I wouldn’t have agreed to go to Nantong if I had known there were no fast trains serving the city. I had already agreed to give a one hour at the city’s best middle school when I decided to check the train times. The fastest train takes 4 hours and stops everywhere and in any case, the only train which would get me there on time leaves Nanjing the day before!
So the only choice left to me was the bus which was still 3.5 hours each way. £10 got me a one way ticket and the unsmiling woman at the bus station ticket office in Nanjing informed me I could only get a return ticket in Nantong. So I got my ticket and hoped that I wouldn’t have to sit next to a man cracking sunflower seeds and spitting the whole way.
Luckily I was in seat number 1 at the front of the bus next to a woman who didn’t speak but slept most of the way. What a relief. I didn’t even have to answer any questions “Where are you from?”, “How long have you been in China?”, “Are you a teacher?” etc. I am pretty fed up of answering all those questions. We stopped at what passes for a service station in China but which was in reality just a petrol station on the side of a road with toilets attached. A few stalls sold hot sweet corn and other inedible meat on sticks.
The main reason for stopping was to let the men fill their lungs with poisonous smoke. As if there is not enough pollution in the air, why would Chinese men want to smoke too?
The talk went well and the students even laughed at my jokes which was a bonus. Afterwards my minder from Shanghai, called Da, and I left and ambled around looking for a taxi. Then I saw a huge snake of children all carrying flowers they had made out of toilet paper. There were hundreds upon hundreds of them all walking in classes on the pavement though worryingly they were advised by their teachers to run across the road!
Da explained that they were probably going to the palace of the revolutionaries (or something similar) to lay flowers as it is tomb Sweeping Festival (Qing Ming). I had forgotten about that. It was two years ago that I spent Qing Ming on a slow train to Kashgar in Xin Jiang.
The children all shouted “Hello” to me and giggled as they passed.
Back at the bus station I paid another £10 and then sat for another 3.5 hours back to Nanjing. I wondered whether my very few words of wisedom to the children of Nantong were worth a whole day of my life, most of which I spent sitting on a bus.