By eight the next morning Hulan was back on the train and heading south another seven hours to Taiyuan. She had been fortunate enough to book a soft seat for this second day. The compartment had two sets of bunks, and each person was required to sit on his or her own bed for the duration of the trip. The man who occupied the bunk across from Hulan put a newspaper over his face, fell asleep, and began to snore, prompting another man to shout out, "Roll over! You're making it impossible for any of us to sleep." The man did as he was told, and soon the other two occupants drifted off as well. On the table by the window, a brochure extolled this train's modern virtues in quaint, imaginative English:
Dear passengers, security, polite, and hospitality are the service aim of our crew. Please remember:
1. Never speak taboo words.
2. Keep the interior of the car clean and tidy. The environment must be graceful.
3. Our food dishes are meticulously prepared and have four features-color, fragrance, taste, and shape. Moslem food is also available.
4. When you are in car, please use the complement gloves.
Under the table Hulan found a basket with the gloves, a large thermos filled with hot water, and porcelain cups with lids. When a young woman attendant came by with packets of tea for purchase, Hulan inquired if there was some way to turn down the loudspeaker. The attendant not only said that she could but offered to turn the speaker off entirely. Soon the high-pitched announcements were replaced by the gentle sighs of the sleeping men and the soothing pulse of the train moving along the track. And although this train was also bereft of air conditioning, an oscillating fan circulated the warm air. This, combined with the hot towels that the attendant brought by periodically, made this day's I journey almost pleasant.
How different all this was from the last time Hulan traveled to and | from Da Shui Village! In 1970 she had joined other friends and neighbors! from Beijing on a train that superficially looked like this. That train had been packed, overflowing really, with other young Beijingers. (She remembered one whole brigade of kids who'd climbed on the roof of the train and had stayed there for the whole trip.) Hulan and the others had worn old army uniforms handed down from parents. They had spouted slogans, although secretly they'd rejoiced that they were just being sent to the west instead of the Great Northern Wilderness along the desolate and inhospitable Russian border. They had harassed the compartment attendants, even booting some of them off the train. In one village, a group-not one of them over sixteen years old-had decided that the train's engineer and those who helped him were running dogs of capitalism tied to the old ways. These people were set on the station platform and harangued for two days. Villagers came out to watch the spectacle. Finally someone realized that none of them was ever going to get out of that godforsaken place unless the engineer and his helpers were put back on the train.
Coming back to Beijing two years later had been no different. That trip too was plagued by numerous stops for rallies and struggle meetings. Instead of reaching Beijing by sundown on the direct route, it had also taken two days. That time Hulan, fourteen years old and still filled with the wild passions that were so much a part of the Cultural Revolution, had traveled in the safe and comforting company of Uncle Zai. Meanwhile her father had been under house arrest in their hutong home and her mother, having fallen from a second-story balcony, had lain in the dirt outside an office building during Zai's four-day round trip to retrieve Hulan from the countryside. The people at the office had worked for Hulan's father for many years. They had all known Jinli, but they had been forbidden to come to her aid. By the time Zai and Hulan reached Beijing, Jinli was crippled and her mind destroyed.
The closer Hulan got to Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi Province, the more she worried about coming back to this place of so much bloodshed and sorrow. Shanxi meant "west of the mountains," and the entire province was a mountainous plateau that looked out over the fertile North China Plain. That rich land had been attractive to foreign aggressors for millennia. In ancient times invaders had come from the north. Their first obstacle was the Great Wall; their second and more formidable barrier was Taiyuan. This city had seen more violence over the last two thousand years than any other in China. Those centuries of bloody turmoil lay buried in the soil and in the souls of the people of this province.
Hulan's train pulled into Taiyuan at three-thirty. She made her way out onto the street, flagged down a dented Chinese-made taxi, and asked to be taken to the bus stop for Da Shui Village. As a young girl she had been to Taiyuan only a few times-when she'd come and left on the train and on those occasions when her team at the Red Soil Farm had participated in demonstrations at the Twin Pagodas, the double temples located on a hill that served as the city's emblem. In those days few automobiles or trucks plied the streets. Instead the avenues and alleyways that made up the city had been filled with the reassuring hum of bicycles transporting people and merchandise. The air-even on a hot and humid day like this one-had been clear and filled with the perfume of flowering trees and the rich soil that even in the middle of the city exuded a warm scent.
Twenty-five years had passed, and Taiyuan was not at all what Hulan expected. Her taxi driver jolted the car in and out of bumper-to-bumper traffic. He kept his hand on the horn, despite Hulan's repeated requests that he stop. She rolled down her window-it was too hot not to-and her nostrils filled with exhaust and other fumes that spewed from factory chimneys.
These last ten years had seen an invasion of another sort to Taiyuan. American companies, the driver explained, had set up joint-venture coal mines in the outlying areas and export companies in town. Australians were raising special pigs, which were not as fat as local pigs and considered to be far more tasty. New Zealanders had arrived with sheep to grow wool for carpets. Germans and Italians, meanwhile, had gotten into heavy industry. These varied enterprises had brought prosperity to the city. All around Hulan saw construction sites for offices and foreign hotels. For now, though, foreigners stayed at the Shanxi Grand Hotel. "Year in, year out, they live there," the driver said. "Those VIP-ers have water every day, all day, while in the rest of the city we only get water on certain days of the week." Then he added, bragging, "I went inside the Shanxi once. It was amazing, but then you think of the new hotels…" He sucked air through his teeth. "The Shanxi Grand will seem like nothing once they open."