First China Train Trip Fiasco!

Unforgettable train trip from Dongying to Tai'an - Part 1

It’s just the beginning of 2025 and I already have over 20 new drafts clamouring for completion! However I decided to ditch all those (because I don’t like someone telling me what to do - especially when it’s myself!) and start 2025 with a delightfully (in retrospect) grand misadventure I had at the dawn of my 76 month World Adventure. Although I didn’t know it at the time (because I had not the slightest idea I was going to travel to 76 new countries in the following six and a half years), this is where it all started! The story has become increasingly legendary over the years, as all great stories do. Names have been changed to protect the guilty. Firstly, a little context (this is the condensed version).

I arrived in mainland China for the first time in August 2017, after a long, eleven and a half hour direct flight from Vancouver to the eastern coastal megacity I’d never heard of before, Qingdao (metro population 8 million), in Shandong province. After spending the first day recovering from jetlag, the following three days I met the three other newly hired foreign teachers in the program and we all went through an orientation for the university prep program we would soon be teaching.

Nathan was the first teacher I met at the hotel. A tall, heavy-set, bald Australian in his early 30’s with tats and wearing oddly inappropriate, orange-tinted square sunglasses, a crisp white t-shirt, black jeans and Doc Martens (and possibly carrying a switchblade). He was walking with a decided limp while vaping (the only thing missing was a black eye patch). There couldn’t have possibly been a bigger contrast with the suit, tie and dress shoes I was still wearing from my flight (and sweating in like a pig from the 35 degree heat) as we literally walked into each other coming around a corner in opposite directions. As I picked myself up off the floor, I briefly wondered if I should be worried about the company’s hiring practices (or of more immediate concern, my personal safety). However I quickly dismissed the thought after Nathan extended his hand in a warm greeting and we exchanged a hearty handshake. After initial pleasantries were concluded, Nathan informed me he used to be a mercenary in Papua New Guinea.

Diane was a 30 something Filipina who had spent more than a decade on and off in China. Before becoming a teacher she had a high profile marketing job which entailed lots of work on yachts in the South China Sea and a gray zone entry into the country before that. She was a gregarious (my god she could talk!) individual with more than a touch of drama queen about her, who knew how to talk her way into peoples’ good graces and then curry (extract) favours. Along with her penchant for fashion, these characteristics earned her the good-natured nickname “Diva” from the rest of us - which she wore as a badge of honour!

Finally there was Charles from South Africa, who had also lived and worked in China for many years along with many other countries. He was very much like me in a way - very curious about the world and always thirsty for new knowledge and adventures - a great story teller who personally convinced me to go to many countries that hadn’t been on my radar, like Laos, Namibia, Sri Lanka and Myanmar. At first he was quiet (that would soon change, total misread on my part), well-mannered, sophisticated, very intelligent and professional. Charles was especially beloved by everybody because of his personal warmth slightly disguised by sarcasm, and possessing a very honest and fantastic sense of humour. He had a low threshold for tolerating BS (living in China for a long time probably didn’t help) and would initially get angry about something such as strangers staring or trying to jump into a group picture, but then it would quickly turn into something to be mocked and laughed at and soon he would have everyone laughing their heads off with him. Charles ended up becoming a very good friend and much hilarity has ensued over the years. Making friends like this is a blessing.

Qingdao was run as a colony by the Germans from 1898-1914 and during that time they built the first brewery in China which has been producing Tsingtao Beer, China’s national brand, ever since. One weird thing is that you can buy the beer in a plastic bag if you so desire. I declined as it reminded me of something else. Cans sufficed for me, thank you very much! In any event, it comes as no surprise that Qingdao has China’s biggest international beer festival each August - the timing of our orientation was fortuitous. Finishing the last day of our official business early, we headed over to the nearby festivities and had a blast. We put the “international” in the beer festival (because we were the only foreigners in sight) and attracted a fair amount of attention. At one pub we stumbled into we ended up getting posed in a picture with uniformed serving staff that we were told was going to be used in an advertisement. I believe that business went bankrupt shortly afterwards.

