Riding the Iron Rooster

Table of Contents

Title Page

Front

1. The Train to Mongolia

2. The Inner Mongolian Express to Datong: Train Number 24

3. Night Train Number 90 to Peking

4. The Shanghai Express

5. The Fast Train to Canton

6. Train Number 324 to Hohhot and Lanzhou

7. The Iron Rooster

8. Train Number 104 to Xian

9. The Express to Chengdu

10: The Halt at Emei Shan: Train Number 209 to Kunming

11: The Fast Train to Guilin: Number 80

12: The Slow Train to Changsha and Shaoshan "Where the Sun Rises"

13: The Peking Express: Train Number 16

14: The International Express to Harbin: Train Number 17

15: The Slow Train to Langxiang: Number 295

16: The Boat Train to Dalian: Number 92

17: On the Lake of Heaven to Yantai

18: The Slow Train to Qingdao: Number 508

19: The Shandong Express to Shanghai: Train Number 234

20: The Night Train to Xiamen: Number 375

21: The Qinghai Local to Xining: Train Number 275

22: The Train to Tibet

...

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Riding the Iron Rooster

Paul Theroux

By Train Through China

"Theroux's genius is in his clear-eyed rendition of a fresh world and the deeper observations he attaches toit." —

Chicago Tribune

A MARINER BOOK

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY Boston • New York

First Mariner Books edition 2006

Copyright © 1988 by Paul Theroux

All rights reserved

For information about permission to reproduce selections from

this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Company,

215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

Visit our Web site: www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Dataes

Theroux, Paul.

Riding the iron rooster : by train through China / Paul Theroux.

p. cm.

Originally published: New York : Putnam's, c1988.

ISBN-13: 978-0-618-65897-8 (pbk.)

ISBN-10; 0-618-65897-1 (pbk.)

1. Theroux, Paul—Travel—China. 2. China—Description

and travel. 3. Railroad travel—China. I. Title.

DS712.T446 2006

915.1'0458—dc22 2006028745

Printed in the United States of America

MV 10 9 8 7 6 5 4

To Anne

CONTENTS

1. The Train to Mongolia 15

2. The Inner Mongolian Express to Datong: Train Number 24 65

3. Night Train Number 90 to Peking 77

4. The Shanghai Express 104

5. The Fast Train to Canton 145

6. Train Number 324 to Hohhot and Lanzhou 166

7. The Iron Rooster 185

8. Train Number 104 to Xian 214

9. The Express to Chengdu 229

10. The Halt at Emei Shan: Train Number 209 to Kunming 244

11. The Fast Train to Guilin: Number 80 261

12. The Slow Train to Changsha and Shaoshan "Where the Sun Rises" 277

13. The Peking Express: Train Number 16 290

14. The International Express to Harbin: Train Number 17 311

15. The Slow Train to Langxiang: Number 295 324

16. The Boat Train to Dalian: Number 92 343

17. On the Lake of Heaven to Yantai 361

18. The Slow Train to Qingdao: Number 508 373

19. The Shandong Express to Shanghai: Train Number 234 385

20. The Night Train to Xiamen: Number 375 396

21. The Qinghai Local to Xining: Train Number 275 415

22. The Train to Tibet 435

A peasant must stand a long time

on a hillside with his mouth open

before a roast duck flies in.

—CHINESE PROVERB

The movements which work revolutions

in the world are born out of the dreams and

visions in a peasants heart on a hillside.

—JAMES JOYCE,

Ulysses

1. The Train to Mongolia

The bigness of China makes you wonder. It is more like a whole world than a mere country. "All beneath the sky" (Tianxia) was one Chinese expression for their empire, and another was "All between the four seas" (Sihai). These days people go there to shop, or because they have a free week and the price of a plane ticket. I decided to go because I had a free year. And the Chinese proverb We can always fool a foreigner I took to be a personal challenge. To get to China without leaving the ground was my first objective. And then I wanted to stay for a while—in China, on the ground, going all over the place.

The railway was the answer. It was the best way of traveling to Peking (Beijing) from London, where I happened to be. Every modern account of Chinese travel I had read seemed weakened by jet lag—an unhappy combination of fatigue and insomnia. "We were very tired there," is a common remark by travelers to China, the gasping sightseers and bargain hunters. This desire to sit down could be maddening in a country where everyone else was full of beans. Wasn't that the whole point of the Chinese—that they were always on the go? Even after five thousand years of continuous civilization they were still at it. And one of the lessons of Chinese history is that they never know when to stop.