BEIJING - Every once and a while I'll pass by a random line. It's a clearly a line, a bunch of people standing roughly parallel to one another, each one either checking his or her watch, staring at the sky or loudly conversing with the person in front of them. What it is will be apparent, but why they are standing in line is a mystery.
Some how it seems rude to ask people why they are waiting in line. People waiting are usually grumpy, and I think asking someone why they are standing in the middle of sidewalk when they could be actually doing something is a bit dangerous. Once I waited eight hours to get the autograph Smashing Pumpkin Billy Corgan. I imagine if someone came up to me around the sixth hour and asked, "Hello. Why are you waiting here?" I would be seriously tempt to punch them in the face.
So the only way that I actually familiarize myself with these random lines is by the standing in them. A couple days ago I had the perfect introduction to a new kind of queue in China: the railway ticket booth. Most train tickets in China can only be reserved four days in advance, leading to huge queues several days before a vacation period. Because by the time train tickets are available plans to visit such and such a place have inevitably already been established. The train ticket isn't just something you'd like to get, it's now very necessary.
I stood in the line at the Wudaokou ticket booth for 30 minutes on Tuesday afternoon, only to be told that tickets didn't go on sale until 7 p.m. That meant coming back for an hour long waiting encore in the evening. Both times I stood on the sidewalk, in between a hospital gate and a condom vending machine, staring at my watch and looking down at the sky. Once I tried saying hello to the person in front of me. The woman just smiled and turned around; I guess she's not one for line conversation.
I did manage to get a train ticket in the end, and I'm now very familiar with the railway ticket booth queue. The next time I see a bunch of people standing on the sidewalk a few days before a vacation period, I'm going to feel rather sorry for them.
(This post is really just a roundabout way of saying that tomorrow I head out west for a week-and-a-half long vacation. I'm taking the train to sunny Lanzhou, the place where Han, Muslim and Tibetan China collide. Hopefully I'll be able to update from the road, but who knows.)
