I’m re-reading my own WeChat post, posted with a photo from a bridge where I cross a water channel every day on my way to the lab.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cRiding the train in the crisp morning to Suzhou clears the mind. A fisherman probably catches more tranquility than fish, even though it’s the steamed lunch in sight that keeps him going. How disturbing it is, then, to see a fellow train passenger, a notoriously frustrated one (his attitude these days is unfortunately well-known) decline a polite request of a train attendant and who verbally (in German) and physically abuses a train passenger who supports the attendant. Apart from the aggression, impoliteness, and obvious snobbishness, I wonder about the reflective capacities and his motivation to be part of this all. For children showing such behavior, we would demand apologies, but none were made today. Big compliments for the attendant who acted calm, professional and supportive.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n This fragment still doesn’t sit well with me, and I think back to it regularly. I kind-of-recognize the German, because we often share the same train. Because of the way the Chinese high-speed rail pass works, we tend to end up in the front part of carriage number 6. Once or twice we even sat next to each other, and once we had a conversation: \u201cBist du auch Deutscher?\u201d “Nein”. But for other passengers, as well as the staff, the wall between me and my German co-passenger was invisible today. Unfortunately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The weeds sprouted the day I followed a conversation between the German and his colleague. He claimed, in good German fashion, that “Everything that the Chinese built is invented or created by us”. Painful, untrue, racist and unscrupulous, typical noise from a certain type of people who only see their own reflection when they look through a window. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And today the weeds blossomed, when our conductor asked for the German’s train ticket. He refused to show it. Then, the conductor asked his destination. “That’s none of your business!” (note: it was her business). The man neighboring the German tried to explain: in China, if a conductor asks for tickets or travel details, you have to show them. (I once traveled through Germany by train. I vaguely remember that it worked the same way there). <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFuck you!\u201d is his reply. The German then half rises and slaps the man. The whole wagon is silent, the tension is palpable. The neighbor, now a victim of German hatred, confused, I imagine, de-escalates by taking off his own coat. The conductor walks out of the carriage with firm steps and appears a few seconds later with a bottle of drink and a warm cloth, and hands it over to the victim. She ignores the German further.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFrom Shanghai to Suzhou\u201d, I say a little louder than usual, when the attendant comes to check my ticket. I try to show my respect but don’t know what else to say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Written on December 12, 2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’m re-reading my own WeChat post, posted with a photo from a bridge where I cross a water channel every day on my way to the lab. \u201cRiding the train in the crisp morning to Suzhou clears the mind. A fisherman probably catches more tranquility than fish, even though it’s the steamed lunch in sight…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-orangebooklet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stories.squaredant.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stories.squaredant.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stories.squaredant.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stories.squaredant.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stories.squaredant.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/stories.squaredant.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":194,"href":"https:\/\/stories.squaredant.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181\/revisions\/194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stories.squaredant.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stories.squaredant.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stories.squaredant.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}