How I survived.

The trains in China are very fast and efficient. They start at a given time and overall it's not too hard to find your way. If you have any problems you can always find one of the hundreds of guards who will gladly help a foreigner. This all turns to hell around the spring festival when there is a little bit of snow. The Chinese people are afraid of snow. They think that it's romantic, they like throwing snowballs but snow paralyzes them. They think that snow is a good reason for buses and trains to stop running, or that it's best to stay at home and sleep through the 'winter'. I couldn't believe that snow could be a reason to turn a perfectly disciplined nation to a chaotic mass of blood eaters.

It all looked like people screaming for fresh meat, and pushing forward, without any regard to anything. It is like that normally, the Chinese people don't know the concept of a queue, but imagine that, and about one million people pushing forward to ask the policemen where the hell to go, and why the hell they blocked the entrance. After some disoriented pushing I asked the policeman:

'Why is this entrance closed' – 'It's because of the snow, some trains aren't running' – 'Where should I go (I showed him the ticket)' – 'forward'

So I went to this other entrance where all the village people were sitting on the floor, on their huge Russian-style bags. Rather than like passengers they looked like beggars. They have already waited for hours in this tunnel that was supposedly a passage-way. There were no guards there, and everything looked dirty, hard to imagine this squatter is the train station of the grand city – Shanghai. The notice board didn't have our train on it, so we went out again to ask the police what to do. I said:

'Where am I supposed to go?' - 'Go straight' – 'Straight where? What am I supposed to do, I've already been there!' - 'Go straight' – 'Straight where?' and he looked at me as if I cracked the joke of the century and said 'Do you have any more questions?'

I think at that point I started swearing at him in Polish, and I went to ask another policeman. Who of course didn't care either. All the time there was a constant babble being broadcasted, people rushing and no one to answer any questions, while we started asking ourselves one. Is China really going to match the standards of the developed world?