Taxi to Beijing Station West and then the train to Xining. Beijing Station West (Xidan) is a vast, busy, modern station serving a huge throughput of poeple. As far as I could tell, I was the only Laowai (foreigner) there. I certainly was the only foreigner on the train. This made me contemplate what makes a person or place alien.
For the railway staff, at the station and on the train, it was the unfamiliarity of the paperwork. The chinese have internal passports, but the also have additional permits. Whether these are residence permits, travel permits or transit permits (I don't know) they are taken at least as importantly as the passport. One of the staff at the station seriously inspected my passport, then chose to study in detail my, now expired, Russian visa. I think this was because he had missed the Chinese visa, and the Russian visa was the only other thing in the passport that sported a communist star. Anyway after a detailed perusal of this visa, he declared himself satisfied, and we went out seperate ways, basking in the mutual glow of knowledge of a job well done.
On the train, when they came to inspect passports, the attendant on my carriage looked at my details page; started studying it and then passing it to other passengers; obviously trying to answer some specific question from my detail page. It was only when I approached her again, that she thought of asking me the question, which was simply what nationality I was. Once that was cleared up, I then learnt that I was the only foreigner on the train, because the attendant had obviously spread the word to her fellow guards, and was obviously gaining a cachet from having such a rara avis on board. This time it was not my paranoia as in the Russian episode. I know this because for about four hours people would approach the attendant and have a conversation which featured at least one question about Yinguai - Englander; then the passenger concerned would saunter, ever so casually, past my compartment, taking a good long look at me; and then on the other side of the compartment break into an animated conversation again featuring the word Yinguai.
For Beijing there are at least two things that makes it alien as far as I am concerned. Their taxi service has never picked up on the idea of radio controlled taxis; so you either have to queue at a recognised rank - at a railway station for instance; flag one down in the street; or telephone to see if there are any at the central office. This makes such a difference to how to make use of taxis, and as somebody who has relied on radio controlled taxis for most of his life, a difficult change.
Then, I had forgotten (deliberately placed in the box marked "Not wanted in Mind - ever") the sheer unmitigated experience of Beijing's multi-hole, squatter, very public (no partitions), public toilets. Always take your own toilet paper.
Chinese TV also provides its fair share of alienness. As Chinese TV is dealing with a multi-spoken language population unified byt he written language; virtually all programs are subtitled; have a station logo displayed; a program logo; and for news and current affairs a ticker tape type of display plus weather, time and stock movements. This does not leave a lot of screen real estate for the actual program. If you add in the fact that red is a good luck colour so all stock market and share price rises are shown in red, while falls are shown in green and you start to have a degree of confusion.
While not very profound, I am suggesting that it is these small differences that mark out alienness rather than the big things. Little Endians vs Big Endians.
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