should buy me. I will also note that the 4500RMB violin dropped to 3500 before I made it out of the shop, there was an indication that the shop owner was willing to go lower.

I then returned to the hostel and finished reading the book that Debra sent to me with a request that I read it. It is titled -MAJOR CHICKLIT WARNING- Sweetness in the Belly. It was a good story and included a lot of detail that I would expect in a book, about contrasting cultures, written by a woman with a PhD in Anthropology.

The next morning (today) I went for a short walk and then took a cab to the train station. Again, having no trouble telling the cab driver where to go. The traffic in Beijing is sane. I noticed lane control , the use of turn signals, waiting for traffic lights, and many other things that are not seen in most of China. I even saw two people get traffic tickets (they were, probably, unimportant people).

The train station was clean and modern and the announcements could be understood. Not only were they in English; but also, they did not sound like "wa waaa wa waaa wa." This was a pleasant change. The D train is more crowded than usual (I am typing this on the train) and it was only when I tried to recline my seat and take a nap that I discovered that I am on the "running and screaming children" car. Now that I am awake they have quieted down.

New Semester (no pictures)

As I am sure that you realize by now, a new semester has begun. Most
of my time has been taken by reading and preparing lessons. I have
also been spending a lot of time helping students prepare for the
TEM-4, the national English exam for English majors.

I have been reading a series by Larry Turtledove. While he, having a
PhD in Byzantine History, generally writes in the genre known as
alternative history this series of four books features a Roman
scouting group of 1,500 being displaced (a common alternative
history theme) into a completely fictional, but very human, world.

As with any of the books I read, I downloaded these and am reading
the series on my PDA. While I have been using it for that and
scheduling purposes, I have been using my PDA less lately. I have
been using my, Linux based, Asus EeePC more. I have been using it in
class to keep records and am using it now, between my class that
ends at 18:00, and the next one that starts at 19:00.

Of course, I can not use any Linux based PC to connect to the
Internet here. First off, it should be taken as a given that the
campus is not blanketed with wi-fi. This is a culture that is not
understanding of the idea of free services. If it has value than it
should be charged for and if it has no value then it should not be
done. Actions taken for public benefit are, simply, not part of the
culture.

Further, as I have said in the past, the computer services are
married to Microsoft. Microsoft software products are viewed as
being, essentially, free. The result is that there is no way any
competing system can gain hold. For Internet access there is a
program that is needed to authenticate, remember that there is no
anonymous Internet access; users of public Internet access points,
or, Internet bars, are required to have an Internet users
identification and access card. Private computers must use the,
Microsoft only, authentication software. This all adds up to, I can
not use my Linux computers to access the Internet and have to
sneaker-net my files on and off them.

Lesson preparation is a bit different than it was last semester. I am preparing a single lesson for the non
English majors and delivering it several times in a single week. I
then develop two sets of lesson plans for the English majors to fill
four class hours. Three of those hours are used to cover the
material in the book and the other hour is used to prepare for the
TEM-4 test.

Last year no time was spent preparing the students for this, very
important, exam and it was a disaster. While, as I have mentioned, a
lot of the failure was due to campus politics, I would still like to
see the students do better. Toward that end I am beginning to spend
time working on preparing he freshmen for the exam. The most
important of the preparations, at this stage, is to get them
thinking about the exam and taking it seriously, if they learn
anything, so much the better.

In the other three class hours, per week, where we are covering the
material in the book, we do a number of language and speech drills
that center around forming sentences and reading comprehension
quizzes.

My weekends are also taken, to a large extent, in helping students
prepare for the test. Some of the students, who re now Juniors have
one opportunity to retake the test and I am helping them to prepare.
As a result I am spending a lot of time with He Zhi Qing working on
this.

