I do not recommend that you start your vacation this way:

As you already may have surmised from previous posts, the Johnson family recently took an excursion south of the border (of Qinghai) into the Sichuan province for some western amenities and a change of scenery.  We started our trip with a day long train ride.  The train departed Xining at around 8:15 in the morning and was scheduled to arrive in Chengdu the follow morning a little before 11:00 a.m.  For the most part this scheduled plan worked…except for a few details.

The first thing that happened was that our train got behind schedule at some point.  Whether from the heavy rains or the mountain passes that we had to travel through, something delayed us along our route.  This wouldn’t be such a big deal except for the fact that once a train gets behind schedule in China the trip is kind of written off as a lost cause.  No effort is made to "catch up" or "make up for lost time".  Late is late, whether by 15 minutes or by five hours it makes no difference.  We started to become suspicious when the train stopped in the middle of the night and stayed parked for probably 2 hours!  Once a train in China is deemed irrevocably late in this manner the train is no longer given any priority on the rails.  So we soon discovered that whenever another "punctual train" came upon our pokey train, we were forced to pull over (to use car terminology) and let them pass us.

It was slow going to say the least.

We did eventually arrive in Chengdu the next day, but our train was 3 hours late.  OK, so it was a 29 hour train ride instead of a 26er.  Big deal, right?  After all we had a comfortable soft-sleeper train car all to ourselves.  It’s not like we were in the back of a smoke-filled, stinky long-distance bus.

But in our enthusiasm to get off the train after so many hours we missed one detail.  We left something behind.  Don’t worry it was NOT one of our beautiful children.  That would be bad.

It wasn’t until 3 hours later when I stepped out of the shower at the home we were lodging in that the shocking discovery was finally made.  Christa with saucer-round eyes asked me, "Where’s the black suitcase?"

Me, in true form, "What black suitcase?"

Uh-oh.

It’s on the train!!!  Scramble time.

In our rush to get off of the train, we had missed and left a small, black carry-on suitcase underneath the bed in our train car.  It was such a small thing.  A small thing containing all of my wife’s clothes for the trip, all of my children’s clothes for the trip, our camera battery charger, sunscreen, bug spray.  You get the picture.

Dictionary, train tickets, passport, contact numbers and addresses in tow, I was back in the cab forthwith.

Although my Chinese is getting better and better over time, I can’t say I relish these new "language" problem solving situations very much.  As the driver zipped me back to the train station I rehearsed dialog scenarios in my head as a jar of dragonflies swum around inside my stomach.  That bag is just a GONER I thought.  I was tense. 

As you may have gathered from my previous train post, train stations are chaotic enough doing standard procedures (buying tickets, checking in, etc.) but this was a whole new plateau of entropy I was heading towards.  I could read the headlines that would soon be reflected in the Asian eyes I would see before me: Bone-Headed Foreigner Forgets Suitcase on Train. 

Somebody, please kill me now!

Approaching the Information window there was a line of about 20 people in front of me.  I looked at it and brooded for a few minutes.  It looked more like a ticket window than an information booth.  I decided to just go back to the area where we had disembarked and ask some of the train attendants there.  Not finding a "lost luggage" area anywhere, I just swam upstream and talked to a train attendant at the arrival exit.  I explained the situation to him and asked him if anyone had found the black carry-on on the Xining train.  He discussed this with another train attendant.  First they said, "Come back on Monday," but to my surprise then said, "Just a second, we’ll look around.  Wait a moment."  One of the guys left and went into a room.  He quickly returned and said he didn’t see anything.  The train we had arrived on was already on its way back to Xining!  The brain trust then told me to call the Xining train station and have them look for it when it arrived there the next day. 

It’s a goner I thought again.

But I thought I’d better at least try the information booth.  I walked back over to that area and stood in line for a few minutes.  The women behind the window looked like very angry workers.  They grimaced a lot and spoke harshly in unhelpful tones.  They must put up with a lot.  I got out of line twice before I had the courage to wait it out and talk to them.  Once I got up to the window and explained my situation I was not surprised when they tersely directed me back to the area I had just been to to speak to the brain trust that I had just had my pointless pow-wow with.  This was going nowhere fast.

Finally, after one more discussion with the brain trust in which I tried (and failed) to acquire the phone number of the train station in Xining, I decided to take radical action.  I deliberated whether or not such action would be necessary, but it was my last ditch effort to recover our lost suitcase.  It was a long shot, but for my own sense of honor and for the urgent wardrobe considerations of my family I decided it was worth a shot.  My risky solution: go over everyone’s head, sneak back into the train station, and plead my case before the benevolent folks in the VIP lounge.  Ha!

You think I’m kidding.

The first hurdle was getting past security.  There are always long lines outside of the train station because they check everyone’s tickets going in.  I had tickets but they were date-stamped from the day before.  As I approached the train security personnel checking the tickets I flashed my obsolete ticket like Fox Mulder swooshing his FBI badge.  This would not have worked if I had an Asian face, but since I have a white, hairy face and a big nose, the attendant didn’t even ask to touch my ticket–much less examine it for authenticity.  I swept through security and raced for the VIP lounge.  The VIP lounge is where we elite "soft-sleeper" passengers are allowed to wait for our train to depart.  No lines, comfortable seating area, sometimes air-conditioning, and no questions asked.  It’s a beautiful system. If anyone would be willing to help me it would be these elitist back-scratcher types.

With my best puppy dog eyes, I explained my predicament for the umpteenth time to a sharply dressed, young Chinese VIP attendant.  She looked concerned, thoughtful, and then ready to take action.  She asked me to follow her.  YES!

She lead me to the desk of the Assistant Train Station Manager and helped me explain the situation to this sharply dressed woman.  They asked me a few questions about the luggage.  Then they took out a train schedule and looked at their watches.  Things were going smashingly well!  After a few minutes of searching they found the city where the train we had been on was coming to next on its way back to Xining.  The Assistant Manager got on her phone, dialed a number, and began to discuss my situation quickly in Chinese.  The call took about two minutes, after which time the two KIND ladies told me that they would look for the suitcase in such-in-such city.  If they found it in our train car, they said they would give us a call later in the evening.  They took down my name and phone number.  I thanked them heartily and left.

Eureka!  This was the best I could have ever asked for.  Even if the black suitcase was gone at least there was still a chance…  At least someone was doing something to try and help us poor, absent-minded foreigners out.

Conclusion:  Later that evening we got a phone call.  They had found our suitcase on the train and it was heading back to Chengdu that night.  It would be back at 11:00 p.m. but we were free to come get it–when?  Tomorrow (Mingtian!)  I have never been so happy to hear a Chinese person say, "Mingtian".  When I arrived the next day to pick up the lost luggage I had to explain myself one more time to a different Manager, but luckily for me they had been briefed on the situation.  I had to describe what was in the suitcase and there was a little bit of a problem because I couldn’t fill out a "report" in Chinese characters, but after I gave them my passport information and a Xining phone number they seemed satisfied that I was the owner of the bag.

I thought it was a miracle getting the luggage back at all, but to add to it nothing was missing from the bag. Since we thought the bag was likely a goner, before we got the call, the girls bought an outfit each to wear for the next day.  Bonus!  (I’m still in shock that this all worked actually.)

So even though our vacation got off to a rocky start, alls well that ends well.  I learned a valuable lesson about VIP service as well.  You get what you pay for.  It pays off to go in style–if one can afford it.  And even if you can’t sometimes being a foreigner does have a few perks over here.