Two Months Ago

Two months ago today, we met our daughter for the first time on a street corner in central China. The evening before, on November 8, we were hurrying toward the train station to catch the overnight train from Beijing to Xi'an. That was one of the more memorable handoffs of our trip.

We were hurrying, as much as one can hurry, in a Beijing traffic jam. We had just finished an incredible meal of Peking roast duck in a restaurant that appeared to be in a dark back alley (perhaps they are all that way), and Angela, our guide, sent us off with her driver to the Bejing West Train Station. The traffic was stop and go, but mostly stop. There were usually two or three more lines of cars on the road than the pavement markings would suggest, and somehow these cars would merge from lane to lane in a bewildering pattern, all without damage.

My idea of a train station is a little building about the size of our house next to one or two tracks like we have here in West Michigan. The Beijing West train station is about the size of several regional shopping malls piled on top of each other. The "departures" area was two stories up from the main road and we must have spent at least 20 minutes just making it from the bottom of the ramp at street level to the drop off area. Our driver, Mr. Gao, never appeared to get agitated, never reacted to getting cut off; he just wove in and out of the sea of cars and waited patiently when the traffic stood still.

I was a little unsure how we were going to handle things at the train station. We had tickets, so we could always show them to someone and have them point us in the right direction. I figured there would at least be some indication of our train number somewhere within view. Perhaps we would meet our Xi'an guide on the train, I just didn't know. She was supposed to take the same train, but, with the size of this place, I wasn't sure how we were ever going to find her.

As we approached the drop off area, I could finally get some sense of the size of the place. It was dark by the time we arrived, but the front of the building was dimly lit and appeared to soar several stories above where we were. It also faded off into the darkness ahead of us. I started to feel really small.

And the place was mobbed. It reminded me of the departures area of a major US airport with cars parked several deep, all unloading, all trying to get in or out at the same time, but without the security people yelling at you to get going. At least in the States, the outer lane remains clear enough to make some progress. Here, all lanes were clogged and nothing moved. We were just barely off the ramp when Mr. Gao jumped out of the van and started unloading our luggage onto the curb. Here goes, I thought, our journey into the unknown. We hopped out as well and soon all our luggage was gathered on the curb. The throng of people moving by just flowed around us.

Suddenly, a young woman and a young man appeared out of the crowd. The woman identified herself as Jane, our Xi'an guide. After a short introduction they both busied themselves about helping us with our luggage. I was so taken aback by how all this happened and how Jane managed to find us that I temporarily forgot about Mr. Gao. As I turned around, he was already starting to work his way back into the traffic. I hurried back to the van and thanked him in the only way I knew how. I handed him a 100 Yaun note and told him "Xie Xie" in my best pronunciation. Then he was gone.

The inside of the station was absolutely cavernous. Not only could you catch one of many trains here, you could also spend considerable time shopping through all the stores lining the perimeter of each hall. I didn't have time to take any pictures because we wanted to get to our train in time. We were swept along by the crowd through the enormous halls with no time to take it all in. I had to concentrate on keep us all together. We were all tall and easy to see in this crowd, but Jane was somewhat smaller than average and her black hair looked just like ten thousand other heads of black hair that were swirling about.

The size of this place made me wonder if it had its own weather patterns.

After several security checks and getting our tickets punched four times, we were finally in our berth on the train. What a relief. We could again leave the driving and navigating to someone else. As I look back on this it was all a blur. Things happened so fast, we were simply unable to process it all so many of the finer details are now gone.

And this all happened in reverse when we got to Xi'an on the morning of November 9, on a slightly smaller scale. A large train station. Dragging our luggage through interminable passageways, up and down many stairways, and finally ending up in an underground parking ramp, putting our luggage in a large van. (OK, I had arranged earlier for the hotel van to pick us up, but getting here was like navigating a maze.)

And suddenly, we were unpacking in a hotel room in central China. It was a rather large shock to the system, having been enjoying probably the best meal of our entire trip just the night before, and now unpacking in a strange city hundreds of miles away, with an unbelievable amount of events squeezed in between.

Perhaps this was preparation for even bigger events that would happen later on that same day: meeting our daughter for the first time on a street corner.

When I look back on it, it still takes my breath away.