Before we departed to our respective cities to start the school year, we agreed to meet up again the following month when we would have a long weekend for the Mid-Autumn Festival Holiday. The occasion was Diane’s and Charles’s birthdays and Diane invited us to stay over at her apartment in Tai’an and have a BBQ birthday party. While we were all living in Shandong, only Diane and Nathan were living in Tai’an. Charles was living in Zaozhuang, 180 km to the south, but it was on the high speed train line so he could get to Tai’an in 40 minutes. However, I was 250 km to the NE in Dongying and we had no high speed rail, so getting to Tai’an would require taking the old “slow” train to the provincial capital of Jinan (metro population 8.5 million) where I would transfer to the high speed, a trip of roughly 4 hours. What could go wrong?!

Anyways, once I got to my (gigantic) school in Dongying (which I’ll write about in future posts as it was home base for one year) I met the two other foreign teachers at my school, Eric from Ghana and Angela from the Philippines. They had taught at the school the previous year and helped me get adjusted to my new surroundings. We went out the first couple of weekends for karaoke and to enjoy some Chinese Hot Pot and since we got along well I decided to invite them to the BBQ in Tai’an. To be honest, I also didn’t want to have to figure the train out by myself - I spoke not a lick of Chinese at the time. Turns out they only knew slightly more than me, and they’d never taken the train out of Dongying. Even the Chinese staff hadn’t (they were also from far away regions) relying on the buses or using the airport instead. There were no flights to Tai’an and although there was a bus, it was an hour longer than the train and I couldn’t book bus tickets online, only train tickets (welcome to China). So I booked the three of us train tickets a week before and let the school know of our plans.

Dongying is one of the newest cities in China, only developed since the 1970’s due to the discovery of oil nearby. Although it has over 2 million people, the locals refer to it as a “village.” It is very spread out and the train station is almost an hour away from the school by taxi. Departure time was on a Friday at 3 pm so we figured we should be there at 2 (because all Chinese railway stations have airport level security checks due to several violent incidents in the past) which meant leaving at 1. However, our school was in a taxi dead zone as it was at the edge of the city. The city had banned the Didi taxi hailing app (which had an English version) due to a series of assaults (this stuff happens more than you think in China but it hardly ever gets reported) and while there was another company’s app available it was in Chinese only, so we had to get someone at the school to call for a taxi, extremely inconvenient and time-consuming. Thus we decided to leave at 12 to account for that and for the fact that it was a holiday weekend when all Chinese are travelling at the same time (welcome to China).

So we manage to get a cab and everything is going well, until the driver asks us which train station we want to go to. What?! There’s another train station?! Apparently there was an old station and a new station but our tickets just said Dongying so we didn’t know which one. Stress level rising. The two stations are about 30 minutes apart so getting the wrong one would substantially cut into our contingency time. The driver phoned the railway company and after a couple of minutes figured out which station to take us to. The good thing is taxis are usually very cheap in China and that hour ride only cost about 8 dollars split three ways! After dropping us off we next had to get into the security lineup to enter the station and there were already at least 100 people lined up ahead of us, lines being a figment of the imagination in China. That took about another 30 minutes. Next we had to line up to pick up our physical tickets. Foreigners must pick up their pre-booked tickets in person at the station by presenting their id. Another 30 minutes in line and lines in China are always full of queue jumpers which used to make my blood boil. I never completely got used to that - but it was super convenient when I was the one who had to butt in line (more about that later). Finally we get our physical tickets, sweaty and tired from the two hours preceeding, and find a place to sit down with 15 minutes to spare before boarding. Of course we are the only foreigners in the building and attracting a lot of attention. Eric can speak some Chinese so we end up in a hilarious discussion with a man and his wife sitting next to us. They were very friendly and at one point the man jokingly attempted to give his wife away to Eric in exchange for Angela while his wife said it sounded like a good deal to her because it was easier than murder! Everyone within earshot was laughing and smiling. Because this was a local train, many of the passengers were humble and down to earth migrant workers or students, definitely not people with money. They were very friendly (maybe a little too friendly) people who really appreciated it if you even attempted a Ni Hao (hello) or Xie Xie (thank you) in Chinese. They absolutely marvelled at Eric’s intermediate level Chinese along with the fact that he was a PhD candidate from Africa.

