I went to the train station yesterday to check on ticket prices to Chengdu (成都).  If you are not familiar with China’s geography Chengdu is the capitol city of the Sichuan province to the southeast of us.  We have friends from the U.S. who are moving to Chengdu for work in the near future.  We told them that Chengdu is a place we folks from Xining like to go on vacation.  This isn’t precisely true.  Some of our friends here in Xining don’t like Chengdu at all.  It’s very hot in the summer and often very overcast (with its fair share of pollution) and rainy in the winter.

When we visited Chengdu in February 2006 we enjoyed it because it was NOT very hot at all, it was overcast, there was a nice panda bear reserve there, and due to all the western style coffee shops and slight drizzle it felt a bit Seattle-esque to us.  We are starved for western cuisine out here in the Wild West (um…, or center) of China.  Even though the Chinese food is excellent, you can only eat at KFC so many times in any given year for that little taste of "home" before you start looking and feeling like the Colonel.   (He’s dead by the way.)

It’s funny how your vacation ideas change when living cross-culturally.  Now we travel to cities more for the food options than for the sights, tourist attractions, and entertainment.  Anyway, we’re considering spending a few days down south for some good Tex Mex, hamburgers, Starbucks, and cheesecake.  The cheapest way for our family to do this on our budget is to take the train.  So, yesterday, I thought I would check on prices and maybe even buy tickets.  Well, you learn a lot at the train station.  Here are few pearls of wisdom I either discovered or was reminded of yesterday:

1. The Chinese word 明天 "mingtian" or tomorrow, from the Chinese perspective as least, is not actually a curse word.  To the western mind it may feel or be received this way, especially if you would like something done today.  Rest assured, they use this word as freely with locals as they do with foreigners.  Little orphan Annie would love it here, "Tomorrow, tomorrow…"
2. Planning ahead is for pansies.  I have not translated this sentence into Chinese yet but suspect there must be some equivalent.  It seems that buying train tickets 10 days before the desired departure date is actually way too early.  "Mingtian lai" (Come back tomorrow.)  In my country if you want to travel by plane without paying astronomical prices, it’s best to buy your tickets at the very least a couple weeks in advance.  In China, if you wait until the day before you wish to depart you can sometimes get tickets up to 60% off.  Sometimes.  Procrastinator’s paradise I say.
3. Taking a trial run, expecting nothing, helps preserve sanity.  Though there are some same-day services here in China, most things follow the "mingtian" rule.  If I’m going to the bank, to the registrar’s office, or to buy train tickets, I am learning to lower my expectations (to nothing) and expect that I’ll have to come back once, twice, or even three times to ultimately complete my task.  The first trip has become what I call the "sacrifice" trip.  I go to the place where I want to withdraw money or pay for a certain service; I leave my libation on the altar (in the form of a question or request), the Clerk God/Oracle consumes the gift offering, gives the revelation (Mingtian!) and then I go about my merry way.  If I have to come back just one more time to complete the cycle, that’s a very successful expedition.  Learning to perform this ritual has helped with my cultural adaptation and high blood pressure.
4. There’s no free lunches…for Americans.  When I asked the clerk at the train station if I could get a student discount she said, Yes.  She asked me what country I was from.  I said, "America."  She took my student ID into the back room, probably had a good chuckle, and then returned.  She flopped my ID on the counter like a dead fish and said, "Bu xing." (Trans: Not OK.)  Talk about your standard Jekyll and Hyde situation.  I was so flabbergasted I made the mistake of getting out of the line.  Important rule:  If there is a distinguishable line formed in China, never, ever, ever let yourself fall out of it unless you’re truly and unquestionably finished with whatever business you were seeing to.  It’s kind of like feeding Gremlins after midnight.  Very bad, unalterable consequences.
5. The Help Desk might not be.  Contrary to universal intent, a desk marked with a label that says "help" or "customer service" or "information" may lend itself to those types of things or it might just be a place where a random guy has chosen to sit down because there are no other chairs in the room.  This was the case yesterday.  Oh, he might have been somehow employed by the train station, but whenever anyone asked him a question he seemed irritated and he just pointed to the ticket-selling windows.  I didn’t bother him.
6. In the summer don’t go to Lhasa.  Granted, Tibet is not nearly as accommodating in the winter, but believe me when I say you don’t want to try to buy a train ticket to Lhasa in the summer these days.  The train ticket clerks don’t even bother saying "mingtian" when people ask about Lhasa tickets.  They just wave their hand in your face and roll their eyes.  Plus, the way I see it, since all the Europeans seem to be headed to Lhasa during the summer it would be a good time and opportunity to overthrow the EU.  Yeah, Crete.  Take it to ’em.
7. Don’t get cynical.  I know all of these messages seem negative, but the situations themselves are actually quite funny once you get used to them.  Some of them anyway.  I try not to stand behind foreigners who are line up at the train station cause that line will move very slow, but generally, we are good-natured, fun-loving folks.  Except when we’ve been mingtian-ed to death…

Heed these words of wisdom when living in China.