The time to hesitate is through…
Dear train passengers,
a couple of days ago, Fei Zhu went on a 17 hour long roundtrip journey with destination Chongqing. The adventure began early in the morning with a thirty minute walk to the train station, where he took the fast speed train which was supposed to take 3.5 hours but ended up taking 4.5 five hours. The Flying Pig felt a bit frustrated since the normal train is supposed to take 4.5 hours for half the price he paid. When he finally arrived it was raining and since he is a stupid pig (which is often pointed out by the little tiger) he hadn’t brought an umbrella, since it wasn’t raining in Chengdu. Anyways he headed for the bus station where he was supposed to take bus number 166 for around 15 stops and then change to bus number 888 before arriving at the hp headquarters. After a lot of messages being passed back and forth between the flying pig and the little tiger, the flying pig managed to get off at the right stop. Satisfied with himself he treated himself to a cold bottle of Nong Fu Spring Water. The next problem was that he couldn’t find bus number 888 and it seemed like nobody he asked knew where it was. The Little Tiger had said that it was a short walk from there. After searching for a few minutes he decided to take a taxi and went to a bank to use a magic plastic card to make a machine spit out some red/white papers with the late chairman Mao on them. Then he suddenly decided to make a final try to ask somebody where to find the 888 bus stop. A kind helpful guard knew where it was and started speaking Chongqing hua. The Flying Pig explained in Mandarin that he didn’t understand and then the guard started writing some Chinese characters, but the flying pig still didn’t understand, so the kind guard drew him a map. After around fifteen minutes of walking the pig found the bus stop and boarded the bus. Ten minutes into the bus ride the Fei Zhu was wondering if he was on the right bus, since the bus was on the expressway heading for Chengdu. Ten minutes later the bus left the expressway and the only thing the flying pig could see was bushes and trees, then the driver told the pig to get off, since they had arrived at the stop. The Fei Zhu got off and took a look around and saw a building that was under construction, a new building and nothing else. He headed for the new building and saw that it was the final destination. He walked in and was a bit surprised that the headquarters seemed to bit outside Chongqing. One hour later after some chatting with a manager he took 888 back to Chongqing and retraced the steps back to the train station. Since the Flying Pig has the memory of a cat, he didn’t get lost, but since he only had 1.5 hours to get back to the train station, he ran between the buses and barely made it back in time for the 4.5 hour train journey back to Chengdu. Sadly the train seemed to be delayed and once again the Flying Pig was beginning to become a bit frustrated. He asked how long the train was going to be delayed and got the answer 10 min. 10 minutes later he asked again and once again he got the answer 10 min. 10 minutes later he was so angry that he didn’t bother to ask again. 1.5 hours later the train finally arrived and the sun had set over China. During the train journey some train officers tried to sell everything from super elastic socks (apparently unbreakable which was shown by him trying to destroy it with an afro comb and a screwdriver), golden idol cards of the late chairman Mao (which will be worth thousands of yuan in the future according to the officer) and 3D paintings of dogs and cats.
The estimated arrival time was 23.35. At 23.35 a fellow passenger asked how long until arrival and the train officer said 10 minutes! A couple of minutes after midnight 2.5 hours after the expected arrival time they finally arrived at the train station in Chengdu. The Flying Pig was exhausted by the journey and thought that the Chinese time is pretty weird. It seems like nothing is delayed more than ten minutes…
The Little Tiger was waiting at the train station (a surprise since she fooled the pig by sending him messages where she pretended to be asleep in the apartment). They celebrated the delay of the train by having some of the famous delicious Chengdu spicy bbq! A drunk middle aged man next to them asked the little tiger to go with him to a hotel and the Little Tiger became angry and gave him a poisonous stare.
The Flying Pig can finally draw the conclusion that the fast train in China is faster than the normal train and that a train is never delayed more than 10 minutes. The journey experience climbs to number two on the list of shit experiences while traveling in China right after China Eastern Airlines, which canceled the Flying Pig, Airen and Jim mi’s flight back to Shanghai last year. But they were kind enough to check them into a two star hotel, where the bathtub was yellow, the carpet was burnt, the wallpaper stained and the room smelling of cigarettes. Also everybody had to share rooms, just in case the smell wasn’t bad enough. If you were lucky you might have the opportunity to share a room with a Chinese man with Hong Kong feet (which means feet that stinks in Chinese). At 2AM they woke everybody up and said that an airplane was ready. Since then China Eastern has been boycotted by the pig, sadly it’s more difficult to boycott the train company since there is only one and it’s run by the glorious government of China. The Flying Pig sometimes hates to defend his love for magnificent country in the east behind the great firewall when confronted by friends with different views. The first of july 2009 marks another milestone in the Chinese history. The green hoover dam law states that all computers sold in China has to be delivered with a spyware created by the government. By using this spyware the government can control the computers remotely and “protect” the people from material that might damage the internet surfers, such as porn. The youth at the universities are bubbling with fury, while the flying pig just swore to vote for the Pirate Party in Sweden in all the upcoming elections until he dies, because of trivial things as strange laws involving strange combinations of letters. In the famous words of William Wallace: -“Freeeeeeedom” + a few words added by yours truly “on the internet”.
Sincerely yours
Fei Zhu
