Many observers outside China—including those just visiting
and impressed with all they do see in the Beijing-Shanghai corridor while
remaining uninformed about the Great Remaining China that they don’t--like to
talk about the major forces of modernization that mold this nation.
They’re not completely wrong, of course. But many miss that
China is shaped locally, often seasonally, by events outside the window—that
is, that the China they see from their seats isn’t what residents in China
experience when they look at that same transport racing by them.
A case in point is what’s been happening in Nanjing in the
past few weeks where the railroads are concerned.
In more than one sense, China’s railway system is a class
system. Not just its seating based on price, but the division between
high-speed [高铁] rail and the remaining express trains
that can run travel as far, but at a slower pace and for lower prices. The
latter route is how many migrant workers travel--passengers who are closed out
of the high-speed train option and flying from one city to another.
For most long-time residents of Nanjing, the transformation
in train ticketing and travel options is nothing short of astonishing. 20 years
ago, residents and visitors would camp outside stations overnight and often
longer to try to get seats on a train. They’d often end up disappointed,
discovering that many tickets had already been distributed to officials, state
work-units, local military personnel—or sold to middlemen who would scalp them
to customers who had played by the public rules but were foiled by the hidden
ones.
Almost nothing of the sort happens now. Residents here in
Nanjing, as everywhere else in China, mostly reserve tickets online using apps
on their cellphones, or queue up at ticket windows beneath large tote boards
telling them the number of seats actually available for that day and the next
5. The service at those windows can get a bit surly as shifts are approaching
an end, for it’s something of a thankless job for those trying to cope with
customers. But apart from holidays, finding train transport in and out of
Nanjing is no longer the heroic, often martyr-like mission it had been for most
people. This is now a rail system that works—and works very well—for nearly
everyone.
Still, if you’re a laborer looking for work, a farmer
seeking to sell this season’s sweet melons, or a family eager to reconnect with
cousins for a wedding, this modernization has largely left you on the wrong
side of the tracks. Many of those workers on the move in China aren’t aware
that options other than lining up outside a ticket window at a train station
are available; they have cellphone but not the link to an account to draw from.
And more than a few would-be passengers opt for the only train they know, one
they’ve traveled on before—trains that race through crossings very much like this one, which carries passengers on, among other routes, runs from Beijing to
Fuzhou, the capital of Fujian province:
Seeing and hearing these trains is nostalgic for many in
Nanjing, even if some local car owners bemoan the irregular closing of
crossings that lead to traffic buildups in a city that already sees enough of
them. They offer a glimpse at a past that’s speeding away, as well as a fairly
reliable route for those fortunate enough to score seats or sleepers on these
trains.
But one problem is that these types of trains are slowly being
decommissioned across China. It’s true that, at various places in Nanjing and
in adjoining counties and townships, local residents continue to hear the
strains of trains racing through their area in the late evening and very early
morning hours. But that’s because an increasing amount of rail equipment has
been converted to use as freight transport to move goods bought online—which is
largely good for the economy, local and otherwise. The mothballing and
diversion of slower trains for the movement of goods instead of people means
that many migrant workers, laborers, and contractors looking for work across
provinces have to take a long-distance bus—a less certain and sometimes more
dangerous transport. Their train—the one they had been relying on to contribute
to China’s economy—has left the station, or at least, it’s not stopping for
them.
What’s made matters even more challenging this year is the massive
flooding in south China—flooding that hasn't reached Nanjing and may not,
but which has nonetheless disrupted rail traffic on the main north-south line
shown above. The non-high speed trains continue to run, but not
nearly as regularly as a few weeks ago, because many trains are being shunted
into waiting yards. Delivery times of goods are being delayed; laborers find
themselves stranded in places where work has been halted; and soon, with the
school year winding down, students will have a tougher time making their way
back home. The transport disparities that China’s type of modernization has generated--very good for many, not as beneficial for others--look to be even starker this season.
The national dynamics that help drive China impress many passing
through, and they should. But these forces vary by place, and officials and residents living
here—or just trying to get through--will be focused in the days ahead about how
their local lives will be affected by the local elsewhere.
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