Shanghai Railway Station. Alone at night, I’m trying to get to Nanjing. Suspicious looking, desperate: the people here make me uneasy…the knot in my stomach loosening and tightening but never disappearing. Earlier I had bought a ticket for the D402 leaving for Nanjing at 6:10AM and then realized that the K528 would go there at 4:30. The teller had told me that there was no train. She didn’t even check. She was just being lazy. I waited until she closed her window before trying the other one, the non-English speaking one, with its small crowd of buyers grouped like goldfish making for the last breadcrumb. I stopped myself; I’d seen both tellers’ eye-rolling glances earlier. What was the point? She’d just say the same thing…in Chinese. I backed away from this little crowd that never seemed to shrink, never seemed to grow. Near me, a thin man with a moustache and a drawn face, who looked to be in his forties, carefully checked the ticket he’d just bought. His white sports jacket, dark shirt, black pants, and shiny black square-toed shoes so popular among Chinese men may have been clean when he first put them on, but now, his appearance, like everyone else’s there, including mine, was haggard and dusty. We were taking the same train. “Qĭngwèn; tā méi yŏu K528, duì ba?” The man looked up, a little surprised. “Duì. Méi yŏu.” “Xiè xie.” “Nĭ zŏu zhè gè huŏchē qù ma?” I nodded. I was glad that I’d been wrong about the teller. “Wŏ yĕ qù Nánjīng.” I continued, “Wŏmen dĕi dĕng shíjiān hĕn cháng.” A couple’s argument erupted and died out. I shook my right hand in the universal sign of instability and he shook his head in acknowledgement. Motioning for me to follow, we went into the station itself, up the long escalator, past a few all-night kiosks, to the bright, cavernous, nearly empty Waiting Room #4, where a large TV monitor played Olympic promos under a board listing the next group of departing trains. The big clock above it just mocked us. Midnight. With a seat between us, we faced a little man in a cheap blue suit sleeping fitfully in the fetal position across three chairs. At a railway station, especially at night, everything is measured and conserved in relation to the length of your wait and how much further you have to go. The longer these are, the more economical your movements. Sitting. Standing. Checking the time. Making our way much further through a conversation than I had thought possible. I wasn’t even a little bit excited by this, looking at it then, and even now, as some sort of out-of-body experience. But, from that point on, when I went to use the restroom, I left my bags; partially because I was tired of carrying them, but also because I didn’t want to offend this man, who without knowing I’d begun to like. By 3:30 a light, steady draft that made me shiver had begun to blow in from the outside darkness and by 4AM, I wobbled unsteadily whenever I stood up. By 4:30, I was seeing double. Bored looking, blue uniformed station workers now herded us all to the main corridor, closing off the room with a portable event fence, punching tickets one by one. Returning, the lit numbers and departure times soon began to change from yellow to green to red, as trains came in and were boarded. The night draft was now a morning breeze. Slowed by my bags in the confusion of the D402 crowd, the man in the white jacket stopped and waited for me. In the same car, we gave each other a wave as he took his seat and I continued on to mine. Lulled into and snapping out of semi-consciousness, abruptly revived by Zijin Shan outside my window. A pat on the white dusty sleeve and a “Zàijiàn.” as we pulled in to the station. Stranded in Shanghai, I was now late. I didn’t wait. I couldn’t. Through the tunnel, the relief and light of the forgiving Nanjing sun.

Note: Below is a loose translation of the Chinese used in the above essay. At least this is what I thought I’d said and heard.

Matt: “Qĭngwèn; tā méi yŏu K528, duì ba?” (Pardon me; she doesn’t have the K528, right?)

Man In The White Jacket: “Duì. Méi yŏu.” (Right. There aren’t any [tickets].)

Matt: “Xiè xie.” (Thanks.)

Man In The White Jacket: “Nĭ zŏu zhè gè huŏchē qù ma?” (Are you taking this train?)

Matt: “Wŏ yĕ qù Nánjīng.” (I am also going to Nanjing.)
“Wŏmen dĕi dĕng shíjiān hĕn cháng.” (We have to wait a long time.)

Matt: “Zàijiàn.” (Goodbye.)