I am also continuing to learn to play the violin. I will never be
good; but I am reaching the point that I can identify that I am
playing a tune, even if the tune itself remains somewhat elusive. I
am preparing to replace my current violin with a better one. The
plan is to take the D (high speed) train to Zhengzhou and look for
one there. I will take He Zhi Qing and the violin teacher with me. I
expect that for the extra cost of buying the teachers ticket I will
get a better violin just by having someone, with me, who knows
better of how to identify a good violin.

I do not want to be in a position that I am blaming the tool instead
of the user. I expect to give my current one to He Zhi Qing. She has
been attending the lessons with me and interpreting the teacher when
some point needs clarification.

What I have not been doing as much of has been evening rides. The
weather is just now getting warm enough that riding is even a
consideration. The dam that I normally cross, on my ride, is
currently under maintenance. So, I have been riding a different
loop. I also ride to school every day.

I also have to factor in the increase in my classes. Just being a lot
busier has cut into my riding. My new schedule looks like this.

[that sure didn't work]

Which means that I, really, only have Thursday and Friday evenings
available for riding.

Who's here

Here is a short list of the westerners that are here, teaching or otherwise. Of course, any person with even the weakest grip on the obvious will realize that I am here.

There is a South African is here. He has pretty much disavowed any remaining interest in South Africa and still plans to stay long term. He generally identifies himself as a Scott now.

The Browns are no longer here, Virginia has moved into their flat along with her sister. They are both form the Philippines

Soren, from Denmark, is next door to me and he is also teaching up at Hau Rui. He arrived during the winter holiday.

Dez and Lynn are still here. I do not see them much as they are both teaching at the University. They have a friend that is visiting them and she has been here for several weeks.

Mark and Joe, from Utah, USA, are still here; although, they are not teaching. The school has no need for their flats, as Joe’s uncle never did show up. So, there is no real pressure on them to leave as long as they keep paying their utilities. They did return to America for about a week; but returned. If one is going to "just hang out" for a semester, until their MBA program starts next semester, this is about as inexpensive a place to "hang out" as any other; and, provides them with interesting cultural experience.

That's pretty much it. There are the two western teachers at the Agricultural college on the other side of town. I seldom see any of them. And, there are the African Air Force personnel, who come form several different countries, that are attending at the Air Force College. I see them more often than the teachers at the Ag. College.

That is pretty much it. A foreign face really is less than one in ten-thousand in this town.

Zeneta makes her exit (from China)

Gao Jing is back. She went with Zeneta to Beijing in order to insure that Zeneta had less problems leaving China. While here, because the dorms were closed, she used the couch in our "den."

Gao Jing came a couple of days before Zeneta was due to leave in order to complete some final paperwork that was necessary for Wa Dou to leave the country. I was surprised at how well that went.

She and Zeneta also tried to mail back some of Zenetas clothing and personal affects, only to discover that the post offices are closed for the month in honor of the New Year. The result of that is that I still have a giant pile of stuff waiting to be shipped once the post offices open again. I am under the impression that they will open in a couple of weeks.


The first step was to take a cab to the bus station. She took a bus instead of a train fir two reasons. First, she had a tremendous amount of stuff, well over the weight limit for baggage on the train. The second reason was that, much like in America, dogs are not allowed on the train. She had hopped that the dog could sit on her lap on the trip, like he has done in the past when traveling to Zhengzhou; however, the driver insisted that he be in a cage. So, he sat in a cage, on her lap, to Zhengzhou.


In Zhengzhou they met with Sunny, one of my freshmen students who lives in that city. She then assisted them in finding their hotel and she also took Wa Dou for the night, as dogs are not allowed in any of the hotels that Zeneta contacted in Zhengzhou.


The next day they met with Sunny and went to the airport in Zhengzhou (cab from Zhengzhou to Zhengzhou International Airport is about 150? in order to fly to Beijing. It was necessary to fly form Zhengzhou both to reduce the length of the bus ride and because, having obtained his exit papers in Henan province, it was necessary for Wa Dou to leave China from Henan province.