Boarding soon commenced and it was the usual pushing and shoving cluster. Having lived in Japan many years ago (the Japanese are super polite - until it comes to the train during rush hour) I was somewhat used to it. We all had pre-assigned seating so I wasn’t concerned. We made our way to our 4 seat compartment and settled in. Eric was chatting with a couple of passengers in the corridor and then walked off with them. Ten minutes later he comes back and tells us to join him in another compartment. Turns out he had struck up a conversation with some university students and they invited him to join them for food and drinks. We were now also invited so we made our way down the train to meet them. The group of them were soon sharing their food and drink with us and conversing easily in English. Here is where I was coerced into trying Baiju for the first time (basically the national spirit of China, akin to drinking industrial strength anti-freeze). A couple of shots of that and we were all in trouble.

I don’t remember much about the following 4 hours until we arrived in Jinan. Here we needed to transfer (stumble) to the high speed train for a brief 20 minute ride to Tai’an, 75km to the south. In a previous post I mentioned that Murphy’s Law and myself have a fairly strong relationship. Well, prepare to meet Murphy’s Law! We located the high speed train entrance and grabbed a seat in the waiting area. However, we soon noticed, even in our inebriated state, that the train station was incredibly packed. All the departure screens had a message in red scrolling along the bottom with exclamation marks. Eric asked around and it turned out that all trains were currently delayed. In fact, no trains were currently being allowed to enter the station due to some kind of power failure affecting the signalling system. No one knew how long it would last. Everyone was trying to call whoever was waiting for them to tell them about the delay. There were no available cell phone chargers and I noticed my phone was now at 20% charged. I called Charles in Tai’an to let him know we were being delayed, as he was going to meet us at the school in Tai’an to take us to Diane’s apartment. We waited for two hours and wondered if we would be stuck in Jinan for the night. Then we decided to try to exchange our tickets for the very last high speed train of the evening, just in case they solved the problem, and while there were still tickets available. The problem is that the ticket office is almost always in a separate building than Departures which means you have to exit security and reenter - more time-sucking delay! Nonetheless, we persevered with our course of action. Of course there were massive lines at the multiple ticket counters but Eric just went along asking in Chinese if we could butt in because it was an emergency - and it was no problem! Amazing! We finally get to the front of the line and rebooked our tickets for the last train. We then made our way back through security and up to Angela in Departures.

At that moment I looked at my ticket and for some $^%$^%$ reason, they had changed the date of my ticket and my ticket alone to the following day! So again we went back over to the ticket office to get it fixed. We butt in line again and this time the ticket agent regretfully informs me that there are now no more ticlets available on the last high speed train of the day. However there is a local train that will arrive in Taian around 1 am. I booked it! Just as I got my ticket reissued for a second time and for a different train, the station announced that trains were running again - so a huge crush of people instantaneously poured out of the ticket office and created a huge jam up in front of the security screening to get back into Departures. So we butted in to that line as well. I was drenched in sweat by this point, totally stressed out, still a little affected by the Baiju but nonetheless we made it back to Angela. At this point I told Eric and Angela to board their train and I would figure out my arrival later. At this point my phone was down to 10% so I texted Charles to let him know what was going on and then proceeded to wait for my slow train, by myself.

When I finally boarded the slow train just before midnight I noticed I was the only foreigner on board. Soon people were coming up to me and offering drinks, the last thing I needed - but it is rude to refuse so I didn’t. Luckily I made it to Tai’an and managed to scrape myself off the train. At this point I only had a 4% charge and the address of the school. I found a taxi after waiting a few minutes and he knew where to go thank god. With only a 1% charge left on my phone I managed a quick text to Charles telling him I would soon be at the school - and then my phone went dead. Hopefully he got the text I told myself. I arrived at the school a few minutes later and Charles was actually there to meet me at 2 am. If he hadn’t gotten my last message I would been sleeping on a park bench that night. Welcome to China!

I will post Part 2 in a few days. Please stay tuned!