In between Beijing and Xi'an: The Crazy Lady Story

"Justin, you leave us alone for five minutes and look what happens!"

On November 23rd, Mark and Val bid farewell to Justin and to all the cool kids living at his house, and set off to tackle China's great beyond on our own for the first time. The destination was Xi'an, a city south west of Beijing. We were all ready to go, with our train tickets, pack of cards and a couple of bottles of beer for our 12 hour trip.

Just as we pulled out of a cab at the Beijing train station, Val's backpack throws her off balance and she bumps into the car beside her. What happens next is a nightmare, really. The driver gets out of his car to see what has happened, searching carefully for any damage to his vehicle. He finds a tiny little crack on the plastic which covers the rear bumper light on the left side, and starts screaming at Val in Chinese!! We tell him that we didn't put the crack there and that we can't understand him and that we have a train to catch and begin walking toward the station. Just then, his wife gets out of the car, sees the so-called crack we've made, and she begins yelling at us too!

They are clearly demanding money, but we are not prepared to pay what they are asking and they have no way to prove that we even made the mark! Anyway, we offer them what we have in our pockets, which causes even more of an uproar because it's clearly not enough. We decide that there is nothing more we can do because we don't understand them and our cabbie has abandoned us so we begin to walk, but this was no escape. The wife begins to follow us inside! We continue walking, trying to ignore her as she walks along side us yelling and pointing to the police booth inside the station. The faster we walk the faster she walks and louder her screaming is getting.

(For those of you who are not familiar with public disputes in China, here is how it works. Everyone stands around and watches, but no one does anything.) So now we are so close to our train that we can taste it, but we have a huge crowd of Chinese people at the station standing around us, just watching this crazy lady screaming and motioning something or other to us.

Our next plan is to run. Although we try, our big huge bags do not allow is to go very fast and the crazy lady out runs us. But this time, realizing that we are trying to escape, she decides that she is going to physically hold us back until we pay her. What does she grab, you may ask? Val's arm! What fun! She has physically attached herself to Val's arm and refuses to let go.

So picture this. Crazy lady is there, yelling and holding Val; Val is getting quite emotional and angry because crazy lady is totally invading her personal space; the train is leaving in less than ten minutes and Mark doesn't know what to do!

We finally worked it out. Let's just say we had to negotiate a lesser amount. But she finally unlocked the jaws that were holding Val hostage and let us go. It was all very surreal. And this happened less than an hour after leaving Justin's house...we were certainly off to a good start!

Once we got on the train, dealt ourselves a hand of cards and cracked a couple of beers, the crazy lady at the station was only a faint memory. The train ride was actually quite nice and we had lovely beds to sleep on over-night. The trains in China, by the way, are great. So comfortable and well organized…and cheap!