It was at the airport in Zhengzhou that Zeneta ran into her first problem of the exit stage (which is different from the planning stage; or, the, still separate, pre-exit stage [the paperwork stage] ) Gao Jing's ticket was no good. Zeneta had purchased it from Expedia and, as such, her name was written as "Gao Jing" in pin yin (roman characters) instead of 高竟, and only Chinese characters are acceptable for Chinese nationals tickets. Instead of having her name in characters, it would have been acceptable to have her ID number on the ticket; but, that was not there either. As such, the ticket was, simply, not valid.

Zeneta ended up purchasing a ticket for her there, at the airport so that she could continue to accompany Zeneta to Beijing. Other than that, there were no big problems. She was permitted to check in her two large bags and her dishes as regular baggage. The rule is two pieces of baggage so she had taped the two large boxes of dishes together tin order to make them into one box instead of two. However, this still left her at three packages. She was still not charged for the excess baggage. This has given me some encouragement as to getting my bicycle back in June. She was charged extra for Wa Dou, we were prepared for that as the China Air website, clearly, says that animals are charged as excess baggage, even if there is no other baggage. The charge was 10? per Kilogram, or, 100? for Wa Dou and his crate.


They then flew to Beijing where they got their luggage and went through the process of checking it again, they do not transfer your luggage for you in China. You have to retrieve it and check it in at each transfer point. Here they charged the 200? that the China Air website said that it would cost for excess baggage to get Wa Dou on the plane. As before, there was no charge for the dishes, which constituted a third bag.


At that point Gao Jing left Zeneta to idle her time away as she waited to fly, non-stop from Beijing to San Francisco.

The concert

Another week goes by. It seems strange that I am preparing to leave China for the last time; or, at least for a long time. I have lived I this, cold, flat for longer than I lived in Sacramento, Redding, Burney, or Alturas. I am not sure if I have lived here longer than In lived in Chico. I doubt it; but, it has certainly been an interesting episode in my life.

This weeks lessons went very well. In general the students liked the movie. As I have stated, I generally do not like showing movies I class, I consider t to be cheating. There just isn't enough time spent talking as it is. The big problem, the same problem as in language classes around the world, is that the students do not spend time working with the target language outside of class.

We talked about the movie and even the students that did not like it were willing to discuss why. The main reason for students to dislike it was the tragic ending. The students like the pollyannic endings that are so common in the movies that they choose to watch. However, I was extremely pleased that they were willing and able to express this.

The, overall, liked to disliked ratio was about 9-1. I asked them to tell me about why it had to have suck a tragic ending, how they would have liked to see it end, all that stuff. Keep in mind, the point is not film appreciation; instead, it is produce speaking. I have learned a lot of lessons about what works, and what does not, in showing films in class for the purpose of teaching English. This may be the last film I will show, I have not decided yet. A lot of that depends on when I am to conclude classes.

I have begun preparing my final exam for the term. I have floated it past some of the students with the question, “will your classmates be able to do this?” They all agree that their classmates can do it; however, they feel that it will be hard for some of them. That is the reason that I decided to have the exam done in groups of three, so that the stronger students can cover for the weaker ones. This works OK if it is a case of one weak student with two stronger ones. It does not work as well when there are two weak students, leaving one student trying to carry the whole group. The worst case, that fortunately does not happen often, is when the groups break out with all the strong students in their own groups and all the weak students in others.

In addition to classes, I went to a large student party on Friday. I have to add that I am seeing some real changes at this school. As many of you know, this is a new school and is still in its formative years. It is establishing it's culture. Toward that, the leaders here at Haurui are making a great effort to make this into a school that students want to be at, instead of a school they are stuck at.

The party was in the upstairs area of the old cafeteria. This gave them a large open room with space for a public dance area. It was much more of what I would think of as a party than most of th student parties I have been to. The people running it even lost control of the event and it self transformed from the usual 'presentation' format into a free party format. The bad news is that I did not know I was being invited and did not take my camera.

