From the train

The scenery of China seems to alternate between green and gray.

            Gray is the color of a typical Chinese village. Though often large enough to be termed a town or even a small city by my standards, they are indeed miniscule compared to China's megacities. Villages are stark places, the sharp edges of squat rectangular buildings contrasting with smooth, round pipes and towering cylindrical smokestacks. Cement and brick compete for dominance. The actual colors form a diverse palate of browns, creams, grays, and even yellows, but the faded colors give the overall impression of gray. Or, perhaps more than actual shades, my impression of gray comes from the emanating feeling of dinginess. Each building seems in disrepair, with bricks crumbling, iron rusting, and glass missing. Rusty bicycles weave through piles of wheels, lumber and bricks that often fill a building's wall-enclosed square courtyard. Flat roofs strewn with rocks and bricks further add to the sense of disarray, though serve the purpose of holding down sections of tin roofing.  

            The green, laid out in ordered rows, stretches across vast fields of farmland until it disappears against distant rolling hills. It's a healthy green, seemingly undisturbed by the pollution-blue sky seen across the country. Though different plants curl up trellises, crawl across the ground and straighten into the air, it's impossible to distinguish what exactly is being grown as I peer out the dirty train window. Workers in straw hats occasionally dot the fields; ironically it appears work does not stop even to recognize Labour Day.

            The national holiday of Labour Day is the reason for my train ride. With a three day weekend to fill, I made the long journey to Xi'an, travelling on a train for 22 one-way and 26 hours back. Though it is a tediously long trip, watching hours of similar villages and fields sweep by gives me an appreciation for how expansive this country is, as well as an idea of life in interior China. It is a life of dedicated work and simple pleasures, like the white-pink blossoming cherry trees whose shade is carefully cleared of rubble and trash.

            As I sit on my shiny-red train and watch scenery sweep by, I am humbled to glimpse brief flashes of real life. Two old men lounging on a faded orange couch, smoking and watching the trains go by.  A blue-shirted toddler plodding along empty railroad ties as his mother walks protectively behind. Twin yellow mopeds streaking through small pools of water collected on a dirt road. An open red-and-white-striped umbrella hovering above the ground, caught between the walls of two close houses. These are the colors of China that I see, nose pressed to the window as everyone on the train naps around me.