All the same, there were some excellent presentations. One of the students did a great solo dance routine. As I have said, most of the girls at this school are good dancers. This girl stood out above the rest. It is a good thing that she went last; because, once she did her routine the solo dance competition was over. There were games of charades, this is the first time I have seen Chinese playing this game at a party.

They pulled me out to dance with them several times. That does reflect a problem at this party. For over 300 girls there were less than twenty guys. That reflects a problem at this school, not just the activity (… problem...? What problem...? I don't see any problem...). It was a mask party; yes, we were to wear masks. I put my glasses on the outside of my mask, they all loved it, it was suitably silly. Other than the lack of beer, this party could have been mistaken for one anywhere in America.

I left well before the end of the party and the next day returned to the student area of the campus for a concert that was being held at the track. In simple terms, it was a loud rock concert. Most of the bands were student bands of varying quality.

A lot of my students were there and they all seemed to be having fun despite the concert being held outside in the cold. One of the students talking to me commented on how orderly the crowd was being. Yes, compared to a similar crowd of Americans, it was a remarkably well controlled group.

I took my pictures and listened for about an hour and a half. Then I returned to drop off my camera and go to meet with Gao Jing for dinner. While I was waiting for her I happened to run into Fish and she went to dinner with us. We went to Korean restaurant that I have gone to before with Fish (the rice rolls are pretty good). With that, another week passes.

Last day in, and leaving, Chengdu

The next day, our last day in Chengdu, Zeneta and I walked to the Bui Hua Tan Park and the Green Ram Temple. We went there by way of Qing Tai Lu (Road). Qing Tai Lu is a conspicuous shopping street and seems a bit oddly located. I say oddly located because there is no real cluster of tourist activities immediately near it. Like most of the official Chinese shopping districts, the shops feature relatively high end, and very expensive, goods.

Qing Tai Lu ended near one of the many entrances to Bui Hua Tan Park. This park was made to resemble the park described in a famous, fictional, book, in China. It features a rock garden and several small resting pagodas.

From there we walked to the, Taoist, Green Ram Temple. I wanted to make sure that I showed Zeneta a typical temple on this trip because I was concerned that she would leave with a poor understanding of the temples in China. The only others that she had been to were the Shaolin temple and the one in Xinyang. The Shaolin temple was more of a tourist attraction than a working, and worshiping, temple. The one here in Xinyang was just plain weird, it is more of a house of horrors, that one would find at an amusement park, than a traditional temple.

We spent quite a bit of time walking and visiting, the various buildings in this temple. A lot of it was under maintenance, as this was clearly the off season.

We then returned to our hostel and waited to meet Helen in order to return to the train station. We had no trouble with the waiting room as Zeneta and I had soft sleeper tickets and we made it clear that Helen, who had a hard sleeper ticket, was with us.

After a very short wait we boarded. Zeneta ended up helping Helen with her ticket and finding her car. This was Helen's first time on a train in China and it eased things for her , a bit, by showing her and talking about the rules and practices, regarding tickets.

On this train they did ask to see our passports, this is something that surprised Zeneta as she had not been asked for her passport on previous train journeys. I was not as surprised because I have been asked for mine, in the past, and it is more common in Soft Sleeper. This is because Soft Sleeper is how foreigners are expected, and supposed, to travel. As a result, the system is in place to ask for the passports. In hard sleeper the system in place only asks for Chinese to produce documents; because, that is all they expect to have in hard sleepers. (before you say that this is imposing, try to get on an airplane without official ID)

I could see this as a problem for a Chinese-American traveling in China. Once the police in the train see us they, pretty much, leave us alone and tell us that they do not need our papers. I could foresee problems with a person who is not obviously non-Chinese, yet unable to produce an identity card and does not speak the language. We, as westerners, often do not have our passport on our person, I think it would be near foolish for a Chinese-American, traveling in China, to not have theirs on their person, or at least a copy of it, at all times.